For the first time in a very long time, I went to the dark side…

My iPhone 17 Pro Max has been by my side for almost a year now, and I think you know me well enough to know that I’m a committed iPhone user and paid-up Apple geek!

Apple has released some amazing gear recently, like the iPhone Air, the 17e, and, of course, the MacBook Neo. They are in the middle of a golden period, with both their hardware and software.

Apple are back to its best.

All of my gear is working perfectly, and my Apple ecosystem is alive and thriving, thank you ever so much! For example, just a moment ago, I used Handoff on the Mac to carry on a task I’d started on the phone. It’s little touches like that I love!

In short, everything is very rosy in my Apple garden right now, and I have zero need or thoughts to change anything.

But in my line of work, opportunities come knocking. It’s one of the perks, I suppose, and recently a PR agency reached out and asked if I’d like to test a new HONOR phone.

Initially, I couldn’t decide how best to play the offer. A few years back, I’d been burned badly by the algorithms when I dared set foot outside of my Apple lane, so I feared this could be a repeat of that episode.

Then I figured that my position as a very happy Apple user is well enough known by now, and it could be interesting to try something different.

An unbiased look at an Android phone from an Apple guy. Yup, I figured this was worth taking a chance on.

Being honourable

A few weeks before, I’d been invited to London for a press gathering where HONOR announced the new 600 series of phones.

I went along, as you always end up bumping into faces and people you know, and it’s always better to be out there and to be visible. But honestly, past that, I didn’t expect anything more to come of it.

I took a few notes at the event, but I admit I zoned out a bit as I honestly thought I was there just to make up numbers!

Well, it turns out that was the wrong guess!

A few days later, I was sent an NDA and offered my first-ever review unit. It’s always interesting to see how these things work from the inside.

Once the NDA was signed, I was sent all the technical info about the phone, and then the phone arrived via courier a couple of days later. I was given it for two weeks, and it was mine to do with as I wished. They wouldn’t be asking to see the video before it went live. All they wanted was my honest thoughts and feedback on it.

So my creative brain kicked in, and I thought the obvious way to go about it was to say right from the get-go that I’m an iPhone user who wouldn’t be changing, but I’d give the HONOR 600 Pro a fair and unbiased run.

I hate clickbait with a passion, and all those stories where the headline is ‘iPhone user switches…’ just bore me senseless, so I wanted to go about this project in my own way.

At my core, I’m a tech lover. I find all of it interesting, and I was genuinely intrigued to use an Android again.

I have some previous knowledge with Androids, having bought and used Nothing phones, a Pixel Pro and a Samsung Flip – but that’s all going back a few years now.

Getting down to business

As I unpacked the 600 Pro, I was surprised how quickly I got used to Android OS again – muscle memory, I guess. As with most phones now, the setup was pretty easy and intuitive.

My very first reaction was that the HONOR didn’t have quite the weight and feeling that my Pro Max has, and that it had quite clearly taken a few styling cues from the iPhone. But, in its defence, without some of the outrageous designs that Oppo have tried, for instance, how different can any slab phone look?

The display was brilliant. The press release quoted that it had 8000 nits of brightness. While I’m sure that’s true enough, it didn’t feel that much brighter than my iPhone, but it had this Sunlight Mode that made it more usable in bright sunshine. It’s also Netflix & Amazon HDR Certified, and I think it was that which made the display feel nearly a match of my M4 iPad Pro. It was that good!

The blacks were deep and immersive, and the colours zingy and punchy. The display will be the standout memory for me from my two weeks with the 600 Pro.

But it wasn’t only the display that impressed me. The battery life was phenomenal! I got well over two days of heavy use out of the phone – I think I only charged it once in all the time I had it! In iPhone land, we can only dream of a 7000mAh battery, but now I can see what a difference a battery that size genuinely makes.

I know I defend Apple and say that everything is optimised, blah, blah, blah, but why Apple can’t squeeze a bigger battery into our phones remains a mystery to me. Is there something I’m missing?

The HONOR also had 80W fast-charging, which I had mixed thoughts about. Sure, it charged the phone quicker than anything I’d experienced before – 0% to 100% in about 25 minutes, but by god did it get hot in the process! How good that rapid-charging can be for the battery long-term, I have no idea, but it didn’t feel too healthy.

Oh, and one more battery-related point I loved was that I could charge my iPhone from that massive tank of a battery, as the HONOR 600 Pro has reverse charging.

It’s small areas like that where Apple needs to catch up, in my opinion. Give me that kind of functionality over some pointless AI toys any day of the week!

It was coming across user features like this that made reviewing an Android such a worthwhile project. It helped to open up my eyes as to how the iPhone experience could be improved.

In the picture

While the press blurb would have you believe that the camera was another level, in all honesty, it didn’t strike me as being radically different from what I was used to.

I guess in a roundabout way, that’s a compliment. The iPhones cameras are about as good as it gets on a mobile, yet I was still happy enough with the results from the HONOR.

The RAW settings on the photo side of things were probably more comprehensive than I’m used to on the iPhone, and the images looked pretty unprocessed to my eyes. I was able to shoot some cool and creative shots with the 600 Pro, and it certainly never felt as if I was using an inferior camera.

The photo results in JPEG had a heavily compressed look to them that I wasn’t a fan of, but then again, iPhone cameras also have a certain look to them, so I’m not going to fault the HONOR for that. I think it’s more of a case that I’ve got used to the iPhone look.

The HONOR’s look was different, but not bad.

Sometimes the numbers do make me smile, though! The HONOR apparently has a 200MP sensor, whereas I’m left slumming it with only a lowly 48MP on the Pro Max!

The camera, overall, on the Pro Max is still better natively in my opinion. I say natively as the HONOR phone is so full of AI, algorithms and enhancements at every touch and turn that it’s hard to get to the core of the phone. Does that make sense?

I guess that’s the target audience for the phone – for users who are keen to lean into AI.

HONOR proudly boast about its AI-enhanced night photography mode, which, to me, looked a little too heavily processed. There wasn’t much nuance to those pictures. And then there’s the AI Super Zoom feature and the Magic Color feature – you see what I mean! It’s clearly the HONOR way of doing things.

Let me just make this clear – what they do, they do ever so well, it’s just not for me. If I were looking at an Android, I’d be more than happy with an HONOR.

You’ll know I’m not a massive fan or user of AI, and for me, this was probably the biggest turn-off. I’m not saying it’s bad – far from it, if that’s your bag, then it’s mighty impressive, it’s just not for me.

One trick too many

The big party piece of the HONOR 600 Pro is the latest version of its Picture To Video feature.

It does exactly what it says on the tin – it’ll take two images from your camera library and turn them into a scarily realistic video. I don’t know what use this is to anybody, and it left me feeling spooked.

There was a random library picture of some guy on the HONOR phone, and I married that with a picture I’d taken of a model in London a few weeks earlier. The results were insane – they even gave these people voices. It was so good as to be almost spooky!

I put two people together with a prompt of a romantic embrace, and by god the results I got were so good that you’d be hard to deny that you weren’t watching a genuine video of those two people.

This is where I find AI pointless and potentially harmful. It doesn’t take much to see how this kind of feature could be used in the wrong way and create some pretty damning videos!

It was amazing to see it first-hand, and even more amazing that it’s all created on device, but it left me feeling pretty unnerved.

Welcome back, iPhone

From the get-go, I was determined to give the 600 Pro a fair trial.

I hate those creators who come down hard on an Android just because it’s not an iPhone. Look, to my way of thinking, both camps have their pros and cons with their good and bad points. There was plenty I liked about the HONOR.

For example, they have an app that makes sharing files between their phone and my iPhone or Mac super-simple. HONOR Connect, I think it’s called, and it worked just like our AirDrop. It made my job so much easier over the fortnight I was using it.

Can you ever imagine Apple making it that simple to share with an Android?

So, as much as it was genuinely fun to try this phone out and keep my hand in on the Android side of the fence, there was nothing there that made me feel as if I’d want to switch.

There was no single feature that left me feeling that we’d fallen behind, possibly apart from the reverse charging and battery life.

The Android UI felt and looked good, and the Snapdragon processor was as fast as any iPhone. The amount of pointless apps and bloatware it comes with, though, well, that’s another subject. You take for granted had sleek and clean iOS is.

Of course, it is a very Google-centric phone, but once I’d signed into my various Google cloud accounts, it was pretty smooth sailing. Interestingly, I noticed that photos seemed to sync more quickly to Google Photos than they do on iCloud.

The HONOR 600 Pro is about £200 cheaper than my iPhone and stacked with features – some useful and some highly impressive. Although Apple is riding the crest of a wave right now, they need to keep an eye out on the opposition and not become too arrogant. The opposition is coming for them hard and fast. There’s no time for complacency, that’s for sure.

Having stuck with Apple through their darker and more confused days, there’s no way I’d switch camps now. As I said, everything is working so well right now that I have few complaints.

Hell, even PC users are running to get their hands on the MacBook Neo! That’s how nailed on Apple is at the moment.

But the irony has not failed to hit me in the face that here is HONOR loaning me a review unit when I have no loyalty or connection to the brand in any way. Yet Apple, whom I’ve spent endless hours making content about, won’t even return my emails!

It’s a funny old world, yet for all that, I’m happy as can be with the place I’ve pinned my flag.

The iPhone feels like home, and even though the HONOR had that Emperor’s new clothes feeling that made it exciting to use, the iPhone is still where my heart is.