Review: HONOR 600 delivers a more premium experience

Lest people forget, HONOR released an orange-colored phone with the HONOR X9b. That phone is perhaps one of the most durable phones I have ever held and reviewed. It survived drops, and even when the screen suffered some breakage, the performance remained the same.

So, I wasn’t at all surprised when I got to hold the HONOR 600. This is a more premium phone than the X9b, though, and you can feel the difference.

The HONOR 600 packs a 7,000mAh battery, which is probably its biggest takeaway. Yes, it has a 200MP main camera, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 processor, and a long list of AI features. But after using it as my everyday phone, the feature I appreciated most was the one that meant I didn’t have to think much about charging.

And that matters.

I use my phone for pretty much everything, work, messaging, social media, taking photos, watching videos, reading, and a bit of gaming. Battery life affects all of those things. When I don’t have to constantly look at the battery percentage, I can just use the phone.

That, for me, is what makes the HONOR 600 interesting.

Display

The 6.57-inch AMOLED display is one of the things I liked most about the phone.

It has a 2728 × 1264 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The latter makes scrolling feel noticeably smoother. You see it when going through Facebook, browsing websites, or simply moving around the phone’s menus.

Text is sharp, too, which is important to me because I spend a lot of time reading on my phone.

The colors are bright without looking completely unnatural. Blacks look properly black, as you would expect from an AMOLED screen. Watching videos is also a good experience. The screen is big enough to enjoy movies and YouTube videos, but the phone doesn’t feel like you’re carrying a small tablet.

HONOR also added 3840Hz PWM dimming and other eye-care features. I wouldn’t say these are reasons to buy the phone, but they’re nice to have, especially if you spend several hours a day looking at a screen.

HONOR claims the display can reach up to 8,000 nits of peak brightness. That’s a huge number, although it’s worth remembering that peak brightness is not the same as what you get from the screen all the time.

What matters to me is whether I can see the screen when I’m outside.

The answer is yes. Even under bright Philippine sunlight, I had no major problem reading the screen.

Performance

The HONOR 600 uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, with up to 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, depending on the version.

With that chip, you can keep your expectations high because it delivers.

If we judged the phone simply by how smooth it feels when scrolling, it would score very well. Apps open quickly, animations are smooth, and switching between apps doesn’t feel like work.

But the processor is doing more than making scrolling look nice.

I regularly move between several apps, and the HONOR 600 handles that without making me wait around. I can have Chrome open, jump to Facebook, answer messages, check something on another app, and go back without feeling like the phone needs a breather.

The storage is another plus. If you’re someone who takes a lot of photos and videos, downloads movies or music, or simply doesn’t like deleting things, 512GB gives you a lot of breathing room.

Gaming is also good. I wouldn’t call the HONOR 600 a gaming phone, because there are devices specifically built for that purpose. But it can handle demanding games, and casual gaming is no problem.

HONOR has also added a number of AI features. Some are useful, particularly the photo-editing tools. Others are more for fun, such as turning a still image into a short video.

I don’t think AI should be the main reason to buy this phone. It’s better treated as an extra. The good thing is that the AI features don’t make the phone feel complicated.

Camera

The 200MP main camera gets most of the attention, and rightly so.

It has optical image stabilization and a 1/1.4-inch sensor. In simple terms, that’s a good combination for taking photos, particularly when lighting isn’t perfect.

In daylight, the camera takes detailed photos. There’s enough detail that you can crop a photo afterward and still have something usable.

That’s actually useful in everyday photography. You don’t always have time to move closer to whatever you’re trying to photograph. Sometimes you just take the shot and crop it later.

Night shots are also decent. The larger sensor, stabilization, and image processing help keep photos from becoming too blurry when you’re shooting handheld.

But there is one thing missing: a dedicated telephoto camera.

The 200MP camera can help when you zoom in, but digital zoom isn’t the same thing as having a proper telephoto lens. If you regularly take photos of things that are far away, you’ll notice the difference.

The 12MP ultrawide camera is useful for wider shots, especially when you’re photographing buildings, landscapes, or a group of people. But if I had to choose one camera on this phone, I’d take the main camera every time.

The 50MP front camera is also quite good. Selfies have plenty of detail, and video calls look clear.

So, the HONOR 600 isn’t trying to give you every possible camera. Instead, it gives you one very capable main camera and a couple of cameras that cover the basics.

For most people, that’s probably enough.

Battery

The 7,000mAh battery is huge.

But the number only becomes interesting when you actually use the phone.

With the HONOR 600, I found myself checking the battery percentage much less often. That’s probably the simplest way I can describe the experience.

With my usual phone, I think about charging. If I’m going somewhere, I check the battery. If I’m going to watch a movie, I check the battery. If I know I’ll be out for several hours, I think about bringing a power bank.

With the HONOR 600, I didn’t think about it as much.

That’s what a big battery is supposed to do.

The phone supports 80W HONOR SuperCharge, so you don’t have to wait forever when you eventually need to charge it. It also supports up to 27W wired reverse charging, which lets you use the phone to charge compatible devices.

What makes the 7,000mAh battery more impressive is that HONOR didn’t turn the phone into a brick. It’s 7.8mm thick and weighs about 190 grams.

After using the HONOR 600, I think the battery is the feature I would miss most if I went back to a phone with a smaller capacity.

The 200MP camera is probably the specification that will get people talking. The 120Hz AMOLED display is what you’ll notice every day. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 keeps everything moving.

But the battery changes how you use the phone. You stop worrying about it. And for a phone that is supposed to be part of your everyday life, that’s a pretty useful “feature” to have.

HONOR 600 specifications