Honor 600 Pro hands-on: A flagship smartphone that feels surprisingly familiar 

As I held the Honor 600 Pro smartphone in my hand, flipping it over and over again, I was quite surprised by how much it resembled the iPhone 17 Pro. Well, Honor has unveiled the 600-series smartphones globally. The company mainly launched two smartphones under the 600 series, namely, the Honor 600 and the Honor 600 Pro. 

I got a brief hands-on with Honor's next-generation smartphones. From a strikingly familiar look to an all-new AI image to Video 2.0 technology, an improved camera, and a slightly bigger screen, the Honor 600 Pro seems like a significant upgrade over the last-generation model. I used the smartphone for six hours ahead of the launch, and here’s why I think it's a worthy flagship smartphone that goes head to head with the Xiaomi 17 and Samsung Galaxy S26. 

When I unboxed the Honor 600 Pro, my first reaction was, "Oh, I've seen this before." Well, the latest Honor 600 Pro looks quite similar to the iPhone 17 Pro, albeit with few tweaks. Dimension-wise, the smartphone is slightly lighter than before, weighing around 195 grams (0.42 lbs). For context, the predecessor Honor 500 Pro weighs 201 grams (0.44 lbs). However, this time around, Honor has bluntly reduced the battery capacity of the smartphone, which indirectly makes it lighter. 

On the positive side, Honor has made the display of the 600 Pro slightly larger. More about it in the screen section. The matte metal frame forged with a unibody cold-carving process feels quite premium in hand, and it fits comfortably. You get curved edges, rounded corners, very thin bezels on the display, and buttons on both the right sides. 

As for the rear side, you get a triple rear camera setup at the back, complemented by a flashlight and a color temperature sensor. At bottom, there’s a USB-C port and dual stereo speakers. Overall, I really liked the design of the smartphone compared to the last generation model. 

The Honor 600 Pro has slightly more real estate. Speaking more precisely, the device has a 6.57-inch flat AMOLED display (vs. 6.55-inch of the 500 Pro) that outputs at 2727 x 1264 pixel resolution with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. On top of this, it features IP68, IP69, and IP69K ingress protection and SGS 5-star certification for protection from drops and scratches. 

I love the AMOLED panel of the smartphone. Watching One Piece on the 600 Pro was a great experience. The panel managed to produce punchy and bright colors. Interestingly, I noticed the phone's display was quite bright even under the sunlight, thanks to a peak brightness of 8,000 nits. For context, it’s even brighter than my Xiaomi 17, which comes with 3,500 nits of peak brightness. Furthermore, the screen feels smooth while scrolling social media, and I didn’t notice any lags or stuttering whatsoever. 

The Honor 600 Pro is powered by a 3 nm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset paired with either 12 GB or 16 GB RAM, depending on the storage variant. Unfortunately, this is the same processor from the previous generation model, which features 2 x prime 4.32 GHz and 6 x 3.53 GHz performance cores and the Qualcomm Adreno 830 GPU. However, Honor says this processor delivers a 45% boost in AI performance, a 45% improvement in CPU performance, and a 40% increase in GPU performance. 

I did play PUBG Mobile just to check its performance, and my experience was nothing but phenomenal. The gameplay was smooth and there were no lags or stuttering. Speaking of benchmarks, the device managed to score 2912 and 8507 points in the single- and multi-core tests of the Geekbench 6 benchmark test. The device runs Android 16-based OrginOS 10 out of the box. It’s said to receive six years of major updates and six years of security patches. 

Alongside AI tricks, including AI photos agent, AI eraser, AI cutout, AI face tune, and AI upscale, Honor has also added the AI Image to Video 2.0 feature to the smartphone. I found this feature pretty cool, allowing me to transform up to three images into 3-8 second high-quality video sequences. 

The Honor 600 Pro isn’t getting an all-new sensor. Honor packs an upgraded 200 MP primary camera with an f/1.9 lens and CIPA 6.5 image stabilization. The other two cameras, including the 50 MP telephoto lens with 3.5x optical zoom and a 12 MP ultrawide shooter, remain the same as before. 

I did click a few pictures with the Honor 600 Pro. The smartphone captures really great photos while retaining punchy colors with good detail and a slightly colder tone. During nighttime, I noticed the phone does its job better while retaining most details with less noise. Our first impression is very positive; a detailed camera comparison piece will follow soon. 

This time around, Honor has reduced the battery capacity of the smartphone, featuring a 7,000 mAh Si-C battery, a step down from 8,000 mAh of the Honor 500 Pro. However, it now supports 27 W wired reverse charging, alongside 80 W wired and 50 W wireless charging.

Overall, the Honor 600 Pro is a decent upgrade from last year’s model. Although it's worth noting that the smartphone offers a complete package from a solid display, a bigger battery, and Qualcomm's flagship processor to capable cameras, a metal frame, and an AI feature suite—all for RM 3,099. However, the only quibble is that you do get dozens of unwanted apps here. Though, you can uninstall them. Interested buyers can now pre-order the smartphone via Honor's official online store and other authorized retailers.