As a photographer, the new Honor 400 Pro has seriously impressed me

As a photographer, I've tried and tested at least 60 of the best camera phones over the last few years, and it usually takes quite a lot to impress me. With that said, I've been a fan of Honor tech for several years now, and this company should seriously be on your radar if it isn't already. Honor's latest camera phone (announced today) is the Honor 400 Pro 5G, and I'm really excited about this series and its industry-leading AI photography innovations.

(Psst - Honor is offering a limited time £150 discount on the new Honor 400 Pro – just use code A400PUK150 at checkout to bring the price to £549.99. Not for you? Take a look at our guide to the best budget camera phones for more options).

In complete honesty, I only unboxed this phone a few hours ago, but in the short time that I've spent shooting with the Honor 400 Pro, I'm convinced it's set to be one of the best camera phones of 2025. I had pretty high expectations already for this latest flagship, given that the last Honor camera phone I used gave my Samsung S24 Ultra a real run for its money, in a camera phone shootout capturing stunning Slovenian Alps.

That's not the first time an Honor camera phone impressed me either, as the Honor 200 Pro series (which is endorsed by world-famous photographer, Rankin) also put up a great fight against my Samsung when photographing museum artefacts and London landscapes.

Take a look at the sample images I captured below using the Honor 400 Pro, which you can purchase directly from Honor right now for £699.99 (512GB model).

Sample images from the Honor 400 Pro

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Let's talk a bit about what makes this AI camera phone so impressive. The Honor 400 Pro comes equipped with a quality 200MP Ultra-clear AI main camera right out of the box, and just like its siblings, this phone makes use of an advanced portrait algorithm, plus Studio Harcourt filters to help you capture professional-looking portrait shots with no editing necessary (I actually saw a live demo of Rankin shooting with these filters using the Honor 200 Pro series).

In addition, you get amazing macro and super macro quality thanks to the 12MP ultra-wide and macro camera settings for shooting close-up shots of insects, flowers, or in this case, cactus spikes, as you can see in the examples above. For things a bit further away, Honor has developed an industry-leading AI super zoom feature that lets you zoom in up to 50x, and it uses AI to enhance the clarity and fill in any gaps to produce a clear telephoto shot.

Honor is clearly trying to compete with bigger smartphone rivals like Apple and Samsung with these camera features, and I love that it's aiming to make tech more affordable too. I'm also the proud owner of the Honor MagicPad 2 tablet (the first product I ever purchased after reviewing it), and the main reason that I love this tablet so much is not only its beautiful OLED screen, AI features, and excellent performance, but the shockingly budget-friendly price at only £399. I even preferred this tablet over the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, and for me, that's really saying something.

New Honor features I can't wait to try out

The Honor 400 Pro seems to be kicking things up a notch, and has features I've never used before – including a new ‘AI Image to Video ’ feature utilising Google Cloud, which explores different possibilities of image generation when using the HD Moving Photo (live photos) feature. There's also a super cool ‘Moving Photo Collage’ feature, which is a first-of-its-kind tool that allows users to combine 2-9 moving photos and seamlessly stitch them together into a video collage.

Hang tight for my upcoming Honor 400 Pro review, which should be landing in the next few days. For now, take a look at the Honor deals I've rounded up below.