I Recommend Buying the HONOR 600 Lite If You Need a Smartphone Under 20,000 Rubles. Here’s My Review

Last week I talked about the announcement of the HONOR 600 and HONOR 600 Pro — the senior models in the series that haven’t gone on sale yet. But while we wait for them, the new HONOR 600 Lite has already appeared in Russia, and it’s arguably the most interesting smartphone in the series in terms of price-to-value ratio. Aluminum frame, bright AMOLED with symmetrical bezels, silicon-carbon battery, and an AI button. The spec sheet is atypical for its price category. I spent enough time with it to tell you honestly: what I liked, what I didn’t, and whether it’s worth buying at all.

A top smartphone in a metal body

HONOR 600 Lite Price in Russia

Let me start with the main thing you probably opened this article for. The HONOR 600 Lite price in official Russian retail is 29,999 rubles. Whether that’s a lot or a little — we’ll try to figure out later when we look at the specs. But I’ll say right now: at the official price, I would not recommend this smartphone.

The reason is simple. The HONOR 600 Lite can be found for 19,275 rubles — 10,700 rubles cheaper. It’s not gray market or a fake: it’s the global version of the smartphone with the same specifications. The price difference between official Russian retail and other sources is more than a third of the device’s cost.

That’s why my advice is: buy the HONOR 600 Lite at the lower price rather than from official stores.

HONOR 600 Lite Smartphone Design

This is where it gets really interesting. The first thing you notice when you pick up the HONOR 600 Lite smartphone is the metal frame. Not plastic made to look like metal, not painted polycarbonate, but real aluminum. In smartphones under 20,000 rubles, this is exceptionally rare. It’s a sign of a flagship approach to manufacturing that clearly trickled down from the senior models in the series.

The smartphone really does have a metal frame

The back panel is matte glass. No fingerprints, no scratches from keys in your pocket. The combination of aluminum and glass at 7.34 mm thickness and 180 g weight gives the feeling of an expensive device: you genuinely hold it in your hand and don’t want to put it down. The edges are rounded, nothing digs into your palm. HONOR claims drop protection from 1.8 meters, full dust protection, and protection from powerful water jets (you can safely wash it under a faucet).

An aluminum frame in a smartphone under 20,000 rubles is a rarity that you immediately feel in your hand.

I want to specifically highlight the HONOR 600 Lite AI button. It’s a large flat key on the right side, positioned below the power button, similar to the camera control button on the iPhone 16. Only here it’s implemented more thoughtfully: a short press takes a photo, holding it switches to video mode, and swiping across the button surface smoothly changes zoom or switches shooting styles. Outside the camera, the button launches AI suggestions by analyzing on-screen content. Plus, the settings include false-trigger protection — something Apple forgot to think about when releasing the iPhone 16 Pro. A transparent case with reinforced corners comes in the box. Simple, but better than nothing. The camera module is small but protrudes: the phone will wobble on a table when placed screen-up.

HONOR 600 Lite Specifications

Let’s move on to the numbers. Here’s a table first, followed by a detailed breakdown of each point.

The HONOR 600 Lite display is 6.6 inches, AMOLED, 1200×2600 resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate. Symmetrical bezels of 1.23 mm on all sides — these are details usually found in smartphones twice as expensive. Brightness is claimed at 6500 nits (everything reads perfectly in direct sunlight). Useful features include: 3840 Hz PWM for eye protection, color temperature adjustment, and Always-On Display. The under-display fingerprint scanner works quickly and without misses.

The screen is great, and the bezels are very thin

The HONOR 600 Lite processor is the MediaTek Dimensity 7100 Elite, 6 nm. With it, the HONOR 600 Lite scores around 700,000 points in AnTuTu. That’s an honest result for the mid-range, with no tweaks. Everyday tasks, social media, streaming — all work without complaints. In heavy games, you’ll need to lower graphics settings to medium, but it’s still fine. Under load, the body barely heats up, and the cooling system handles things well. The smartphone runs Android 16 with MagicOS 10, and HONOR promises six years of security updates.

HONOR 600 Lite benchmark results. Source: nanoreview.net

The HONOR 600 Lite camera features a main 108 MP module, f/1.75. In good lighting, photos come out detailed with natural colors, though white balance sometimes misses. Zoom is purely digital: at 2x it’s still tolerable, at 3x and above quality drops noticeably. Video tops out at 1080p — no 4K, and stabilization is weak. The 5 MP ultra-wide camera is a clear weak point: it lacks detail, and shots are blurry at the edges. This is the only thing that genuinely disappointed me. The 16 MP front camera: good during the day, mediocre in the evening. AI features in the gallery work: object eraser, upscaling old photos, adding open eyes — all of this is present and actually works.

The camera on this smartphone is just fine

The HONOR 600 Lite battery. Here we have a silicon-carbon battery at 6520 mAh, and this is one of the main arguments in favor of this smartphone.