While it'd appears that there's a ceiling to what AI can do, it's not stopping Chinese electronics company Honor. Its new 400 series looks like it could all the things that a smartphone can, utilise AI in interesting and unique ways with the camera system and yet, maintain a price tag that's kind towards your wallet.
At the heart of the HONOR 400 Series is its 200MP Super Sensing Main Camera. Backed by a 1/1.4-inch sensor and a bright f/1.9 aperture, this camera gobbles up light like me at a buffet. You also have the dual OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) + EIS (Electronic Images Stabilisation) features, which means less blur in your images and videos when you move.
Portrait mode is where the HONOR 400 Series truly flexes. AI Portrait Snap captures sharp, motion-filled stills with aplomb. But the pièce de résistance is Harcourt Portrait 2.0—yes, named after that Studio Harcourt. It brings cinema-grade bokeh and chiaroscuro elegance to your selfies. You’ll find three Harcourt studio styles and six Film Simulation filters, all begging for your next moody Instagram drop.
Meanwhile, the standard HONOR 400 claims the honour of being the first smartphone with 30x telephoto (a bold claim and we haven't read anything that refutes that statement). The 12MP Ultra-Wide and Macro Camera is your ticket to capturing the sweeping and the small and for the 400 Pro, you get a 50MP Telephoto Camera with a Sony IMX856 sensor, 3x optical zoom and OIS. The Pro also has AI Super Zoom scales from 15x to 50x without devolving into pixel sludge, thanks to generative AI correction. All these photography experiences are courtesy of the HONOR Image Engine, the brand’s in-house AI brain.
Now we get into the AI-aspect of the smartphone, you've the usual AI edits like erasing photobombers or removing the background but it is the AI Image to Video tool that stole the show. Developed in tandem with Google Cloud, this software transforms your stills—be they nostalgic scans, fresh snaps, or AI-generated dreams—into five-second film. It’s like turning your photo album into a living memory reel with none of the post-production sweat. Of course, when we were at the preview the feature wasn't implemented yet, instead we were treated to a demo of it. There were limitations (restriction to the number of times you can use it in a certain timeframe; inability to offer your own prompts to the photo) but given time, the AI Image to Video tool can expand on itself.
The Honor 400 Pro comes in Lunar Grey, Tidal Blue, and Midnight Black, while the standard version is dressed in Desert Gold and Midnight Black.
The Honor 400 Series is available now with the Honor 400 retailing at SGD599 and the Honor 400 Pro at SGD899.
