Specifications: 5.5-inch Full HD display | octa-core Kirin 655 processor | 3GB RAM+ 32GB| microSD card support| 12MP main camera + 2MP depth sensing camera | 8MP front camera| 3,340mAh battery| EMUI 4.1 with Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Price: Rs 12,999
FEATURE
- The Honor 6X sports dual rear cameras and metal body
- Overall performance is good but some useful features are missing
- It's priced at Rs. 12,999 for 3GB/32GB and Rs. 15,999 for 4GB/64GB
Display:
The 5.5-inch display has a full HD resolution and it uses LCD technology. While the resolution is adequate and plenty pixel-dense at 401 dots per inch; its colours are bleached and washed out and its contrast is underwhelming and viewing angles are average to say the least. Of course, this is when it is compared to newer phones like the Redmi Note 4, the Lenovo K6 Power or even the Moto G4.
Now, this isn't a bad screen perse, but it certainly isn’t close to being the nicest one for the price. The brightness levels of the screen are just about passable as one struggled to watch YouTube videos under direct sunlight. But the moment you take the device in light which isn't as extreme as Delhi’s scorching sun, then it is usable. The finish is similar between Huawei and Honor too: both have protruding camera units and a well-positioned recessed fingerprint scanner beneath. The difference in colour between the main back panel and top and bottom bands (for the antennas and, therefore, reception) isn't particularly well matched, but that becomes an aesthetic feature all of its own. Those soft curved edges and chamfered finish not only looks good, it makes for a comfortable hold too.
Unlike the Huawei Mate 9, the Honor 6X doesn't run Android Nougat and the company's EMUI 5.0 re-skin. Instead, the 6X comes loaded with Android 6.0 and EMUI version 4.1. If you're an Android die-hard its software tweaks and nuances might take some getting used to. Battery life looks set to be decent, too, with a 3,340mAh battery keeping things ticking along.
Battery:
The Honor 6X looks like a slightly smaller version of the Huawei Mate 9. It’s got a metal back, plastic top and bottom edges, a dual camera in vertical orientation and a fingerprint sensor on the back. The front is plain and all glass. It’s a simple, attractive design that’s more rounded and smoother than its predecessor, the 5X. It’s well made, with very little flex in the body. At 8.2mm thick the 6X is the same thickness as the 5X, but thinner by 1.6mm than the Moto G4 Plus. The 6X is also shorter by 4mm than the 5X, but whether you could tell that by looking at them is debatable.
It weighs 162g, which is actually heavier than the 158g 5X and the 155g Moto G4 Plus, but the curved back and rounded edges make it feel a lot nicer in the hand. It feels reassuringly heavy with good balance rather than being a lump. The 5.5in 1080p LCD screen is very good for a smartphone costing under 15000, and is improved over the 5X, although it doesn’t quite match up to the likes of Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s AMOLED displays in its S range. It looks relatively crisp, clear and colourful, with wide viewing angles. The included screen protector is useful, but sort of ruins the smooth glass curve down to the smartphone’s edges.
PERFORMANCE:
Powering the Honor 6X is HiSilicon’s Kirin 655 CPU, a brand-new mid-range processor that’s on a similar level to Snapdragon’s 625. It’s an efficient piece of silicon, and one that has enough power to comfortably perform many of the tasks you will want to throw at it. Performance was hassle free and largely the phone felt fast and fluid in our tests. It had an incredible responsive interface which worked well due to the tango between hardware and software as Huawei is responsible for the processor and the software customisation of Android. Multitasking was a breeze on the phone and we could have more than 15-20 apps open at the same time and we didn't face any hitch whatsoever.
The performance of the fingerprint scanner was a bit of revelation. It was easily one of the fastest ones we have tested at PCMag India and more than that, one can even swipe on it to control the user interface and tap on it to take selfies. Quite cool, we think.In terms of gaming too, this phone presented a very pleasant and consistent experience. While playing heavy duty games like Modern Warfare and Shadowgun, it didn’t heat up nor did it stutter much while showcasing some stunning graphics. Largely, frame rate drops were few and far in-between. And for the part, the phone did match up to the performance provided by some of the other phones in the price segment the Redmi Note 4, the Moto G4 Plus and the Lenovo K6 Power.While the performance of phone is good, the software experience isn't pleasant to say the least. Emotion UI built on top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow is an eye-sore to say the least. It also presents a plethora of usability issues most of which are related to how notifications are presented. That being said, in Q2, this phone will get the update to an new build of EMUI which is based on Android Nougat, which is seemingly a massive improvement.
The downward-firing speakers are adequate but easy to block. Call quality is good, but the microphones are noticeably weaker than Huawei’s phones, so expect wind to cause big problems.
The phone packs in a 3340mAh battery with support for fast charging. Using a 10W power adapter, we managed to get to a little more than 50 percent in an hour. During normal usage, we were able to easily go past a day on a single charge. In our HD video loop battery test, we went 11 hours and 54 minutes, which is good. Like its predecessor, the Honor 6X thankfully packs a sizeable battery, which Honor promises will last up to 2.2 days on a single charge. In our testing, we never quite made it that far, but it will happily endure a day of heavy use or two full workdays if pushed, whilst the fast charger will take the 3340mAh cell from empty to full in around two hours.
If there’s one weakness to the Honor 6X, it’s the software. It has an old version of Android 6 Marshmallow, not the current Android 7 Nougat, which for a new smartphone going on sale over four months after Nougat was released is pretty poor. At the same time Huawei makes modifications to the basic Android experience which are a mixed bag. Some tweaks such as aggressive control of background applications and notifications when they’re draining your battery are good.
The removal of the app drawer in favour of every app installed having to be on the home screen is not. Some people like Huawei’s so-called Emotion UI EMUI 4.1 in this case but many do not.
Honor 6x comes with EMUI 4.1 based on Android 6.0 — the interface is loaded with features and works great. All your apps and widgets are placed on multiple home panels (there is no app drawer) and you can swipe down to bring up the search box. You also get a split screen feature, display customization, one hand mode, power saving mode and an easy mode. A handy feature that deserves special mention is called WiFi bridge — you can use the phone as a WiFi extender to boost your WiFi’s range when required. Even the camera mode is loaded with multiple shoot modes including a Pro mode for manual settings. The EMUI 5.0 update for an upgrade to Android 7.0 is expected in Q2 2017. Overall, the Honor 6x will appeal to users who are looking for a feature-rich phone with a good camera. A direct competitor to the Honor 6x is the Coolpad Cool 1 (Rs 13,999). The CoolPad (by LeEco) has 4GB RAM, 4k video recording and fast charging support via USB Type-C.
Cameras:
The biggest talking point around the 6X has to be its dual camera arrangement, which brings the premium imaging capabilities of the Huawei P9, Mate 9 and Honor 8 to a more affordable price point. The dual camera on the back produces really quite good images, with accurate colour and a solid amount of detail in all conditions short of really poor light. The 12-megapixel sensor captures the images and the auxiliary 2-megapixel sensor below it captures depth information. Using the two, with a special wide-aperture mode, you can take a variable aperture photo for various blurring effects, but also refocus the picture after the fact.
The HDR mode is not built into the main shooting mode, and while it is easily one of the best cameras for the price, it won’t trouble the best there is available on a smartphone for sheer image quality. We go into more depth in the Honor 6X’s dedicated camera review, but in a nutshell, the camera’s functionality is really what shines, with intelligent tools like the ability to refocus shots after the fact and manual control over both stills and video.Image quality could unquestionably be better, however, with grain creeping in when shooting in auto in dimly lit environments.
Verdict:
With the 6X, Honor has once again proved that it has the ability to make superior camera phones. I have no doubts about Honor’s claims. But the company cannot sell a phone just on the basis of the camera alone. A display is equally important, so is the software. That’s not to say that the Honor 6X is a flawed phone. It does a lot of things well. The processor is fast and zippy; the phone hardly heats up (surprisingly). And let’s not forget the battery life that can last a day or maybe more. But in my opinion you are willing to spend Rs 14,999 for an attractive phone, consider the Lenovo Zuk Z2 Plus. It may not have a dual-camera setup, but for the mainstream consumer, it’s the better choice.
Honor 6x comes with EMUI 4.1 based on Android 6.0 — the interface is loaded with features and works great. All your apps and widgets are placed on multiple home panels (there is no app drawer) and you can swipe down to bring up the search box. You also get a split screen feature, display customization, one hand mode, power saving mode and an easy mode. A handy feature that deserves special mention is called WiFi bridge — you can use the phone as a WiFi extender to boost your WiFi’s range when required. Even the camera mode is loaded with multiple shoot modes including a Pro mode for manual settings. The EMUI 5.0 update for an upgrade to Android 7.0 is expected in Q2 2017. Overall, the Honor 6x will appeal to users who are looking for a feature-rich phone with a good camera. A direct competitor to the Honor 6x is the Coolpad Cool 1 (Rs 13,999). The CoolPad (by LeEco) has 4GB RAM, 4k video recording and fast charging support via USB Type-C.
Cameras:
The biggest talking point around the 6X has to be its dual camera arrangement, which brings the premium imaging capabilities of the Huawei P9, Mate 9 and Honor 8 to a more affordable price point. The dual camera on the back produces really quite good images, with accurate colour and a solid amount of detail in all conditions short of really poor light. The 12-megapixel sensor captures the images and the auxiliary 2-megapixel sensor below it captures depth information. Using the two, with a special wide-aperture mode, you can take a variable aperture photo for various blurring effects, but also refocus the picture after the fact.
The HDR mode is not built into the main shooting mode, and while it is easily one of the best cameras for the price, it won’t trouble the best there is available on a smartphone for sheer image quality. We go into more depth in the Honor 6X’s dedicated camera review, but in a nutshell, the camera’s functionality is really what shines, with intelligent tools like the ability to refocus shots after the fact and manual control over both stills and video.Image quality could unquestionably be better, however, with grain creeping in when shooting in auto in dimly lit environments.
Verdict:
With the 6X, Honor has once again proved that it has the ability to make superior camera phones. I have no doubts about Honor’s claims. But the company cannot sell a phone just on the basis of the camera alone. A display is equally important, so is the software. That’s not to say that the Honor 6X is a flawed phone. It does a lot of things well. The processor is fast and zippy; the phone hardly heats up (surprisingly). And let’s not forget the battery life that can last a day or maybe more. But in my opinion you are willing to spend Rs 14,999 for an attractive phone, consider the Lenovo Zuk Z2 Plus. It may not have a dual-camera setup, but for the mainstream consumer, it’s the better choice.
PROS and CONS:
Pros:
- Solid build quality
- Dual-SIM support
- MicroSD support
- Dual cameras
- Fast fingerprint reader
- Good price to performance ratio
Cons:
- EMUI feels unpolished
- No USB Type-C
- Weak speaker
- Washed out display
Key Specs:
- Screen size: 5.5-inches
- Screen resolution: Full HD (1920x1080)
- Weight: 162 grams
- OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow
- Rear Camera: 12/2-megapixels dual sensor
- Front camera: 8-megapixels
- Processor: 2.1GHz/1.7GHz octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 655
- Memory: 3GB RAM
- Storage: 32GB. Expandable via microSD up to 256GB
- 4G LTE: Yes
- Bonus features: Dual SIM, WiFi Bridge, Huawei SensorHub, fingerprint sensor
No comments:
Post a Comment