New Android phones match the S25 Ultra's camera for a price Samsung can't beat

Business Mayor

22-05-2025

If you want the best camera on a phone, you might expect to have to pay over the odds for it, but two new Android phones hitting UK stores today could fit the bill while costing hundreds less than the competition.
Honor has announced the Honor 400 and 400 Pro, which both sport the same 200MP main camera sensor, a megapixel spec that matches the £1,249 Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra's main camera. But Honor's new phones cost £399.99 and £699.99 respectively, meaning they could be a cheaper way to get hold of a phone with a strong main camera.
Honor says the large 1/1.4-inch lens uses AI to capture clearer shots and has optical and electrical image stabilisation tech to make sure you don't get blurry shots. The firm says it can even cope with 50x zoom, though you also get a dedicated 50MP 3x optical zoom lens and a 12MP ultra-wide lens that can also be used for macro photography.
Just like the Honor Magic 7 Pro that came out earlier in the year, these two phones are stuffed to the gills with AI features and promises. I didn't much care for the 7 Pro's use of AI when zooming past 30x, where it artificially fills in details that otherwise are not there.
The party trick of the Honor 400 and 400 Pro is an AI tool from Google called 'AI Image to Video', 'which enables users to bring static photos to life as dynamic videos', according to Honor. These are the first phones to get a feature that will likely come to other Android phones soon.
You can take a photo and then turn it into a five second video using Google AI, which requires an internet connection. But as reported by The Verge, this isn't a free feature that Honor 400 buyers can enjoy forever. It's only free for the first two months of ownership, and you can only make 10 videos per day. Details of how Google will end up charging you for this service are not known, but the tool could become available to Google Gemini subscribers.
Elsewhere, the 400 Pro has impressive specs with a big 5,300mAh battery, 512GB storage, 12GB RAM and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that powered several high-end Android phones that came out in 2024. It can also fast charge at zippy 100W speeds, giving you 50 percent charge in 15 minutes, according to Honor. There's even industry-best IP68/69 dust and water resistance.
You also get 'AI Eye Comfort Display' and 'AI Defocus Eyecare' smarts to keep the 6.7-inch AMOLED screen from causing your peepers too much strain, plus an 'AI Circadian Night Display' setting to stop the blue light from disrupting your sleep.
All this sounds like we should stop looking at our phones so much, doesn't it? But it's good to see Honor thinking about these things, as not all phones have such granular display controls.
Most impressively is Honor's promise of six years of Android updates and six years of security updates for both the Honor 400 and 400 Pro, matching the Magic 7 Pro and only one year short of Google and Samsung's promise for many of their phones. It's notable that the £399.99 Honor 400 will get six years of updates, one of the cheapest phones out there with such long support along with Samsung's £399 Galaxy A36, which also promises six years.
The Honor 400 boasts a 5,300mAh battery like the Pro with slightly slower charging and a smaller 6.55-inch display that is flat compared to the curved one on the Pro. You'll also get the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip with 8GB RAM and IP65 protection.
Both phones are 5G compatible, as you'd expect, and go on sale today. Honor has secured impressively wide availability too, so you can buy it from EE, O2, Three, Vodafone, Tesco Mobile, Argos, Currys, Amazon and Very, as well as directly from Honor.
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