Huawei Honor 6x

Honor 6x is a perfect example of providing high-end features in an affordable handset. Priced at Rs. 9,999 – Honor 6x is an accomplished phone that is looking to make a mark in the budget flagship market.

Honor 6x makes sure that it covers all its bases adequately. It comes out in the market looking good and keeps the internals consistent with its premium build – strong processor, long-lasting battery and a great camera. It is a capable phone for any budget user wanting to dabble with the flagship features at a low price.

Huawei Honor 6x has a metal chassis with a satin finish that is smooth and has a great feel in your hand. However, it makes the back a bit slippery to grip, and the curves on the side are kept smooth, making it even more difficult to hold on to. While it may not be handy, aesthetically, it looks premium. The fingerprint scanner is cushioned at the back and is quick at scanning your finger. It is lightweight too. While it is not the best design for grip, the body is crafted well and is a looker.

Honor 6X comes with a 5.5-inch display, with thick top and bottom bezels but slight side bezels, giving enough screen space to work with. It has adequate brightness level to be legible outdoors in the sun. Honor 6X got a brightness level of 444 nits which is better than the 440 nits registered by LeEco LE S3 but much lesser than Moto G4 Plus’ 530 nits. However, it is above the smartphone average of 431 nits.

The viewing angles are good and do not produce different tones when looked at the display from the corner. The full-HD (1920 x 1080) resolution makes sure that no visible jaggies around icons and texts could be seen. The colour reproduction is quite accurate.

The Honor 6X has the Huawei-made processor Kirin 655. It is a mid-range octa-core processor with four Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at 2.1GHz for heavy tasks and the other four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz for light applications. It is partnered with a Mali-T830 GPU. Against the equivalent Snapdragon 625, the Kirin records 20-25% slower points. Benchmark shows it can beat Honor 5X, getting past 5X’s score of 3,105 and getting 3,275. It was also able to beat its rival Moto G4 Plus which capped at 3,047. It could run games smoothly without any noticeable hiccups. Multitasking is easily handled as well. The phone does not heat up easily which is a great feat for any phone. However, there might be slight slowdowns with the manual settings of the camera app.

Honor 6X has a rear dual-camera setup. The primary 12MP camera is partnered with a 2MP camera used for depth sensing. The primary camera supports PDAF. The autofocus is fast and mostly accurate. Bokeh effects are quite sound, but you have to frame the subjects properly to get excellent bokeh. In adequate light situations, the captured images have accurate colours and good details. Close-ups produce sharp images.

In low-light, the focus speed drops though the camera does not get too sluggish. However, the objects appear grainy, and a bit of visual noise is captured.

The front 8MP camera on the Honor 6X captures sharp selfies in ample light and is better than LeEco Le S3, but low-light selfies struggle and produces grainy images.

The Honor 6X records videos that go up to 1080p. It has decent quality, but the framerates are not as steady as expected.

The phone comes with a juicy 3340 mAh battery. It can easily go more than a day on a single charge if it is not subjected to intensive use. An HD video loop battery test found it going to 11 hours and 54 minutes which is above average. It comes with fast charging – and can get to 50% in an hour.

As a budget phone, Honor 6X does get it right in all the aspects. It will attract you with its looks, but it doesn’t back down in any other areas either, offering excellent performance and a delightful fast-charging battery. The camera may not be a killer for low-light photography, but day-light photography is a beauty. However, if you are used to high-end phones, Honor 6X will be a disappointment. A good alternative is the Redmi Note 4, which packs an excellent battery for those who want more juice in their phone.