Review of the Huawei Honor 6 smartphone

Honor 6 plus – design

Fiberglass; 150.5 x 75.7 x 7.5 mm; 165g.

The body of the smartphone is made of fiberglass, which makes it incredibly durable and at the same time beautiful. The same material is used to make military helmets, so there is no doubt about its strength.

The smartphone is offered in traditional black and white versions. The Honor 6 Plus is also available in a gold variant, and to be honest, its looks are eye-catching. While Huawei may take inspiration from the iPhone 5S, it still has its own unique touches like shiny metal side panels, textured volume keys, and more.

Of course, the Honor 6 Plus is no iPhone 6 or Samsung S6, but it does have a microSD card slot to expand its 16 or 32 GB of internal memory up to 128 GB, so it’s safe to say that This is one of the best smartphones that have come out recently. If you are looking for something attractive and inexpensive, then take a closer look at the Honor 6 Plus.

Honor 6 plus – camera

Dual 8MP main camera; f/2 lens; 8 megapixel front camera; dual LED flash; Wide lens opening; Full Full HD video.

With two side-by-side eight-megapixel cameras, the Honor 6 Plus allows you to capture large images, allowing you to adjust focus after you’ve taken the photo, just like the HTC One M8. And this is not just an advertising find, this solution allows you to create photos that cannot be duplicated by other smartphones or by using a variety of filters and effects.

The quality of photos taken by the Honor 6 Plus looks great and captures color and detail quite well on mobile screens. However, upon closer examination, they turn out to be not as sharp and detailed as other camera phones. In particular, the quality of photos suffers if they are taken in low light conditions.

The camera does not take photos as quickly as we would like. For example, the same Huawei P8 has the function of opening the camera application by double pressing the bottom volume key, even when the screen is off. It also takes a lot of time to capture and focus the subject of photography. All this makes it difficult to photograph fast moving objects, as well as several photos in a row.

Selfie lovers will be pleased with the 8 MP front camera, which takes good quality pictures. Its use is equipped with additional functions that will allow you to process photo elements, such as the smoothness of the skin, the brightness of the eyes and teeth.

Overall, Honor 6 Plus is an excellent smartphone for lovers of mobile photography, it is capable of taking pictures that will look good on the pages of various social media, which will not hurt to get a large number of “likes”.

Honor 6 plus – software and performance

HiSilicon Kirin 925 eight-core processor; Mali T628 graphics processor; 3 GB RAM

The eight-core processor of Honor 6 Plus uses big technology. LITTLE. This means that four 1.3 GHz cores are responsible for processing basic tasks such as navigation, web browsing and music playback, while the second four 1.8 GHz cores are designed to handle 3D gaming problems. games and multitasking.

There are not many differences between Honor 6 Plus and Huawei P8 when it comes to performance power. And although the flagship of the Honor line has an older 64-bit 925 HiSilicon Kirin processor, the difference is visible only on paper, while in reality we were unable to notice it.

Fast navigation is achieved thanks to the coordinated work of the EMUI 3.0 user interface together with the Android Lollipop 5.0 operating system. We found that the icons and default font look very similar, if not identical, here and in the Huawei P8.

Some fans of the “pure” Android operating system may not like the Huawei interface, but the smartphone has one big advantage. All pre-installed applications are grouped into a separate folder, and they can also be easily removed, which is not something you see very often these days.

Honor 6 Plus has some great apps to manage its power and other tools to make life easier for the user. Swiping down the screen from top to bottom, you will see a window with two tables — one of which is for notifications, and the second for setting up shortcuts. In this menu, you can adjust the power consumption of individual applications and simply optimize your smartphone.

Design, dimensions, control elements

The body of the device has a streamlined appearance, vaguely reminiscent of the previous generation of iPhone and Nexus 4: rectangular shape with strongly smoothed corners, glass on the front and back sides. Two color versions will be available for sale: black and white. Now you can only buy the device in black.

The body structure is monolithic and consists of several parts. The first one is the front one. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. After several weeks of use, not a single scratch remained on the surface. There is an oleophobic coating, and it’s of high quality: if fingerprints remain on the screen, they are practically invisible and can be wiped off very easily. The finger glides across the display well. There is an anti-glare filter.

The second is the side edges (upper end), made of plastic and slightly rounded, reminiscent of those in the Sony Z3 compact. In black devices they are dark gray, and in white devices they are light gray. Moreover, the plastic looks quite simple and looks cheap. Over time, the paint will wear off.

The third is thin side edges, forming small sides above the screen and above the back surface, passing into the lower part of the device. Made of semi-gloss plastic, rough to the touch.

The fourth is the back panel. It seemed to me that it was made of plastic (under the material there is a pattern in the form of small diamonds), since during the “skid” it quickly became covered with thin scratches and abrasions appeared. On a white gadget they are not noticeable, but on a black one you can see them without even looking closely. Why it became a pity to use glass on both sides is not clear to me. For example, the inexpensive Fly Tornado has Corning on the front side and Asahi Glass on the back.

Dimensions of Huawei Honor 6 – 139.6×69.7×7.5 mm. Despite the rather thin body, the smartphone feels full 10 mm in the hand: either because the edges are sharp, or something is wrong with the ergonomics of the design, although it fits comfortably in the palm. The device weighs 130 grams — lightweight thanks to plastic.

There are no problems with assembly. I repeat once again that the gadget is monolithic, the body does not creak or play, and the back side does not press down to the battery.

In general, Huawei Honor 6 makes a positive impression in terms of appearance, build quality and materials used. The only thing that is depressing is the use of plastic on the back surface, but company representatives say this: “The back cover is a complex composite material that is used in the space industry.”

On the top of the front panel there is a speech speaker covered with a metal mesh. The speaker volume is high, however, I would like it to be higher. The timbre is pleasant, the intelligibility is excellent, the interlocutor can be heard clearly. To the left of the speaker are light/proximity sensors and a light indicator for missed messages, to the right is a wide-angle lens of the front camera.

Micro-USB connector and main microphone — bottom, top — 3.5 mm audio output, second microphone and IR transmitter. There are no elements on the left.

On the right is the power button and volume rocker key. They are made of plastic, have longitudinal notches, and are practically recessed into the body. Convenient to use.

Below the buttons is a separate compartment, closed with a plastic plug. Below it are slots for microSIM and microSD. In Russia, Honor 6 is officially sold with only one SIM card!

On the back panel of the gadget there are: a camera eye framed by a metal ring, a double LED flash and a speaker covered with a metal mesh.

Comparative sizes:

Huawei and iPhone 5

Huawei and Nexus 5

Huawei and Asus Zenfone 6

Huawei honor 6 plus review

With the name Honor 6 Plus, you can confuse the new smartphone in the series with the flagship Honor 6. The smartphones look very similar from the front panel, have an almost identical metal frame and rounded corners. Turn your smartphone over and you will find parallel cameras.

They sound like an idea HTC One M8
with Duo Camera, but while HTC’s sensor is limited to only 4-megapixel photos, the Honor 6 Plus combines two 8-megapixel sensors to produce 13-megapixel photos. The manufacturer says that the high light sensitivity of the sensors will help owners take photographs that can be more similar to the results of professional cameras, reducing the amount of noise to a minimum.

Honor 6 Plus review:
The smartphone’s two cameras are housed within a 0.5mm edge.

Huawei Honor 6 Plus camera

While we can’t say that photos taken with the Honor 6 Plus during our review had less noise than other smartphone cameras, they were very bright and offered some of the most natural colors we’ve seen in recent months. At times, the photos could be considered too bright, but switching to HDR mode will make the photos even better.

Honor 6 Plus camera review:
The photos of the outside looked great. The sky is handled perfectly and the colors have retained their richness.

Honor 6 Plus camera review:
Shadows may appear too bright, but switching to HDR mode (above) solves this problem instantly.

The dual camera also allows you to adjust the focus of your photos after the actual shot is taken if you use the widescreen aperture mode. Click on the area of ​​the photo you want to blur or move to the center of focus, you will also get a slider that will change the aperture from f/0.95 to f/16.

Honor’s solution is much more flexible than other cameras we’ve reviewed with this feature, and the depth effect in review photos was impressive. Objects in focus really pop against soft backgrounds, and the Honor 6 Plus’s noise-canceling technology is truly top-notch.

Honor 6 Plus camera review:
We’ve seen plenty of smartphones that let you customize the focal length, but the Honor 6 Plus remains the most impressive.

Dim the lights a little and noise will quickly creep back into your photos. The photos we took indoors, for example, looked great as long as there was enough light, but turn off the lamps and the quality of the photos drops significantly.

Turning on the flash helped clarify the situation, but the colors remained relatively muted. Super Night mode can help take creative photos in low-light conditions, but Huawei recommends using a tripod for best results.

Honor also did not forget about the front camera of the smartphone, represented by a wide-angle 8-megapixel sensor, designed to set the smartphone above mundane competitors with 5-megapixel front cameras. Our test shots looked good, with noise kept to a minimum and colors looking natural and accurate. The abundant number of filters and brands should captivate the inexperienced user.

Honor 6 Plus display

We had no complaints about the 5.5-inch, 1,920 x 1,080-pixel display. Calibration showed compliance with 98.4% of the sRGB color gamut, so the Honor 6 Plus is capable of producing richer, more accurate colors than some flagship smartphones, including HTC One M9
and LG G4
.

Peak brightness at 483 cd/m ²
also complements the screen image without hurting black levels too much, which measures 0.31 cd/m ²
. The 1527:1 contrast ratio provides plenty of detail, making it easy to look at the screen and see the image no matter the angle.

Performance

Inside, you will find an octa-core Kirin 925 processor that uses ARM big architecture. LITTLE to automatically switch from a fast 1.8 GHz quad-core Cortex A15 chip to a slow 1.3 GHz quad-core Cortex A7 chip to reduce power consumption. When needed, all eight cores can run simultaneously to give you the performance you need to get through your everyday tasks.

For example, the GeekBench 3 score puts the Honor 6 Plus, which we reviewed, on par with the HTC One M9 and Huawei Ascend P8, and only slightly behind the iPhone 6. Futuremark’s Peacekeeper test also returns a high score: 1164 . Few smartphones we’ve reviewed that beat this figure include LG G Flex 2
and iPhone 6 Plus
. These numbers also mean that you can expect a smooth web browsing experience every day. Complex web pages are no problem for a smartphone, scrolling, zooming and panning heavy pages is smooth and without lag.

The only area where the Honor 6 Plus falls short: graphics performance. With just 461 points on the GFX Bench Manhattan test, the Honor 6 Plus offers only half the performance of its flagship competitors, including the HTC One M9 and LG G4. In practice, however, we were able to play even demanding games, including Blizzard’s Hearthstone, with only minor lag, so you should still be able to handle most games from the Google Play Store, although you may have to sacrifice high quality settings, which is not required by 2020 flagships.

Honor 6 Plus comes with 32GB of internal memory, but the MicroSD slot (which can only be used in place of the second SIM card) supports 128GB of storage, so you should have enough space for your files.

Honor 6 Plus battery life

Luckily, a great screen and decent performance don’t come at the expense of battery life. With a huge 3600mAh battery, Honor promises two days of moderate use and more than 23 days of standby time. During our review of the Honor 6 Plus, we were able to use it for an entire weekend, but with heavy use, you can expect a full day. In our continuous video playback test, the Honor 6 Plus lasted 10 hours and 28 minutes with the screen set to half brightness, which isn’t far from the LG G4’s results.

Honor 6 Plus design

One minor design concern we had with the Honor 6 Plus was the flat fiberglass back panel, which struck us as oversized during our review. True, we experienced a similar problem with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Sony Xperia Z. On the other hand, the Honor 6 Plus seems to be much easier to scratch than other smartphones with glass panels. It’s strange, because its angled edges and semi-metallic frame seem very durable.

Final verdict

However, the biggest drawback is that the smartphone is stuck on Android 4.4.2 and Huawei’s Emotion UI feels very old-fashioned. The notifications menu and shortcuts are still split into two panels (which can be very frustrating when trying to quickly open any tab no matter which side of the phone you swipe), and the lack of an app tray can leave your smartphone home screens looking cluttered.

As a result, Huawei’s user interface may turn off some potential Honor 6 Plus buyers. Without it, the smartphone could pose a threat to almost every flagship we’ve tested this year. At 24,000 rubles, it is significantly cheaper than flagship smartphones, and the excellent screen and long battery life, along with a flexible camera, together make it a powerful smartphone. We just wish Huawei and Honor would stop imitating the iPhone and offer modern Android to match their smartphones to the fullest.

Review of Huawei Honor 6 Plus

06/15/2020

8.5
/ 10
Huawei Honor 6 Plus offers a good screen, decent battery life and a flexible camera, but Huawei’s Emotion interface will prevent the smartphone from becoming popular.

8.5
Review summary

Huawei Honor 6 Plus offers a good screen, decent battery life and a flexible camera, but Huawei’s Emotion interface will prevent the smartphone from becoming popular.

Processor and video card

The company uses a proprietary chip in most of its devices. Honor 6 plus, which received an 8-core SoCHiSiliconKirin, was no exception. Essentially, this is a tandem of 4 computing units with Cortex-A15 architecture and 4 more Cortex-A7 cores with clock frequencies of 1.8 and 1.3 GHz, respectively.

Is this good or bad? On the one hand, not very good, since 41653 points in AnTuTu is not at all the same as 4718 for the same Meizu MX4 Pro or more than 42000 for the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro. On the other hand, the Kirin’s energy efficiency is slightly higher, and the difference of several thousand conventional “parrots” does not mean anything at all.

The situation with the video card is similar. The Mali-T628 MP4 chip, also used in the Meizu MX4 Pro, is not the height of technological excellence, but outside the walls of test laboratories it shows remarkable results: almost 14,000 points in 3D Mark and 890 (3222) points in Geekbench. This should be sufficient for any resource-intensive game, so the owner is unlikely to have to complain about the lack of performance.

Camera

Compared to the 20 megapixels of the Meizu MX4 Pro or the 16 megapixels of the Oppo N3 and Lenovo Vibe Z2, the sensor installed in the Honor 6 plus seems almost anachronistic. But this is at first glance. The fact is that the optical system is based on a dual 8-megapixel sensor (aperture 2.0).