Taking the visual DNA of the premium HONOR 600 Series, making it significantly less expensive, and retaining the standout software feature that made the original lineup a viral hit is a surefire way to grab attention.

That’s the exact playbook for the new HONOR 600S 5G. It sounds like an incredibly compelling value proposition on paper, especially for budget-conscious buyers. However, you can’t slash prices without making a few cuts along the way. When you factor in the inevitable hardware compromises required to hit that lower price point, does the entire package actually stick the landing? Read our full review to find out.

A familiar, rugged build

One thing that immediately stands out is how much the HONOR 600S borrows from the base HONOR 600 we reviewed earlier this year. It’s essentially a taller, wider, and heavier version of that earlier midranger, which isn’t exactly a surprise.

There are tangible differences once you pick it up, though. Although the 600S model uses a plastic frame, you’ll definitely feel its added heft. HONOR squeezed an oversized 8,100mAh lithium-polymer battery inside, accounting for most of that weight. The company lists the phone at 216.5 grams, but they kept the thickness down to just 8.3mm, which is impressive considering the sheer battery capacity at play here.

As for aesthetics, the HONOR 600S arrives as one of the more attractive options in its price bracket. Our Misty Purple unit catches the eye, though a slightly darker shade would have elevated the look even further. If you prefer your tech to fly a bit more under the radar, HONOR also offers it in Desert Gold and a classic Velvet Black.

Build quality is excellent, right in line with what we’ve come to expect from modern HONOR devices. The 600S feels solid and substantial in the hand. Better yet, it carries IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings, putting its durability on par with some of the most expensive flagships on the local market.

One of the most notable hardware features here is the dedicated AI button. By default, pressing it pulls up a menu of generic quick tasks — like toggling the flashlight or grabbing a screenshot. Thankfully, you aren’t locked into those defaults. It’s fully remappable for single, double, and long presses, giving you plenty of flexibility to tailor the smartphone to your own habits.

Then we get to the screen. The HONOR 600S packs a sizable 6.87-inch TFT LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, but unfortunately, it’s capped at a 720p resolution. At this price point, we really would have preferred a sharper, punchier AMOLED display. A smaller chin to match the rest of the bezels would have been nice, too. With a peak brightness of 1,020 nits, this panel performs adequately indoors, but you’ll probably find yourself squinting if you try to use it under direct sunlight.

That said, the sheer size of the panel does have its merits. If you’re the type of user who relies on their handset for marathon video-streaming sessions, having a nearly 6.9-inch canvas is a distinct advantage.

To back up that screen, the HONOR 600S features dual stereo speakers equipped with an advertised 400% volume boost. They can get exceptionally loud. However, as is often the case with midrange audio, louder doesn’t always mean better. Pushing the volume to the max introduces some noticeable distortion.

A true 2-day smartphone

In case it isn’t obvious now, the battery is the entire point of the HONOR 600S. The brand equipped this model with an 8,100mAh cell. To put that capacity into perspective, most modern flagships and midrange competitors — including Apple’s latest top-of-the-line iPhone — peak at around 5,500mAh.

Because of that, the battery life here is on a completely different level. Whether you are running navigation apps in Metro Manila traffic, streaming high-definition video, or just catching up on emails and scrolling through social media, the 600S will easily survive until bedtime with plenty of juice to spare. Moderate users, on the other hand, can expect a legitimate two to three days entirely off the charger. In our testing, screen-on time consistently hit the 14-hour mark. That incredible endurance is no accident; it’s the direct result of pairing that oversized battery with a power-efficient chipset and a less demanding, lower-resolution screen.

Running the device through our usual gauntlet of daily tests, the HONOR 600S held up exceptionally well. Scrolling through TikTok for a full hour barely made a dent, dropping the capacity by just 6%. Streaming Netflix or YouTube for 60 minutes used a measly 4%. Even gaming is remarkably efficient, with a 60-minute Mobile Legends match consuming a mere 6% of the battery.

To cap it off, our review unit lasted more than 22 hours in the PCMark battery endurance test — a rare feat for any smartphone, regardless of its price bracket. All these numbers are frankly staggering, and prove exactly why this particular model is a reliable everyday workhorse.

As expected, there’s no wireless charging here. You do, however, get reliable wired speeds courtesy of the company’s 45-watt SuperCharge technology. It takes roughly two hours to charge the battery from zero to full, a perfectly fair trade-off considering the impressive endurance you can expect from this model.

Point, shoot, upload

The camera setup on the HONOR 600S is about as straightforward as it gets. You’re looking at a 50-megapixel primary shooter on the back and a 5-megapixel sensor up front for selfies, vlogs, and video calls. Both cameras get the job done in good lighting, though the front-facer noticeably lacks the sharpness, dynamic range, and overall polish of the rear option.

That 50-megapixel main camera gives you much more headroom, of course, and holds its own across a variety of lighting environments. For a budget-focused midranger, the level of detail is quite respectable under good indoor lighting. In one of our test shots featuring a building-block flower arrangement, the edges of the blocks and the texture of the plastic petals were rendered with clear, well-defined precision. Image noise is kept well in check, too. The color profile we generally observed leans toward a punchy presentation without looking unrealistically oversaturated.

The camera also handles trickier lighting scenarios surprisingly well. In another outdoor sample, the HONOR 600S managed to balance a high-contrast scene effectively. Despite shooting through the dense shadows of red foliage toward a brighter background, the sky avoided blowing out into pure white, and the shaded foreground elements retained visible texture.

Overall, while the lack of dedicated ultra-wide or macro lenses limits versatility for extremely wide or closeup shots, the single rear camera delivers a very appealing image. It produces sharp, colorful photos that are — perhaps most importantly — instantly ready for your social media feeds.

A few sample shots while walking around a mall

AI steals the show

Under the hood, the HONOR 600S is equipped with a 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 5G chipset. It features an octa-core setup — two Cortex-A78 performance cores running up to 2.3GHz and six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores clocked at 2.0GHz — paired with an Adreno 613 GPU.

Our review unit is the higher-end configuration with 8GB of physical RAM and 256GB of internal storage. HONOR does offer a base variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but because the 600S lacks expandable memory, we strongly advise against picking up the cheaper variant. You’ll chew through 128GB much faster than you think.

In real-world use, we found the Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 adequate for handling everyday tasks, light multitasking, and casual gaming. Just remember that it isn’t a powerhouse processor, so you’ll need to temper your expectations if you plan on pushing heavy graphical workloads.

Where this HONOR handset truly shines, however, is in its software. A long press of the AI button pulls up smart recommendations, giving you quick access to built-in tools like AI Memory, Circle to Search, AI Eraser, and AI Summary.

The biggest revelation is AI Image to Video 2.0. If you’ve seen our recent social media feeds, you know we’ve been having a ridiculous amount of fun with this. As the name implies, the software transforms almost any still photo into a five-second video clip complete with audio. We covered this feature extensively in our previous HONOR 600 review, but this updated version feels more polished.