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Honor 400 Lite: Two-minute review
Squint, and you could mistake the Honor 400 Lite for an iPhone 16 Pro Max. Honor is clearly enamored with Apple’s whole approach to smartphones, or more likely the enduring popularity of the very best iPhones, and it’s evidently not afraid to wear that admiration on its sleeve.
The prospect of a £250 phone with a Dynamic Island (or ‘Magic Capsule’) and Camera Control (or ‘AI Camera Button’) is an undeniably enticing one. Honor has executed those two elements well, delivering a budget Android phone that feels slightly different from its rivals. That’s hard to achieve in a staid smartphone market.
However, in the process of seeking to offer an iPhone-style experience on the cheap, Honor appears to have taken its eye off the ball in some fundamental areas. The Honor 400 Lite doesn’t perform as well as many of its peers, while its camera system feels undercooked.
Meanwhile, Honor’s MagicOS feels as cluttered and unappealing as ever, emulating the basic look of iOS without achieving the same level of refinement. It’s good to see a six-year update promise, though, which is among the very best in its class.
Solid battery life and a good 6.7-inch OLED display also help the Honor 400 Lite’s cause, though its 35W charging speeds are nothing to write home about, and that sizeable notch probably won’t appeal to those who watch a lot of movies and TV shows on the go.
Ultimately, the Honor 400 Lite is a budget phone designed to appeal to those who equate ‘iPhone’ with ‘smartphone’, but who lack either the resources or inclination to spend upwards of £600 on their next handset.
It’ll serve such people reasonably well, but those same people should know that they won’t be getting the most from their money. There are faster, more robust, and just plain better phones in the sub-£300 bracket.
Honor 400 Lite review: price and availability
- Released on April 22, 2024
- On sale in the UK and Europe for £249.99 / €269
- Only one variant (8GB RAM / 256GB storage)
- No US or Australia availability
The Honor 400 Lite was announced in April 2025 and is due to go on sale in the UK and Europe on May 22. Honor smartphones aren’t sold in the US, while an Australian launch for the Honor 400 Lite is also off the cards at the time of writing.
It’ll be available in just one variant in these territories: 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. This sole model will cost £249.99 / €269 (about $330 / AU$520).
At this price, the Honor 400 Lite is competing with a whole host of affordable phones, including the Samsung Galaxy A26, the Poco X7, and the Motorola Moto G75 5G. All of these rivals have superior water resistance, while the Moto G75 5G also has MIL-STD-810H durability.
Samsung’s phone has wider availability and that familiar One UI software, while the Poco X7 has a clear performance edge.
Honor 400 Lite review: specs
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Dimensions: | 161 x 74.6 x 7.3mm |
Weight: | 171g |
Display: | 6.7-inch Full HD+ (1080 x 2412) up to 120Hz AMOLED |
Chipset: | MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra |
RAM: | 8GB |
Storage: | 256GB |
OS: | Android 15 |
Primary camera: | 108MP 1/1.67-inch sensor |
Ultra-wide camera: | 5MP sensor |
Front Camera: | 16MP sensor |
Battery: | 5,230mAh |
Charging: | 35W wired |
Colors: | Velvet Grey, Velvet Black, Marrs Green |
Honor 400 Lite review: design
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- Clearly iPhone-influenced design
- Magic Capsule notch supplies widgets and selfie light
- Skinny, lightweight all-plastic build
- Dedicated camera shutter button
Honor wouldn’t be the first company to take a page out of Apple design playbook, but the Honor 400 Lite takes it to the next level. It looks more like an iPhone (specifically the iPhone 16 Pro Max) than pretty much any other phone I’ve seen.
Yes, you have the flat-edged look with the curved corners, just like the Google Pixel 9a and Samsung Galaxy S25. But the similarity runs to the smaller details, too. The camera module looks extremely similar to that of the iPhone 16 Pro, with only a triangular motif marking it out.
Flip the Honor 400 Lite onto its front, and there’s an extended floating notch that looks a lot like Apple’s Dynamic Island. Honor calls it the ‘Magic Capsule’, but it serves a similar function.
Honor’s psychedelic-sounding notch facilitates tiny heads-up widgets when doing things like playing music or running a timer. Tap one of those widgets, and it’ll expand slightly to a larger, width-spanning version.
One thing the Honor 400 Lite’s Magic Capsule doesn’t copy from Apple is a truly secure Face ID system, with no 3D Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensor to capture the required depth information. That’s doubtless a cost issue, as the flagship Honor Magic 7 Pro does include such a feature.
Instead, the Honor 400 Lite’s extended notch gives you a dedicated selfie light, though it has fairly limited utility. It’ll technically allow you to record videos and take video calls in very low lighting, provided you really want to convey that mid-noughties webcam vibe.
A more consequential addition is the AI Camera Button, situated a little way below the volume and power buttons on the right-hand edge. It’s another direct lift from Apple, with a similar look and somewhat unsatisfactory positioning to the iPhone 16’s Camera Control.
It too serves as a dedicated camera shutter button, complete with two-stage operation for locking focus and a swipe-to-zoom facility that might actually be better than Apple’s. It also serves as a two-tap camera shortcut, while a long press will bring up Google Lens, much as it brings up Visual Intelligence on an iPhone.
Hold the Honor 400 Lite in your hand, and all the iPhone comparisons flake away. This is an all-plastic affair, despite the metal-effect frame. It’s well-built, with no creaks and a subtle pearlescent finish to the rear.
It’s also very light, given its large 161 x 74.6mm footprint, at just 171g, while it’s only 7.3mm thick.
You’ll also notice the uneven bezel, which gets thicker at the corners and across the chin. That’s a sure sign that we’re shopping in the £250 category here, though a 93.7% screen-to-body ratio is still pretty decent for a budget phone.
Honor 400 Lite review: display
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- Solid 6.7-inch FHD+ OLED
- Gets nice and bright
- Only a mono speaker
Honor has equipped the 400 Lite with an accomplished 6.7-inch OLED display, with an FHD+ (1080 x 2412) resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz.
These are all specifications that we’ve come to expect in the £250 category, and they see the Honor 400 Lite matching the likes of the Poco X7 and the Samsung Galaxy A26.
Not many budget phones can boast a 3500-nit peak brightness, however. PWM dimming of 3840Hz, meanwhile, cuts perceptible flickering and potential eye strain.
In general use, I found this to be a really pleasant display to use, at least once I’d switched away from the ramped-up ‘Vivid’ color mode to the more muted and natural ‘Normal’. It’s big, sharp, color-accurate, and responsive, while its brightness scales evenly from very dark (great for low-light viewing) to quite bright.
It’s a shame the Always On Display function doesn’t meet the description, however, requiring a screen tap to activate.
Also a shame is Honor’s enduring insistence on packing its affordable phone with a single downward-firing speaker. It doesn’t feel like too much to ask for a solid set of stereo speakers, even at this price.
Honor 400 Lite review: cameras
- 108MP main camera struggles with HDR and night shots
- Poor 5MP ultra-wide
- Only 1080p/30fps video
Honor has simplified the camera setup from last year’s Honor 200 Lite, with the pointless 2MP macro camera dropping out altogether.
This leaves you with what appears to be the same pair of cameras, specifically a 108MP 1/1.67″ f/1.8 main sensor and a 5MP f/2.2 ultra-wide.
The main camera is a competent shooter under ideal conditions, capturing plenty of detail. It’s even good enough to produce fairly convincing 2x and 3x crops in the absence of a dedicated telephoto.
There are issues with this main camera, however. It seems to struggle with HDR scenarios, either failing to lift very dark shady areas or otherwise blowing out background highlights.
I also noticed some odd processing effects, including a strange halo effect around distant birds in front of a blue sky.
Night shots, too, aren’t very good, with poor detail and bags of noise. The lack of OIS here is quite evident.
The ultra-wide, meanwhile, is of a pretty substandard quality, lacking in detail and failing to match the tone of the main sensor.
The selfie camera has also changed since the Honor 200 Lite, dropping from a 50MP f/2.1 unit to a 16MP f/2.5. It captures adequate shots with reasonably rich colors, but again struggles with blown-out highlights.
The provision of an LED light is an interesting one. It definitely improved the clarity of my low-light selfie shots and videos when I activated it manually, but is it strictly necessary when most phones simply use a white screen for the job? I’m not so sure.
Talking of video, the main camera maxes out at a weedy 1080p at 30fps. That’s a pretty poor effort when rivals such as the Galaxy A26, Moto G75 5G, and Poco X7 can all record at 4K.
Honor 400 Lite review: camera samples
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Honor 400 Lite review: performance
- MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra is merely adequate
- Solid 8GB of RAM
- 256GB of storage
The Honor 400 Lite is equipped with a MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra chipset, which isn’t a very strong performer even within the budget phone category.
I’ve used a phone with this chip before in the Redmi Note 14 5G (which didn’t ship in the UK), and I was left pretty unimpressed. Suffice it to say, the Honor 400 Lite did nothing to change my mind on this component.
Across CPU and GPU benchmark tests, it’s outgunned by the Moto G75 5G, the Samsung Galaxy A26, and the Poco X7.
I’d like to say that this doesn’t matter in practical terms, but that’s not the case. There’s a generally wallowy feel to everything from unlocking the phone to app startup and even basic animations.
It would be unfair to call this performance halting or stuttery, but everything seems to take a beat longer than it should. I’d be tempted to let it off the hook given the price, but the Poco X7 (to use one example) feels nice and snappy by comparison.
Indeed, while the Poco X7 is capable of running Genshin Impact quite well on Medium settings, the Honor 400 Lite needs to run it at Low or even Lowest if you’re to maintain a decent frame rate.
The solitary model available in the UK gives you a solid 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is most welcome.
Honor 400 Lite review: software
- Android 15 with MagicOS 9
- Six years of OS updates and security patches
With the Honor 400 Lite, you’re getting Android 15 fresh out of the box, coated in Honor’s latest MagicOS 9 UI. It’s not my favorite Android skin by any stretch of the imagination.
Honor evidently doesn’t think much of the flowing, vibrant UI design that Google baked into the latest version of Android, preferring instead the square icons and split notification menu of Apple’s iOS.
The two UIs really look uncannily alike in places, right down to the look of the Settings menu and the lock screen. The aforementioned Magic Capsule drives this familiar sensation home with its Dynamic Island-style mini-widgets.
Sadly, such an admiration for Apple’s work doesn’t extend to the company’s no-nonsense approach to bloatware. You’ll find Facebook, Booking.com, TikTok, Amazon Shopping, ReelShort, LinkedIn, and the Temu shopping app all sitting on the second home screen straight from first boot-up.
There’s also a Top Apps folder with four more third-party apps. It’s a little excessive, if far from unusual, on Android.
Elsewhere, there’s a whopping great themed ‘Essentials’ folder on the main home screen containing nine of the company’s own apps, and another large folder filled with AI-suggested apps that I never found remotely useful.
Honor also provides its own App Market, which feels completely pointless with the Google Play Store present and accounted for (Honor is no longer part of Huawei, so it isn’t hampered by the same sanctions).
There’s a smattering of AI features here, including some Google-affiliated ones such as Smart Vision (essentially Google Lens), Google Gemini, and Circle to Search.
Honor has implemented a feature called Magic Portal that somewhat overlaps the latter Google provision, permitting you to draw around text and images before opening up a shortcut menu for sharing the resulting snippets to other apps. It’s nowhere near as smart as Circle to Search, but it can actually be quite useful in this more localized on-device application. Or it would be, if the knuckle-based input system wasn’t so flaky.
Favourite Space is a folder to quickly stash these hastily scrawled-out snippets. However, given the large number of superfluous preinstalled apps, I’m not sure why there isn’t a standard Favourite Space app. I encountered numerous references to it and saved several snippets before it offered to create a shortcut (in the shape of an app icon) on the home screen.
When it comes to image editing, Honor offers a reasonably effective AI Eraser for deleting unwanted objects and people. AI Outpainting is a bizarre but technically impressive feature that essentially turns your regular shots into ultra-wides, using AI to infer what might be just out of frame. It kind of works in terms of creating convincing (though not accurate) images, but I’m not sure why you’d ever want to make use of such fakery beyond a tech demo.
Perhaps the most positive aspect of Honor’s software provision on the 400 Lite is the promise of six years of OS and security updates. That’s right up there with the Samsung Galaxy A26 in this budget class.
Honor 400 Lite review: battery life
- 5,230mAh battery
- 35W wired charging
- No charger in the box
Honor has supplied a larger-than-average 5,230mAh battery with the 400 Lite, which is significantly larger than the 4,500mAh battery of the Honor 200 Lite.
It results in predictably strong stamina. I found that I was able to go through a day of moderate to heavy usage, with 4 hours 40 minutes of screen on time, and be left with 58%.
You could conceivably go through a full two days here, though more intensive applications and mixed network use will, of course, drain that battery much faster.
In an increasingly common move, there’s no charger supplied in the box. Honor claims that if you buy the dedicated 35W Honor Wired SuperCharge charger, the phone can power up to 100% in 75 minutes.
In my experience, you don’t necessarily need to go out of your way to secure the official brick. While a Xiaomi 120W Hypercharge brick trickled along at a glacial pace, a Samsung 65W Super Fast charger got the job done in just 72 minutes.
As charging rates go, that’s not especially quick. The Poco X7, with its 45W charging support, can get its similarly sized battery up to 100% in 50 minutes. The Moto G75 5G only supports 30W charging, but that budget rival also includes wireless charging, which the Honor 400 Lite does not.
Should I buy the Honor 400 Lite?
Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Design | Hugely derivative of the iPhone, but solidly built, lightweight, and with a neat dedicated camera button. | 3.5 / 5 |
Display | A big, bright and sharp OLED display with nice natural colors. | 4 / 5 |
Performance | The MediaTek Dimensity 7025 Ultra isn’t a particularly strong performer, even within this budget class. | 3 / 5 |
Camera | Solid shots in good lighting, but struggles with HDR and low light scenarios, and the ultra-wide isn’t up to much. | 3 / 5 |
Battery | A large 5,230mAh battery can get you through two days, though 35W charging isn’t the fastest. | 4 / 5 |
Software | Filled with bloatware and more iOS than Android, though Honor’s six years of support is welcome. | 3 / 5 |
Value | You’re getting a solid phone with some unique features at a low price. | 4 / 5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Honor 400 Lite review: also consider
The Honor 400 Lite isn’t the only classy affordable phone on the market. Here are some of the better alternatives to consider.
How I tested the Honor 400 Lite
- Review test period = 1 week
- Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, gaming, streaming video, music playback
- Tools used = Geekbench 6, GFXBench, 3DMark, native Android stats, Samsung 65W power adapter
First reviewed: April 2025
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