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Prime Day phones deals tend to be more exciting when they’re offering hundreds of pounds off the latest flagship smartphones, but I’d be remiss if I allowed you to overlook bargain budget phones like this Honor 400 Lite deal.
Having averaged £240 over the three months that it’s been on UK shelves, the Honor 400 Pro has been massively reduced for Prime Day, dropping down to just £190 – its lowest price on record.
When I reviewed the Honor 400 Lite, I awarded it four stars and our Recommended award. We’ll get into why it didn’t get five stars just below but first, here’s why I liked it:
- Software support might be the biggest perk of the Honor 400 Lite, and that’s saying something. Honor has committed to an incredible six years of OS updates and security patches for the 400 Lite, which is essentially unheard of at this price. Phones that costs two or three times as much don’t always get that much support.
- The display is a 6.7in AMOLED screen, which is very uncommon at this price. That means essentially infinite contrast and a deep, inky black level. It also gets impressively bright, hitting over 1,000nits in my testing – I expect that of flagship phones, not those that cost this little.
- Battery life is also well above average for such a cheap phone, lasting for over 26 hours in my testing. That’s one of the best results we’ve seen in this price range. On top of that, you also get decently fast 35W charging, which brought the battery from empty to 50% in 32 minutes in my testing.
- The main camera uses a solid 108-megapixel sensor to capture bright, detailed images that are brimming with vivid colour and enhanced by decent dynamic range. After dark, it continues to perform fairly well, with natural colouring and solid brightening of the more shadowy areas.
- The build of the phone is also worth highlighting, as it’s more refined than most budget handsets. First of all, it’s impressively slim and lightweight, measuring 7.3mm thick and weighing 171g . And you also get an IP65 rating, certifying the phone as dust-tight and able to withstand jets of water. Most budget phones don’t get an official IP rating at all, so this is great to see here.
For a phone that only costs £190, that level of quality is fantastic. Do I have some negatives to talk about? Of course. But I don’t think that any of them are big enough deals to outweigh everything you’re getting for your money here.
First of all, the ultrawide camera is nowhere near as good as the main lens, with mediocre detail and a distinct lack of contrast leaving images looking washed out. The selfie camera is also fairly underwhelming, with a lower pixel count than the previous year’s model resulting in smoothing out of facial details in your selfies.
I also criticised the Honor 400 Lite for its obvious attempts to look like an iPhone. This is mainly seen with the rear camera design (undeniably iPhone 16 Pro-inspired) but we also have an Apple-aping camera button here too. Considering the relatively straightforward camera array here, this feels unnecessary, and it didn’t always perform that well in my testing. Sliding my finger along it to zoom in and out, for instance, didn’t always register, leaving me to go back to using the more reliable on-screen controls.
As I say, these niggles don’t feel particularly damning for a phone that offers so much and is available for the insanely low price of £190. If you want a high-quality budget phone that will stay updated for years to come, the Honor 400 Lite is a bargain pick.
If you want to see what other phone deals I’ve dug up over the course of the four-day Prime Day sale, head on over to my dedicated live blog, where I’m gathering together all the biggest discounts and tastiest offers.
Amazon Prime Day savings are open to Prime subscribers only. The good news is that you can sign up to a 30-day free trial if you don’t want to commit to the monthly cost.
