Introduction
As more and more people buy smartphones online, the budget segment is becoming increasingly popular. Last year, Honor's 5X was met with much acclaim; it offered value-added features for a price that didn't break the bank.
Fast forward a whole year, Honor has taken the budget phone and refined its attention to detail to attract more of those millennials the company loves to target. While the millennial demographic is (arguably) too large of a group to target, we'll be able to tell you who this phone is (or isn't) for.
Honor's tagline for the 5X, last year, was "no nonsense." By contrast, the Honor 6X's tagline is "double or nothing" which is a direct reference to the smartphone's dual cameras, something entirely unheard of for midrange devices, especially in the sub-$300 market segment.
Keep in mind, that the 6X will keep most of the same compromises that the 5X made to keep the cost down. The display is still of the 5.5-inch, 1080p flavor, there's still a microUSB port and no Quick Charge capability, and there's still no NFC. We're glad to see the display panel received an update; its colors and viewing angles are improved over the Honor 5X. Likewise, the body's lines and seams are 'curvier' than its predecessor, making for a nicer experience in-hand.
Key Features
- 5.5-inch 108p (1920 x 1080px) LTPS display @ 403ppi
- Android Marshmallow + EMUI 4.1
- HiSilicon Kirin 655 CPU: Octa-core CPU (4x 2.1GHz + 4x 1.7GHz)
- 32GB or 64GB of Internal storage; expandable via microSD up to 128GB
- 3GB or 4GB of RAM (depending on internal storage amount)
- Dual camera 12MP RGB + 2MP depth sensor + LED Flash; Wide aperture mode simulates up to f/0.95 aperture, face detection, video recording up to 1080p @ 30fps
- 8MP selfie camera; up to 1080p @ 30fps
- LTE Cat6: 300/50 Mbps, Wi-Fi b/g/n @ 2.4GHz, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/AGPS/Glonass/BeiDou, FM Radio
- 3,340 mAh battery; 5V@2A charger
- On-screen nav buttons, rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, 3.5mm headphone jack
Main shortcomings
- No NFC or quick charging
- Marshmallow out of the box (for now)
- No USB-C port
- No 5GHz Wi-Fi
- Arguably bland design
The lack of a proper Quick Charge implementation (more than 10W) might be a deal-breaker for some, though, the larger battery size somewhat justifies it. We'll be testing the charge speed, as well as the battery life. Honor claims its phone can deliver up to 2.2 days of normal usage and 1.5 days of heavy usage. Our real world battery endurance has been quite good so far, so we expect it to receive a great-to-excellent score in our own endurance test.
Honor did raise the price of the 6X just a bit, but the company will be holding a few more flash sales before the end of January, a marketing tactic popular in China. The price of the 6X will be knocked down by $50 for limited quantities a total of four times in January, if you've missed the first couple of flash sales, you can sign up to be notified when the next one is.
Our initial impressions of the camera have been pretty good, so we can't wait to put the Honor 6X's camera through various situations. With mobile camera technology becoming cheaper to produce, we can expect these extra value smartphones to perform much better than they did in the past couple of years, particularly when you throw a dual-camera setup into the mix.
Let's start off the Honor 6X properly: by unboxing it and taking a closer look at the hardware.
Unboxing
The Honor 6X comes in pretty much the same packaging as the Honor 5X. A teal box with Honor's branding, and an ordinary packaging layout. We really liked the way the Honor 8 was packaged, though, given the price difference, Honor didn't put as much effort into the unboxing experience.
Retail box
Under the box's lid is the phone itself, which comes in either Silver, Gray, or Gold; we were able to get both the Gray and Silver variants, and our personal preferences lean towards the gray one.
Box contents
Putting the phone aside, all that comes included with the phone is a 5V @ 2A charger, and a microUSB cable. Between the phone and the charger is a warranty card and a SIM tool.
Design and Hardware
We'll be taking a look at the silver model since the white bezel lets us see the sensors and branding a little better. Not to mention the "fake" screen bezel has been kept to a minimum, so we are glad to see that. Otherwise, Honor took our advice and put its branding on the bottom bezel, which otherwise looked like wasted space on the 5X. The bottom bezel is still quite large, which is one of the reasons we like the Gray model over the silver one.
Honor 6X compared to Honor 5X: 3/4 view • Bottom • Side • Back
The phone itself feels quite dense when you first pick it up. Honor didn't skimp on the materials or battery size when building the 6X. In fact, the Honor 6X weighs in at 162g, just a little more than the 5X's 158g. Likewise, the dimensions are pretty much spot-on with the 5X at 150.9 x 76.2 x 8.2mm.
Front • Bottom bezel
The only thing about the front of the Honor 6X that might have your friends asking you about it is the "Honor" branding on the bottom bezel, but that's only for the simple fact that many people (particularly in the US) have never heard of this brand. Otherwise, the phone is pretty bland-looking on the front.
You have your standard array of sensors, including a front-facing 8MP camera, ambient light sensor for screen brightness adjustment, proximity sensor, and an RGB-LED notification light is placed behind the glass.
Top bezel
A rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is just below the camera module (which protrudes just a little bit), which is arranged in a stacked configuration next to a single LED Flash. Anyway, the back of the phone has these bumpers where radios and antennas are located behind to let signals pass through. These bumpers appear to hold the body of the phone together with adhesive, a departure from the screws on the bottom that the 5X and Honor 8 had.
Back view • Corner view (gray) • Corner view (silver) • camera view
The backside also lacks a wow factor. Although the smooth, matte metal finish feels nice in hand, it's prone to smudges and fingerprints. In fact, you should probably keep it in a case, we don't recall when this corner of the phone got scuffed, but it did. Also, the plastic coating is pretty thin; we can't imagine a deep scratch on either bumper would look any better.
Gray model's bumper scuffed at the corner
Bumper material aside, the bumpers, bezel, and back plate all meld together nicely, the seams are there, of course, but they don't protrude as to dig into your palm or anything like that. The phone feels pebble-like since corners and edges have been smoothed out.
Bottom • Top
The bottom bumper keeps the game grille layout that's found in a lot of smartphones these days. The grille to the left side of the microUSB port is an in-call mic, while the one on the right side is a loudspeaker. At the top of the phone, there are a 3.5mm headphone jack and a noise-cancelling mic. We'll be putting the phone's noise canceling capabilities to the test.
Left view • SIM trays
The left side of the phone has no physical buttons, only a hybrid SIM tray. A change from the Honor 5X is the removal of the second card tray. The 6X uses a hybrid SIM card tray: a slot for a nanoSIM and a second slot that accommodates only either one microSD card or a second nanoSIM card. Last year's 5X was able to accommodate two SIM cards and a microSD card, so that's a downgrade.
The right side of the phone is home to the phone's only physical buttons which are arranged all on the right side of the body. The buttons themselves click with enough tactile feedback and are quite satisfying to press. Keep in mind that a double-press of the volume-down key will launch the camera and snap a photo, all in a single go.
Synthetic benchmarks
The Honor 6X is equipped with 3GB or 4GB, depending on the market and amount of internal storage available. This amount of RAM is nicely paired with a Huawei's in-house, HiSilicon CPU offering: The Kirin 655 octa-core chip. This chip consists of two quad-core clusters: four performing cores clocked to 2.1GHz + four efficient cores clocked to 1.7GHz.
This chip comes with an i5 co-processor which is able to take over more specific tasks that require minimal power such as counting steps, low-power MP3 playback, and speech recognition. This helps to squeeze as much juice out of the 3,340 mAh battery as possible.
Honor has also outlined maintenance features within the UI which manages file fragmentation and purges unnecessary files to keep the smartphone running just as it did the first day it was removed from its box. This is similar to what Huawei offered with the Huawei Mate 9. And the 6X's Nougat update should improve on this aspect.
Let's take a look at the Kirin 655 next to some other mid-range devices that utilize various mid-range processors like the Snapdragon 430, Snapdragon 617, Helio P10, and a couple of higher-level Snapdragon chips.
Let's start with an overall benchmark test, Antutu 6, which takes into account RAM, graphics, storage, multitasking, and raw CPU power. The Honor 6X was bested by the Alcatel IDOL 4S and the Huawei Nova. We threw the IDOL 4S in there to check out how the Kirin 655 performs against the higher-end Snapdragon 652 and the Huawei Nova performed better than the 6X, even though the Nova has a Kirin 650 CPU.
AnTuTu 6
Higher is better
In the Basemark OS 2.0 test where the playing field is more level, the Honor 6X topped out all the other mid-range devices (minus the Snapdragon 652-powered IDOL 4S). Like the Antutu 6 test result, here we can see that the Honor 6X out-performs the 5X by about one-third. Keep an eye on the Huawei Nova which runs a Snapdragon 625. This is more or less the Snapdragon equivalent to the Kirin 655.
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
In multi-core performance, the Kirin 655 in the 6X beats even the Snapdragon 652 in the Alcatel IDOL 4S. The Honor 5X scored about the same as the Lenovo K6 Note, even though the K6 Note runs a lower-end Snapdragon 430 CPU.
Single-core results flip the top three multi-core scores around. A single core in the SD 652 easily outperforms lower-end CPUs. The SD 652 does have four larger Cortex-A72 cores while the Kirin 655 uses a total of eight Cortex-A53 cores.
GeekBench 4 (multi-core)
Higher is better
GeekBench 4 (single-core)
Higher is better
GFX bench uses various GPU-intensive scenes to score the graphics performance of devices. The playing field is even more level when using the 'offscreen' versions of the benchmark. It renders the graphic evenly across devices as to more accurately compare test results across devices with varying resolutions.
The Honor 6X scored more than most, in the various GPU tests. It topped the charts across the board, but it did have the IDOL 4S sweating a bit in the offscreen Car scene test. The onscreen test is where things take a different turn, the IDOL 4S performed slower than the 6X did because the IDOL 4S has a QuadHD resolution screen (more than twice the pixels to push). Moving more pixels around results in slower graphics performance.
GFX 3.1 Car scene (offscreen)
Higher is better
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
The Huawei Nova did better with graphics than the 6X did, although the performance of these two devices is pretty much on par with each other. Like the Basemark OS II 2.0 test, the Honor 6X is still about a third better than the 5X in overall performance. Likewise, we can expect the Kirin 655 to perform about the same as the Snapdragon 625.
Basemark X
Higher is better
Basemark X (medium)
Higher is better
Even so, don't expect to play many graphic-intensive games along the likes of Asphalt 8, or Riptide 3, as you might find them more enjoyable on higher-end devices. Still, this phone, like many other midrange devices, is quite capable of playing all kinds of casual and high-profile games.
Likewise, everyday performance is cake for this phone. The Honor 6X, like many phones with Huawei's in-house chips, runs quite cool during prolonged use. When playing games from extended amounts of time, you can expect warmth to the touch. We've seen phones get much warmer in the past.
Switching between apps or simultaneously updating a multitude of apps presents no challenge for the Honor 6X's Kirin 655. Heck, it even powers up pretty fast. Huawei has done a wonderful job with the software-to-hardware optimization of its UI.
Final words
The Honor 6X carries on the same philosophy that the company introduced with the 5X: create a smartphone with a satisfying price-to-value ratio (also known as "bang for buck" ratio). The Honor 6X makes some compromises, perhaps not all that power users would appreciate, but EMUI should offer enough customization and control to satisfy these users.
This smartphone was improved in almost every aspect over the Honor 5X - metal design, battery life, display quality, ergonomics, and performance. Just one major aspect was left out - the camera. We feel as though the 13MP camera sensor on the original 5X, as well as the front facing camera, took photos with better dynamic range and more details. The main camera's HDR mode also resulted with better photos than the 6X's.
If you're expecting an iPhone 7 Plus-like experience with the dual-camera setup on the 6X, you'll be quite disappointed. The camera is decent enough, but it ain't no iPhone. Wide aperture shots are surely becoming popular these days, especially with the 7 Plus' portrait mode, and the wide-aperture mode in the Honor 6X is definitely a welcome feature in phones of this price range, though it won't be the only one for long. ZTE is bringing the Blade V8 Pro to the US for $230 with dual-13MP cameras.
Honor priced the 6X $50 higher than the 5X at launch, though, it will be holding a total of four flash sales in January which knock the price down to $199. But before we tell you if it's worth your investment, let's talk about who this device is for.
Huawei Honor 6X key test findings:
- Improved metal build, refined design with new ergonomics.
- LTPS display is brighter at 550+ nits with better color accuracy and viewing angles over previous model.
- Battery endurance is a rock-solid 84h, even longer with power save mode enabled. We just wish the phone supported some kind of fast-charging to top up that battery more quickly.
- EMUI 4.1 offers extensive settings, options, and features, but is layered over a slightly dated Android Marshmallow, though Honor promises to update the 6X to Nougat with EMUI 5.0 in Q2 2017.
- Fingerprint scanner is quick with excellent accuracy.
- Solid performance from HiSilicon's Kirin 655 CPU and Huawei's software optimizations are paying off, this thing breezes through everyday tasks .
- Loudspeaker scored 'Good' in loudness test, with below average dynamic range and tinny-distortion at higher volumes.
- Audio output quality is decent with the headphones and offers loud volume levels.
- The 12MP camera samples had below-average dynamic range, washed-out colors, and muddled textures. Photos tend to look underexposed as the camera tries to avoid clipping the highlights when metering the exposure. Wide-aperture mode takes advantage of the 2MP depth sensor, and the camera experience was quick, overall.
- Front facing camera worked well enough, though dynamic range suffers in more drastic changes to ambient light. Otherwise, details are mostly lost in selfie backgrounds.
- 1080p videos look better regarding color accuracy and exposure and record in Audio. Otherwise, the phone offers no version of video stabilization.
The Honor 6X is great for anyone who doesn't mind EMUI's layout and design language. If you hated EMUI 4.1 Marshmallow, make sure you give EMUI 5.0 a change. The overall appearance and execution are cooperatively better. Otherwise, if you don't mind the lack of a USB-C port, quick charging, and dual-band Wi-Fi, you'll have a great time with the Honor 6X.
A large number of competitors exist in with comparable specs in this class of smartphones. A popular segment among Chinese manufacturers - the phones with 5.5" 1080p displays - are numerous and there are contenders of all price ranges. The first competitor we'll mention is the one set out to seek and destroy Honor in its own game.
The ZTE Blade V8 Pro was announced shortly after Honor announced the 6X at CES and it offers near-identical specs for a lower price. The Blade V8 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 625 chipset, it packs 3GB of RAM, 3,000+ mAh battery, and a front-facing fingerprint scanner under the screen.
What really pins the two phones up against each other is the presence of USB-C and Quick Charge 2.0, NFC, and 5GHz Wi-Fi, none of which exist on the 6X. Not to mention, there's also a dual-13MP camera setup, all for a price of $230. That's $20 cheaper than the Honor 6X. Though it does come with Marshmallow, for now, the Blade V8 Pro will need a comparable software experience to compete with the 6X.
No comments:
Post a Comment