Honor 400 review
MagicOS 9 on top of Android 15
The Honor 400 Pro runs on the latest Android 15, paired with the company's own MagicOS v9. Honor claims the 400 series will receive six years of security updates and six major Android upgrades.
Visually, MagicOS v9 closely resembles version 8, with subtle design tweaks such as rounder, more playful, quick settings buttons. While the core Android experience remains largely standard, several notable additions exist, especially in the AI and usability departments.
MagicOS basics
One standout feature is Magic Capsule, a pill-shaped notification similar to Apple's Dynamic Island. It's handy for managing timers, music, and video playback.
Another iOS-inspired feature is the system-wide Search button, located just above the app dock on the home screen.
Magic Capsule interface
Resizable folders are common on many Android skins, but MagicOS v9 lets you customize their size more flexibly.
Cards are widget-like add-ons for Honor apps that offer quick-glance info under their icons.
More MagicOS
MagicOS introduces Magic Portal, a smart drag-and-drop feature. Long-pressing on content-like an image-triggers a sidebar with app suggestions and actions, such as sending via email or creating a note. It also supports universal text extraction from the screen, streamlining tasks like copying and sharing information.
Magic Portal
MagicOS v9 integrates Google's Circle to Search, Gemini assistant, real-time translation, AI text summarization, and AI meeting transcription tools, enhancing productivity and accessibility.
Google AI bits
Finally, the Honor 400 models have some new cool AI tricks in the Gallery. For starters, there is this neat little feature called Photo to Video, driven by Google's Veo 2 AI video generation model. Note that this trial version consumes tokens, and after you deplete the free ones, you will have to purchase more.
AI Photo to video
It can create a 5-second video from any still photo you give it. It takes about a minute to complete the video generation, and there's no sound, but the results are photorealistic and look impressively lifelike. Below is a video we generated from a few photos.
Other features include background change, removing reflections, removing people, AI upscale (of old photos), image expansion (AI Outpainting), background removal and change with another, plus AI Eyes open for people that blinked in the wrong moment.
AI editor
Another notable feature is AI Call Translate, which listens to your phone conversations and provides real-time text translations on the screen.
Honor also includes an AI Deepfake Detection tool for video calls, designed to identify and alert you if the person on the other end is using a deepfake.
And finally, Honor Share simplifies cross-device file transfers. When installed on an iPhone, it enables AirDrop-like functionality, making it easy to share files between devices.
Benchmarks and performance
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset powers the Honor 400. It is not a powerhouse by any means, but it is still a pretty modern 4nm chip with good connectivity capabilities and a competent ISP.
The CPU department consists of one prime ARM Cortex-A715 core, clocked at up to 2.63 GHz, accompanied by three more Cortex-A715 cores, working at up to 2.4 GHz and then four Cortex-A510 units, working at up to 1.8 GHz. This CPU is paired with an Adreno 720 975 MHz GPU.
The Honor 400 can be had with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM. Both memory versions are available with either 256GB or 512GB of non-expandable storage. Honor doesn't mention what kind of chips it uses, but according to our testing, these are likely UFS 3.1 chips.
Looking at the burst benchmark results, we are looking at decent but hardly impressive CPU performance, somewhere in the same ballpark as the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, slightly better than the Dimensity 7300 and 7300 Pro and slightly below the Dimensity 8200 Ultra and Exynos 1580.
AnTuTu, with its more comprehensive set of tests, is a bit more generous towards the Honor 400. Still, you are looking at decidedly mid-range performance. The same is true of 3Dmark and its graphical tests.
GeekBench 6
- Multi-core
- Single-core
Xiaomi 14T Pro
Redmi Note 14 Pro+
vivo v50
Honor 400
Motorola Edge 60 Fusion
Redmi Note 14 5G
Redmi Note 14 4G
AnTuTu 10
OnePlus 13R
Galaxy A56
Xiaomi 13T (non-perf mode)
Honor 400
vivo v50
Redmi Note 14 5G
Redmi Note 14 4G
3DMark - Wild Life Extreme (2160p)
OnePlus 13R
Infinix GT 30 Pro
Xiaomi 13T (non-perf mode)
Honor 400
vivo v50
Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G
Redmi Note 14 4G
Thermal-throttling
The Honor 400 maintains solid performance with prolonged stress testing. It handles heat very competently. The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip remains cool enough to maintain most of its performance over time, and the phone's surface never becomes uncomfortable to touch, even after an hour of testing.
Thermal-throtlling
Reader comments
- Raza
- 02 Nov 2025
- atc
Its plastic
- Amir
- 02 Nov 2025
- nsA
Plastic
- akismo
- 01 Nov 2025
- 3b}
Plastic frame, plastic back on my honor 400 global version (not EU)