HONOR Philippines is officially bringing the HONOR 400 5G to the local market on June 17, pushing hard on its “AI Phone” label and a core feature that can animate static images. The company has been teasing this for a bit, and now we have a solid launch date and a clearer picture of what it’s selling.

(Update, June 17: We just posted this article: HONOR 400 5G AI phone arrives in PH: Price, preorder promos, and our review!)

(Update, June 14: HONOR 400 5G preorder freebies and luxury prizes spotted!)

This isn’t just another smartphone with a sprinkling of AI buzzwords, at least according to the brand. HONOR Philippines vice president Stephen Cheng states that the HONOR 400 5G is “the real AI phone, designed to bring your memories back to life and create meaningful moments through innovation.” That’s a bold claim, especially in a market saturated with devices tacking “AI” onto anything with a processor.

The big play here is the unit’s ability to transform old, still photographs into short video clips. Think of it as a souped-up Live Photo, but for your dusty digital archives. HONOR has even kicked off an Image-to-Video Challenge to drum up interest, showing off the tech animating everything from childhood snapshots to snacks and paintings. It’s an interesting angle, trying to blend nostalgia with generative AI, and it certainly stands out from the usual spec-sheet comparisons.

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A post shared by Alora Uy Guerrero (@aloraguerrero)

We at Revü Philippines tried the Image-to-Video feature, and here’s one of the results! 😀

Globally, HONOR has already unveiled the HONOR 400 and its Pro sibling, the HONOR 400 Pro, in markets like Singapore and Malaysia. Those global versions made a point of offering a rather generous six years of Android OS updates, which would theoretically keep these smartphones running until 2031. It’s unclear if this impressive software commitment will carry over to the Philippine release.

For those keeping score, the standard HONOR 400 5G internationally packs a 6.55-inch AMOLED display with a 1.5K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 5G chipset. The camera setup is anchored by a hefty 200-megapixel main sensor, paired with a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and a 50-megapixel selfie camera up front. Battery life should be a non-issue with a 6,000mAh cell supporting 100-watt fast wired charging. It also boasts an IP66 rating for some splash resistance.

It’s worth noting, as always, that global specifications don’t always perfectly translate to local releases. We’ll have to wait until June 17 for the official Philippine launch to confirm the exact configurations and, more importantly, the pricing. For context, the global HONOR 400 has been seen starting around $381.

HONOR is clearly leaning into AI as its differentiator for the N Series. It’s been pushing this narrative at major tech events like MWC 2025, and our team at Revü even got a peek at their AI ambitions during a visit to the company’s Beijing office. Beyond the photo-to-video trick, the global models also flaunt features like AI Portrait Snap for sharper moving subjects, an AI Editing Suite for things like erasing unwanted people, and AI Subtitles and Translation. All of this runs on MagicOS 9.0, based on Android 15, and includes some of HONOR’s own touches like AI Magic Portal 2.0.

The launch on June 17 will be livestreamed on Facebook, so you can tune in to see if HONOR’s “AI Phone” delivers on its promises.

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