Honor 400 review

A solid dual-camera setup

The Honor 400 has a pretty versatile and promising camera setup, at least on paper. On the back is a 200MP Samsung ISOCELL HP3 snapper with OIS and plenty of resolution to pull off some good zoom shots. It is accompanied by a 12MP autofocusing ultrawide, which should be able to double as a macro camera.

The 50MP selfie camera might only have a fixed focus, but it is fairly forgiving, and with such a large resolution, we are pretty hopeful about the results it will produce.

• Wide (main): 200 MP Samsung ISOCELL HP3, f/1.9, 1/1.4", 0.56µm, PDAF; 2160p@30fps
• Ultra wide angle: 12 MP, f/2.2, 112-degree; 2160p@30fps
• Front camera: 50 MP, f/2.0, 0.64µm; 2160p@30fps

Unfortunately, the Honor 400 wasn't particularly cooperative when it came to revealing its camera hardware. We are only certain that the main camera is based on the Samsung ISOCELL HP3 sensor. It has a 1/1.4" size and 0.56 µm individual pixels.

The 12MP ultrawide camera is 112-degree wide and sits behind an f/2.2 lens, which is about the extent of the information we have on it. Oh, and it also has autofocus. We don't know what particular sensor the 50MP selfie camera uses either, but as far as we know, it has 0.64 µm individual pixels, which is fairly common.

There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the camera UI of the Honor 400. Everything is laid out logically and makes sense. You get a powerful Pro mode with plenty of settings, which can be engaged on any of the phone's cameras.

Daylight photo quality

Main camera

The main camera on the Honor 400 captures binned 12.5MP photos with some excellent overall quality. The processing is nice an natural without noticeable oversharpening. The dynamic range is good as well and the colors also come through nicely.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera samples

You can force the camera to shoot in its full 200MP resolution. We wouldn't really say there is any tangible benefit to resolved detail.

Honor 400: 200 MP main camera samples

The Honor 400 lacks a dedicated telephoto camera, but it does have plenty of resolution on its main camera to pull off the digital zoom. The camera UI offers quick toggles for 2x and 4x.

At 2x digital zoom, photos look very similar in overall quality to the regular 1x ones, which is great to see. In fact, they appear to be much better quality than the ones out of the Honor 400 Pro, which we reviewed recently.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera 2x zoom samples

The 4x zoom shots have pretty good detail but already look soft if you examine them from upclose.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera 4x zoom samples

The Honor 400 handles people and portraits quite well. There are quick toggles in the camera UI for portrait shots at 1x, 1.5x, 3x and 4x zoom. Subject detection and separation are nearly perfect, and the quality of the background blur is solid.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera 1x and 2x portrait samples

Ultrawide camera

The quality of the ultrawide shots is nothing to phone home about. The detail is decent but not great, and there is heavy processing going on. Dynamic range and contrast are merely alright. At least the colors are well-matched to the main camera. The Honor 400 Pro's ultrawide camera is much better.

Honor 400: 12 MP ultrawide camera samples

As mentioned, thanks to its autofocus, the ultrawide camera has an extra trick up its sleeve - macro shots. The ultrawide can focus surprisingly close to the subject and capture some pretty impressive close-ups. Honor includes toggles for 0.6x, 1x and 2x in the Super Macro UI. All of these zoom levels are done with the ultrawide camera.

Honor 400: 12 MP ultrawide camera macro samples

Selfie camera

As expected, the 50MP selfie camera captures some excellent stills. There is great detail, and the skin texture looks nice and natural. The same goes for skin tones. The lack of autofocus is unfortunate, but the focal plane is wide and quite forgiving.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP selfie camera samples

Low-light camera quality

The main camera captures quite decent low-light shots. The detail is good, and there is very little noise on surfaces. The dynamic range is nice and wide, with well-developed shadows and highlights. Light sources are well-contained. Overall - a good showing.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera low-light samples

The Honor 400 has a very solid automatic night mode so turning on the Night mode manually merely requires some longer capture, but the results appear to be identical.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera Night mode samples

Digital zooms at 2x are just a bit softer, but not drastically so. Their overall quality is very close to 1x shots.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera 2x zoom low-light samples

In contrast, the 4x zoom shots from the main camera are drastically softer and blurrier. They are still usable but not really something we would actively reach for.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP main camera 4x zoom low-light samples

The ultrawide camera photos is not going to win any contests in low-light conditions. Still, the general image properties like contrast, colors and dynamic range (highlight retention in particular) are quite okay. From up close, however, it's evident that the sharpness is not stellar, and you can see a lot of noise and something that looks like compression artifacts.

Honor 400: 12 MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

In case you were wondering, the dedicated Night mode doesn't really do much for the ultrawide either.

Honor 400: 12 MP ultrawide camera Night mode samples

The 50MP selfie camera remains solid in low light. The detail is great, and so are the colors.

Honor 400: 12.5 MP selfie camera low-light samples

Video capture quality

The Honor 400 can capture up to 4K@30fps video with all of its cameras. By default, the video gets saved in h.264/AVC format at around 50 Mbps at 4K, plus a stereo AAC audio stream packaged inside an MP4 container. You can flip over to h.265/HEVC to save some space at the same quality level.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

The main camera captures pretty solid 4K video. The level of detail is good and colors are great.

2x zoom videos look a bit unrefined and overprocessed. Still usable, though.

The ultrawide videos are quite okay for this sort of camera.

The Honor 400 doesn't have a dedicated stabilization toggle, but EIS appears to be constantly active at every resolution. It does an okay job of smoothing out walking, and when shooting handheld, standing still, it's perfect.

Low-light videos from the main camera look great. At 2x zoom, things are still okay, though there is a lot of visible noise. The low light videos by the ultrawide camera and incredibly soft and dark so not really usable.