The Ultimate Comparison: Honor 600 vs. iPhone – A Review

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The Honor 600 – a new mid-range smartphone from the former Huawei spin-off – might be mistaken for the iPhone 17 Pro if you squint a little.

On the outside is an enormous camera module that takes up the top-third of the device while, on the inside, are translucent box effects and fake-depth settings just like those seen in iOS 26.

But at its price point, Honor is more likely to compete with the mid-range devices from the likes of Google and Samsung rather than the flagships – and at that, it does very well based on my testing.

Its display is impressive, with a very capable camera, a long-lasting battery, and smooth performance. It’s not perfect, but those looking for an iPhone clone running Android may not need to look further than the £549 Honor 600.

Design & Build: Flagship-esque, but familiar

There’s little to complain about the Honor 600’s housing. Weighing in at 185g — about as much as the iPhone 15 Pro — it’s comfortable in the hand, and the golden white colouring on our review unit gives the aesthetic of a nice hotel lobby.

Adam Smith / Foundry

The most notable addition to the design is a dedicated AI button, located beneath the volume and power buttons on the right-hand side. It is, once again, similar to an iPhone — but improved, without any fiddly capacitive touch extras.

However, if Honor wanted to be more future-facing, it’s not in the most comfortable position; placing it higher up, with the volume buttons switched to the left, would encourage more use.

Screen & Speakers: Bold and bright

The Honor 600 has a really nice display. The 6.57-inch AMOLED panel is bright and punchy — capturing the bags under Homelander’s eyes in the most recent episode of The Boys as he talks about godhood, and the look of panic spreading across Firecracker’s face in response is handled well.

Adam Smith / Foundry

Bright lights are balanced, and there’s enough murk in the shadows to give hints of depth without losing detail. The colors are maybe a little oversaturated, and skin tones can veer a little too pale as a result – a consequence of pushing brightness at the expense of natural balance – but never enough that it distracts from the rest of the image.

On the audio side, the 600 handles the midrange well, and high-pitched pianos come through light and airy. When rapid drums arrive, the phone handles them with decent dynamism — but like most phones at this price, it simply cannot summon the kind of low-end weight that would make music feel genuinely physical.

Specs & Performance: Keeps pace

At the heart of the Honor 600 lies the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, available in my review unit with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

Everyday use cases were no problem for this device, switching between scrolling through Instagram and sending emails, to then sending off messages and connecting to my Plex server. The Honor 600 remained snappy no matter how many apps I had open in the background.

The interface remains fluid and responsive, managing routine workloads without any stutter or glitches. A few rounds of Fortnite were fine for this device, and even more intensive games like Genshin Impact played smoothly, and while you will likely get a better performance with more RAM in a flagship device, at this price point there is very little to complain about.

The Honor 600 benchmarks have shown competent performance in various scenarios.

Cameras: Detailed and delicate

Honor made a good decision giving up so much space to the camera, as the 200Mp main lens does an impressive job of picking up detail. It handles the soft rippled texture of flower petals with great dexterity, without any need to fiddle with the settings or enable any ultra high-resolution modes like other devices do.

The 30x maximum zoom is also surprisingly usable. Many midrange Android devices produce pixelated messes, but this is exceedingly serviceable — even when photographing planes or birds high above in trees.

Compared to other Android phones, the Honor 600 has a cooler color palette. This creates what looks like a more neutral image — common from the Chinese market — but it does lose some character. The warm yellow light bouncing off white petals aren’t there in the 600’s pictures, and as such you might end up with photos that seem more objective but at the expense of what is actually there.

However, the camera system isn’t without its quirks. It does reasonably well with small creatures, but focus can be a little sluggish. Attempting to get the camera to see the small caterpillar on my finger was a harder task than it should have been, with the phone jumping focus every time I moved.

The secondary rear camera is a basic 12Mp ultrawide so you’ll be using the main camera the vast majority of the time.

Battery Life & Charging: Weekend-long

With a 6400mAh capacity, the Honor 600 has really impressive longevity. If you’re looking for something that can act as a potent workhorse, this device might be it — easily lasting two days off a full charge.

Adam Smith / Foundry

While the phone supports 60W wired charging, Honor does not supply a charger in the box. Testing with an adaptive Huawei charger and the provided USB-C cable, the 600 reached 34% in 15 minutes and 63% in 30 minutes, which is respectable.

Software & Apps: AI-first

The 600 runs MagicOS 10, Honor’s skin built on top of Android 16. Honor layers its own suite of applications over the Google defaults — including its own Health, Calendar, and Gallery apps — and it looks and feels a lot like Apple’s iOS. The notification center is reached by swiping down on the left side of the phone; the control center is on the right.

When the software works well, it feels modern and snappy, although it still comes laden with the pre-installed bloatware one has come to expect.

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