Honor 600 Pro Review – Budget Flagship Done Right

We previously unboxed and shared our first impressions of the new Honor 600 Pro that has launched in Malaysia. After putting its camera array and its extensive camera setup through its paces, here’s our Honor 600 Pro review where we share our findings on their latest near-flagship flagship phone.

Honor 600 Pro review – Performance and Benchmarks

The successor to last year’s Honor 400 Pro, the Honor 600 Pro is thinner and lighter with a slightly larger display with the notable addition of a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, the first time a Snapdragon Elite series chipset has been deployed on an Honor numbered-series phone and which elevates it to the status of a flagship phone.

Other notable improvements include a larger 7,000mAh Silicon Carbon battery albeit with slightly slower 80W wired charging. While the cameras look similar, the telephoto camera enjoys a slight bump up to 3.5x telephoto zoom versus the Honor 400 Pro’s 3x telephoto zoom.

Of note is the addition of a physical AI shortcut button that can summon a number of other functions from a selected pool of apps like their AI Screen Suggestions, AI Photos Agent for editing on the fly, Circle to Search with Google or as a straight up camera shortcut.

Even better, the AI Button can map up to three apps from a small selectable pool based on whether you’re using a short press, double press or long press. During our time with our Honor 600 Pro review sample, it worked best as a dedicated camera shortcut.

Hardware aside, our Honor 600 Pro review sample came in an eye-catching matte orange finish and bears aesthetics that mimic something issued from Cupertino down to the rectangular-shaped camera housing.

Fortunately, this isn’t just for show and the chassis is rated a very respectable IP69K dust and water resistance rating along with an impressive SGS 5-Stars Premium Performance Certification for Drop & Crush Resistance. 

Here’s how our Honor 600 Pro review sample stacks up on paper:

Price	RM3,299 (12GB RAM/512GB storage), RM3,099 (12GB RAM/256GB storage)
Display	6.57-inch AMOLED, 1,264 x 2,728 pixels, 120Hz, 8,000 nits HDR peak brightness
Processor	Snapdragon 8 Elite
OS	Android 16 w/ Magic OS 10
Memory	12GB LPDDR5X RAM/ 512GB UFS 4.1 storage (review unit) | 256GB UFS 4.1 available
Cameras	200MP f/1.9 Super Sensing Main Camera w/ OIS (CIPA 6.0) + 50MP f/2.8 Telephoto camera w/ OIS (CIPA 6.5) + 12MP f/2.2 ultra wide camera (Autofocus) [rear] / 50MP f/2.0 Portrait selfie camera
Battery	7,000mAh Silicon Carbon w/ 80W wired HONOR SuperCharge charging, 60W wireless charging
Size/Weight	156 x 74.7 x 7.8mm / 195g

Running under the hood of our Honor 600 Pro review sample is the latest Android 16 with Honor’s own Magic OS 10 firmware which has been improved with a number of enhanced AI generation features. One quibble is that the Honor 16 Pro only has 2 years of OS and 3 years of security updates which somewhat affects its long-term longevity.

Like prior versions of Magic OS, the phone has the option to assign 12GB of virtual RAM off its onboard storage. Unfortunately, you can only turn it on or off and there’s no way to adjust the amount of assigned virtual RAM. 

The Snapdragon 8 Elite processor isn’t the latest chipset but is a proper flagship-grade CPU that saw service in flagship phones in late 2024 and early 2025.

Built on a 3nm process, the chipset features 2 Oryon cores running at 4,320MHz and 6 Oryon cores running at 3,530MHz with a Hexagon NPU and integrated Adreno 830 GPU. This is paired with an impressive 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of fast UFS 4.1 storage.

When subjected to synthetic benchmarks with 12GB of virtual RAM, the phone scored the following:

 

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	2,508
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	2,306
3D Mark WildLife Extreme	6,159
3D Mark WildLife Extreme Unlimited	5,880
Solar Bay	7,637
Solar Bay Unlimited	7,660
Solar Bay Extreme	931
Solar Bay Extreme Unlimited	848
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,875
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	8,760
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	18,130
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	24,446
Geekbench AI (CPU quanticised)	2,336
Geekbench AI (GPU quanticised)	3,581
PCMark Work 3.0 Performance	21,054
PCMark Battery Life	19 hours 23 mins

Compared to its immediate predecessor the Honor 400 Pro that runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, our Honor 600 Pro review sample with its Snapdragon 8 Elite features benchmark results that comfortably outpace the older model in single, multicore, graphics and AI performance. While the Snapdragon 8 Elite isn’t the latest processor, it holds its own and can comfortably engage similarly priced budget flagship phones head-on.

However, it does get a bit toasty and in the Steel Nomad Light Stress Test , it managed to end up with a rather hot 48°C in stress tests though it enjoyed respectable best loop scores and lowest loop scores at 2,141 and 1,316 points respectively. It also has some rather robust throttling to keep heat manageable though to be fair, it’s extremely unlikely to encounter the kind of extreme scenarios seen in a benchmark stress test in daily usage scenarios.

In more practical terms, there’s enough pixel crunching performance here to tackle Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile as well as video editing on CapCut without noticeable stuttering or lag.

The 6.57-inch AMOLED display offers punchy, vibrant colours and crisp detail onscreen with excellent brightness under daylight conditions. Of note are its stereo speakers which offer good volume and detail even when cranked to maximum volume for movies, music and gaming alike.

Where the Honor 600 Pro stands out though are its array of generative AI features that let you create short 5-second movies from still images.

To make things easier, Honor has added a number of predefined templates with prewritten prompts though you’ll still get the best results with your own prompts. It’s well worth the trouble to experiment with this mode and persistence along with a good deal of practice can yield impressive results though you only get a limited number of free generations daily.

In terms of battery life, our Honor 600 Pro review unit with its 7,000mAh Silicon Carbon battery did not disappoint. In PCMark’s battery life test, it scored a very respectable 19 hours and 23 minutes and outpaces its predecessor the Honor 400 Pro by a noticeable margin. 

In practical usage terms the phone was easily able to last close to two days with normal usage using WiFi or Data, web browsing, social media and some Spotify as well as light gaming duties on top of a few minutes worth of calls. With the provided charger and cable, the phone was able to charge from dead zero to full in about 66 minutes which is a decent pace seeing the sheer size of the battery.

Honor 600 Pro Review – Cameras

On paper, the Honor 600 Pro has a camera setup that is rather well equipped as midrange phones go, with a rear triple camera setup veering into near-flagship territory.

You get a 200MP f/1.9 main camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and EIS and a 50MP f/2.8 telephoto camera with 3.5x optical zoom and up to 120x digital zoom that also has OIS. Rounding things off is a 12MP f/2.2 ultra wide angle camera. This rear triple camera setup also allows for 4K@60fps video at up to 10x digital zoom. Up front, you have a single 50MP f/2.0 camera for selfies and up to 4K@60fps video.

Overall performance in daylight is excellent, offering good detail, well saturated colours and deft handling of shadows with very usable shots at up to 3.5x zoom, before quality begins relying on digital processing. 

Shots beyond that are still decent in daylight conditions but start losing detail and at its maximum 120x digital zoom, details start getting soft but the AI and heavy post-processing helps to compensate somewhat especially for architectural shots.

Fortunately, colour rendition between the cameras are relatively consistent and test shots didn’t demonstrate radical differences in colour rendition between them.

 

In low light, our Honor 600 Pro review sample is still able to yield surprisingly good shots, yielding quite a bit of detail from a gloomy night, with good control of noise though it occasionally has issues with street lamps and lights that yield rather aggressive starburst effects.

Footage captured at 4K@60fps was steady with good detail and dynamic range. Front shots are otherwise  decent with competently handled skin tones.

Where the Honor 600 Pro stands out though is that its AI Image to Video 2.0 feature can yield some very creative results from captured shots though you need some practice and patience. As it stands, the cameras are among the best tested on a phone in its price range, able to give competing budget phones a run for its money.

Should you buy the Honor 600 Pro?

The Honor 600 Pro is a budget flagship phone that offers a large display, otherwise solid performance for its price point, good cameras and excellent battery life.

If you can live with the rather modest 2 years of OS and 3 years of security update, this is among the better phones in its price range for users who prioritise value, camera performance and performance.

 

Honor 600 Pro review sample courtesy of Honor Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.honor.com/my/shop/new-launch/#benefit