Honor 6x is the latest offering from Huawei’s online brand Honor and packs some interesting features for a mid-range segment device. The phone features a dual camera that allows you to adjust the depth of field in any picture that you take, producing pretty good pictures. We have been using the device for some time now and this is our review.
Honor 6X has a full metal body measuring 150.9 x 76.2 x 8.2 mm and weighing in about 162 g. There is a 5.5-inch FHD LCD screen with some sort of scratch resistant protection. The body of the device is smooth and makes it slippery when used without a phone case. On the back, we have a dual camera setup with LED flash and the fingerprint scanner. At the bottom, we have the speaker, microUSB port, and primary microphone while at the top there is a 3.5mm audio jack and noise-canceling microphone. To the right, there is volume rocker and power/lock key, to the left we have the hybrid sim slot. Overall the device looks good and feels light in the hand but somehow we feel the build quality could have been a bit more sturdy.
The 5.5-inch LCD display is quiet good producing natural colors and sharp images. The brightness is high enough for outdoor visibility and has good viewing angles too. The screen is scratch resistant but we hope Honor provides a better protection like Gorilla Glass for the price it sells the device for.
The device is powered by the Huawei’s own Kirin 655 Octo-core processor with four Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at 2.1GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz. This is similar to the Snapdragon 625 processor from Qualcomm but a tad slower in performance. There are two variants of the phone – 3GB RAM with 32GB internal memory and 4GB RAM with 64GB memory. Our unit was a 4GB variant and handled pretty much everything we threw at it. Right from graphic intensive gaming to app switching, we did not see any lag and it was a smooth experience. The performance is on par with the competitors like RN4 or Lenovo P2. One more thing we noticed was the there are absolutely no heating issues with the device.
The phone runs on EMUI 4.1 which is Huawei’s own UI skin, based on the Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The UI has no app drawer just like other Chinese ROMS and has a lot of customizations. The notifications area is split into two areas, one for notifications and the other for toggles. There are various pre-installed applications that come with the phone but fortunately, they can be uninstalled. There is a Theme store for downloading new themes, icons or wallpapers. Honor’s own applications like Health app and HiCare are present just like in the other Honor devices. We also have a phone manager app to optimize the device memory or block unwanted callers.
Honor 6X features a dual camera setup on the back which is the main highlight of the device. We have 12MP + 2MP cameras to take stunning pictures with bokeh effect and lot of details. The 12MP camera captures the image whereas the 2MP sensor captures depth information. The camera app provides aperture ranging from f/0.95 to f/16 allowing users to take pictures with bokeh effects when used correctly. Users can also refocus the images after they are taken if not satisfied with the way it was focused during capture. There are a lot of filters and options to play within the camera app. For advanced users, there is a pro mode that allows to manually control iso, exposure, aperture etc, both in photos and videos. The front 8MP camera too is good and is capable of taking good selfies in sufficient lighting conditions.
Connectivity wise, the phone has Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi b/g/n, USB-OTG, FM radio, and 4G with VoLTE support. The call quality is good and clear. The loudspeaker is sufficiently loud and clear, making it usable for watching movies or listening to songs. There is a 3340mAh battery which is good enough to go without charging for more than a day. With casual gaming, videos, browsing, and songs, the phone easily lasted for a whole day. The phone supports fast charging as well to quickly charge the battery when heading out.
Overall, the Honor 6X is a great mid-range device with probably the best camera in this segment. The all round performance of the device impressed us very much which is uncommon in this price range. Honor 6X faces tough competition from Redmi Note 4 and Lenovo P2 but the easy availability of this device makes it a good choice for the consumers who do not want to wait for flash sales.
Below is our short video review of the Honor 6X!
