There are certain brands that have a certain stigma attached to them, sometimes good and other times not so good. Huawei were one of those brands who, in the past, had a reputation for building good quality but rather dull products! Not anymore though and they are now regarded as a company to follow, and one we should expect great things from.
Even with that in mind, actually getting our hands on the Huawei Honor 6 to review has been an eye-opening experience! The handset is a game changer, and in our opinion one of the best top-tier, mid-range smartphones on the market today!
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Focused onto the phone
Over the years, we have come to see some little signs in the packaging to mean great things. For example, it isn’t always a representation of value for money when you open a package and find a ton of accessories in side, but rather the phone maker’s attempt to distract you from something. On the other hand, if you open up a box to find the phone and little else, chances are the manufacturer are selling a device close to cost (real value for money). Don’t believe us? Take a look at the lack of accessories with the OPO, Xiaomi Mi4, Nubia Z7 etc.
The Huawei Honor 6 joins this category well with only the phone, USB wire, charger and two screen protectors in the box (for the front and rear of the glass phone). The lack of number, and earphones isn’t Huawei being cheap, its simply that they cannot offer them at such a competitive price with this level of hardware.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Look and feel
Huawei decided to go for a plastic body for the Honor 6, which is available in colors white and black – the latter being the one we have for review. The black front of our phone houses a few sensors, a status LED, a receiver speaker and a front camera as well as the 5-inch screen. Touch navigation buttons are not present, instead Huawei have gone for onscreen controls, this helps Huawei keep the length of the phone down and means that they can be seen at night. On screen controls are not to everyone’s taste, but I guess this is something we will have to get use to as most manufactures are offering this on their high-end devices.
That ‘metal’ frame around the phone is only their for looks and is actually plastic. It flows around the outside of the Huawei Honor 6 passing a Micro USB with OTG, dual SIM slots (protected from dust and debris with a cover), micro SD slot, and 3.5mm headphone jack.
To find dual SIM and a micro SD on a phone of this level is still quite rare, but slowly becoming more common. The dual SIM set up on the Huawei Honor 6 allows you to use dual 4G LTE SIMs if you wish, quite an impressive feature. Also impressive is the inclusion of an IR blaster for controlling your TV, AC etc at home.
There are conflicting reports about the material on the rear of the Huawei Honor 6. To us it looks like glass, and in fact many stores are advertising that the rear panel is glass. However, there are reports that it is in fact plastic. It feels and looks like glass to us, so we are either looking at a glass rear, or a very highly quality plastic. Either option is fine in our book.
Nestled in the glossy rear we can find dual LEDs for the main camera flash, the rear camera itself and an external speaker sitting just out of the way not to be covered while holding the phone in landscape mode.
Build quality is very good. As the phone is a unibody construction the whole thing is tight, and creak free even when pressure is applied. If we were to pick out an issue, it would be the rear camera placement. As it is so close to the sides it can be easy to get your finger in the shot, but keep reminding yourself this and you will soon remember.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: A good screen for a good phone
Nowadays, building good screens into phones has become a standard. Even the cheaper handsets provide good performance so we expected good things from the Huawei Honor 6 panel and were not let down. The Huawei Honor 6 boasts a 5-inch 1080p screen, featuring IPS and OGS technology, allowing for a thinner, lighter panel and improved viewing angles. Even a glove mode is present for easy use during cold days. There isn’t much left to say except the screen provides outstanding colors, brightness and contrast.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Let’s pop the Antutu balloon
The Huawei Honor 6 features the fantastic HiSilicon Kirin 920 SoC. This chipset features 8 CPU cores based on the ARM Cortex A7 architecture, four of them being clocked at 1.3GHz and another four at 1.7GHz. Within the handset this chipset is paired with a whopping 3GB of RAM and a Mali T624 GPU.
Now when it comes to Antutu, the SoC appears to be a real killer, reaching over 40k points. But please, don’t make the mistake of believing this chipset would be anything better than a Snapdragon 801 or even 800, because in fact it’s not. A quick test in other benchmarks soon reveals that all although Antutu scores are way up there, actual gaming and processing performance of the 920 isn’t on par with a Snapdragon 801/800.
Let us just explain you why. While a Snapdragon 800 or 801 both reach very similar scores as the HiSilicon Kirin 920 chipset in Antutu, the story is quite different with 3DMark for example. Here the Snapdragon 800 and 801 move around 18k to 21k points in the Ice Storm Unlimited benchmark, yet the Kirin 920 is staying on 14k points. This is quite a significant difference and does not even max out on the 1080p benchmark. So although a powerful SoC, it isn’t going to provide the same sort of graphical grunt as the high-end Qualcomm chip. With that said though, the self developed SoC is still an incredible piece of kit, much better an octcore MT6592 and we would hardly describe it as slow.
Gizchina News of the week
While the chipset can absolutely keep up with high-end chipsets like the Snapdragon 801 when it comes to the operating system UI, running apps and surfing the web, the whole thing looks different when playing games. Pop a demanding game on like Asphalt 8 or Real Racing 3 and we see notable frame rate differences. The games are still more than playable, but there is a difference here. The moral of the story being that Antutu really mean nothing these days.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: The ROM is a mix and match of the best of the rest
There are so many different Android ROMs available out there, and pretty much all try to be unique to a certain degree. Now Huawei have developed their own ROM as well, which is known as Emotion UI – or short: EMUI. This ROM comes pre-installed on the Huawei Honor 6 and is based on Android 4.4.2 KitKat and takes inspiration from some of the more popular ROMs out there.
It’s a nicely developed ROM with a touch of MIUI here, FunTouch there and even a dripping of Cyanogen for added flavour too. So we have an extremely feature rich ROM here, possibley among the most feature rich we have tested, the problem however is the design and bloat.
EMUI might seem a bit complicated and ugly to some. Huawei did a great job bringing together all these useful features, but they did a bad one while designing the UI. It somehow doesn’t look quite sleek and sometimes even a bit old-fashioned. A different theme or launcher can easily fix this but what it can’t fix is the pre-installed Chinese bloatware. Some of the features might be useful to some of us, but the option to remove the junk easily would have been nice.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Connection just the way we like it!
Finally a phone, which does everything the right way when it comes to reception quality. For 2G / 3G / 4G everything appears to be working just like it should. The positive results continued with testing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, both reached the best results possible. There is some Wi-Fi bug limiting the bandwidth to 7Mbit/s from time to time, but we didn’t really notice that until someone told us. In the end this little bug won’t be anything significant as long as you do not need to max out your Wi-Fi bandwidth, and even them just toggling the WIFI on and off fixed it.
Now the remaining part to talk about is GPS, and exactly this is reason for some folks to worry. GPS is a worry when it comes to Chinese phones, but the worry need not be applied with the Huawei Honor 6. 20 satellites in view, support for GLONASS and fix times of only 3 seconds. The Huawei Honor 6 performs amazing, easily on par with a Qualcomm chip.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Amazing Camera!
A 13 mega-pixel main camera and dual LED flash are becoming standard fare with high end Chinese phones, but the hardare Huawei is offering on the Honor 6 and the performance is amazing. Huawei could have easily marketed the Huawei Honor 6 as a camera centric device! It is that good!
Sharp images with vivid colors, amazingly fast shutter times and one of the most easy to use focuses for macro shots we’ve ever seen is exactly what this handset has to offer! Night and low-light performance quite remarkable as well. Acceptable noise levels and almost perfect close-ups at night using the LED flash will make this smart phone a delight for every mobile photography enthusiast. Recording videos unfortunately is only possible with 1080p at max. The quality of the is fine but never mind-blowing. The front cam features 5 mega pixels, enough for quick selfies and video chats, but nothing for serious portraits.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Battery porn!
The Huawei Honor 6 is advertised to come with a 3,100mAh non-replaceable battery. This is quite a lot considering the fact this 5-incher is only 8mm thin at 135g of weight.
During our test the Huawei Honor 6 lasted two days of heavy usage and reached up to 6-hours screen-on time. This is quite remarkable performance and means that the average phone user could possibly reach 3 days of battery life. If you take care about your energy consumption you could even go longer! Just to give you an idea of the energy consumption: Playing Real Racing 3 for two hours results in 40% battery consumption. Now try this with your Mediatek phone!
As you might guess, charging the cell takes a little longer. 3 hours on average. And please don’t use your phone during charging, this will significantly increase the time needed for charging.
Huawei Honor 6 Review: Conclusion
The Huawei Honor 6 really managed to surprise us as an overall package. While the performance isn’t quite at high-end level as a Qualcomm phone, it still manages every extremely well. This Huawei Honor 6 really does everything right: It gives you a perfect ratio of processing power and battery life, an amazing camera, as good as a compact camera, perfect reception quality on all networks all built in to an simple attractive body!
Considering all this and the fact that the price is still at an acceptable level at $389, the Huawei Honor 6 is an amazing deal! A great overall package and a phone that should be on your next smartphone shopping list. If we have to compare it, then I would say it is a stong rival to the OnePlus One, but with the added benefits of dual SIM, dual LTE standby, SD card and a faster camera!
What did you think of this review? Let us know in the comments section below!
Thanks to Coolicool for providing us with this amazing handset.
I loved this phone till I saw the price. I can’t see paying over $400 (re-seller prices) for a mid range phone when I can spend a little more and get a flagship.
Is there anyone with Kingzone K1 Turbo i really need to buy that phone as its build and appearence seems to be good. if so please can you explain to me the details of your experience with it
I was looking at that phone the other day online. Looking for a decent budget workphone and that one looks amazing (minus the lack of LTE).
sory for checking, but what is a flagship phone ? (can you give me examples?)
How did you install Google Play?
It came with Google Play pre-installed.
You can just download google play through the pre-installed Huawei app store software or just use an apk file to install.
How does it compares to Nubia z7 max?
Sadly It decode 4K H.265, but 4K recording is not supported.
I’m afraid, it doesn’t even decode. 4k Videos are not playable. It’s lagging quite a bit.
“To us it looks like glass, and in fact many stores are advertising that the rear panel is glass. However, there are reports that it is in fact glass”
Mistake? Sounds really funny
I find it a little surprising they still failed to keep up to Qualcomm on their home-baked processors. I have a phone running a K3V2, after seeing it apparently beat a Snapdragon S4 in Quadrant, and it was quite bad. Very laggy these days. Basically, if you’re looking for a phone with better CPU performance than the big guns, don’t judge just based on AnTuTu, as said in the article. Seems like a very good phone for the price, otherwise
There are some mistakes caused by Andi’s final editing. I will sort them out in a moment.
“Like the Xiaomi Mi4 the Huawei Honor 6 is a 2014 flagship..” – Save $15 on the Huawei Honor 6 – Posted on August 7, 2014 by abbey
Now, is this considered a flagship or a mid-range phone?
Both at the same time.
I would say it is a flagship and not a mid-ranger. Just take a look at 3 GB RAM and the camera.
It has been reviewed extensively here. I recommend you have a look at that:
http://anandtech.com/show/8425/huawei-honor-6-review
All in all, Huawei did an acceptable job, but the device falls short of expectations.
Anandtech gave the phone a very bad rating. What I can see so far on forums from other users, no one does agree with the review made by them.
Hey Christopher! Are you planning to review the Redmi note. I think a lot of people are interested in that device.
I guess it already has been features here on GizChina.
If this is a mid range then so would Mi4 fall under mid range. The Huawei headphones that come with inbox usually is crap anyway. Better to not waste on that. But they do sell the accessories version of Honor 6, in which they have included their latest honor headphones, with higher price (16GB-2299yuan; 32GB 2499yuan). Also the phone is 7.5mm thickness and they managed to put 3100mAh through better engineering feat (compare that to Mi4 which is 8.9mm and 3080mAh battery, and which does not have SD card slots nor dual sim unlike Honor 6).
With regards to UI, they are releasing the official version Emui3.0 on Honor 6 by this month or next month and its a way greater improvement. And unlike MIUI which is always riddled with bugs, Emui is more dependable. With Emui3.0 you can also have navigation buttons on the hardware by using a accompanying sticker that is placed on the bottom portion as well as top corners and these stickers can be programmed to perform the desired function on touching it. I have the desire to get a Honor 6 but im still waiting for the higher clocked version to be released.
My only question to you is, have you held the P7 hands on and how would you compare it to Honor 6 in terms of feel and built quality ? To me a premium feel is quite important and i wonder if Honor 6 could deliver that.
I didn’t have my hands on the Huawei Ascend P7, but it for sure features a higher build quality. It’s supposed to be a premium phone after all.
I loved this phone till I saw the price. I can’t see paying over $400 (re-seller prices) for a mid range phone when I can spend a little more and get a flagship.
Is there anyone with Kingzone K1 Turbo i really need to buy that phone as its build and appearence seems to be good. if so please can you explain to me the details of your experience with it
sory for checking, but what is a flagship phone ? (can you give me examples?)
I was looking at that phone the other day online. Looking for a decent budget workphone and that one looks amazing (minus the lack of LTE).
How did you install Google Play?
It came with Google Play pre-installed.
You can just download google play through the pre-installed Huawei app store software or just use an apk file to install.
How does it compares to Nubia z7 max?
Why there is no information about Honor 6 on the official websites Huawei?
You are probably looking at a website for a country this phone isn’t being distributed in by Huawei.
I’m lookin at country (various), global sites (e.g. http://consumer.huawei.com/en/support/index.htm) and I can’t find Tech spec, Manual etc. Where are the official informations about this Huawei product?
See honor.cn and vmall.com
Thanks 🙂
Sadly It decode 4K H.265, but 4K recording is not supported.
I’m afraid, it doesn’t even decode. 4k Videos are not playable. It’s lagging quite a bit.
“To us it looks like glass, and in fact many stores are advertising that the rear panel is glass. However, there are reports that it is in fact glass”
Mistake? Sounds really funny
I find it a little surprising they still failed to keep up to Qualcomm on their home-baked processors. I have a phone running a K3V2, after seeing it apparently beat a Snapdragon S4 in Quadrant, and it was quite bad. Very laggy these days. Basically, if you’re looking for a phone with better CPU performance than the big guns, don’t judge just based on AnTuTu, as said in the article. Seems like a very good phone for the price, otherwise
There are some mistakes caused by Andi’s final editing. I will sort them out in a moment.
“Like the Xiaomi Mi4 the Huawei Honor 6 is a 2014 flagship..” – Save $15 on the Huawei Honor 6 – Posted on August 7, 2014 by abbey
Now, is this considered a flagship or a mid-range phone?
Both at the same time.
I would say it is a flagship and not a mid-ranger. Just take a look at 3 GB RAM and the camera.
It has to be said, pricing is a bit steep.
Add reseller fee for international customers and the price goes well over 400 dollar. Not sure if it really makes up for that…
i paid 370$ for it,no other expenses.
Where did you buy from?
vickmall.com
Thank you
It has been reviewed extensively here. I recommend you have a look at that:
http://anandtech.com/show/8425/huawei-honor-6-review
All in all, Huawei did an acceptable job, but the device falls short of expectations.
Anandtech gave the phone a very bad rating. What I can see so far on forums from other users, no one does agree with the review made by them.
Hey Christopher! Are you planning to review the Redmi note. I think a lot of people are interested in that device.
I guess it already has been features here on GizChina.
i guess it wont work on o2 in the uk, as the frequency is 800HMz and it doesnt show it as supporting that frequncy…. bummer. or can it be change in engineering mode?
sorry meant to say LTE support (4G) 😉
“Touch navigation buttons are not present”
That’s not true anymore, have a look: http://i.imgur.com/pMKwLEP.png
To the people saying that they don’t want to pay over 400 usd for it: I bought it for 374.99$ on Aliexpress (16 GB version)
still,a special “film” is needed
Do you believe it? I think it will work without the film too, you just won’t be able to easily spot the buttons.
once the position gets memorized,problem solved.
although i could get the job done with the floating button.
if only it had a switch app option…
If this is a mid range then so would Mi4 fall under mid range. The Huawei headphones that come with inbox usually is crap anyway. Better to not waste on that. But they do sell the accessories version of Honor 6, in which they have included their latest honor headphones, with higher price (16GB-2299yuan; 32GB 2499yuan). Also the phone is 7.5mm thickness and they managed to put 3100mAh through better engineering feat (compare that to Mi4 which is 8.9mm and 3080mAh battery, and which does not have SD card slots nor dual sim unlike Honor 6).
With regards to UI, they are releasing the official version Emui3.0 on Honor 6 by this month or next month and its a way greater improvement. And unlike MIUI which is always riddled with bugs, Emui is more dependable. With Emui3.0 you can also have navigation buttons on the hardware by using a accompanying sticker that is placed on the bottom portion as well as top corners and these stickers can be programmed to perform the desired function on touching it. I have the desire to get a Honor 6 but im still waiting for the higher clocked version to be released.
My only question to you is, have you held the P7 hands on and how would you compare it to Honor 6 in terms of feel and built quality ? To me a premium feel is quite important and i wonder if Honor 6 could deliver that.
I didn’t have my hands on the Huawei Ascend P7, but it for sure features a higher build quality. It’s supposed to be a premium phone after all.
Why there is no information about Honor 6 on the official websites Huawei?
You are probably looking at a website for a country this phone isn’t being distributed in by Huawei.
I’m lookin at country (various), global sites (e.g. http://consumer.huawei.com/en/support/index.htm) and I can’t find Tech spec, Manual etc. Where are the official informations about this Huawei product?
See honor.cn and vmall.com
Thanks 🙂
It has to be said, pricing is a bit steep.
Add reseller fee for international customers and the price goes well over 400 dollar. Not sure if it really makes up for that…
i paid 370$ for it,no other expenses.
Where did you buy from?
vickmall.com
Thank you
i guess it wont work on o2 in the uk, as the frequency is 800HMz and it doesnt show it as supporting that frequncy…. bummer. or can it be change in engineering mode?
sorry meant to say LTE support (4G) 😉
“Touch navigation buttons are not present”
That’s not true anymore, have a look:
To the people saying that they don’t want to pay over 400 usd for it: I bought it for 374.99$ on Aliexpress (16 GB version)
still,a special “film” is needed
Do you believe it? I think it will work without the film too, you just won’t be able to easily spot the buttons.
once the position gets memorized,problem solved.
although i could get the job done with the floating button.
if only it had a switch app option…
This comparison chart puts things in perspective:
Xiaomi Mi 4 vs Huawei Honor 6 vs ZTE nubia Z7: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Heroes-of-might-and-cheap-Xiaomi-Mi-4-vs-Huawei-Honor-6-vs-ZTE-nubia-Z7-mini-specs-comparison_id58473
This comparison chart puts things in perspective:
Xiaomi Mi 4 vs Huawei Honor 6 vs ZTE nubia Z7: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Heroes-of-might-and-cheap-Xiaomi-Mi-4-vs-Huawei-Honor-6-vs-ZTE-nubia-Z7-mini-specs-comparison_id58473
Is this phone have better camera than Oppo f7a? Am currently using oppo f7a and thinking of selling it as Oppo is bad at supporting their devices. Find 7a is still on 4.3jb which is f#ckin ridiculous IMO!
Oppo Find 7a has the better camera.
Is this phone have better camera than Oppo f7a? Am currently using oppo f7a and thinking of selling it as Oppo is bad at supporting their devices. Find 7a is still on 4.3jb which is f#ckin ridiculous IMO!
Oppo Find 7a has the better camera.
The UI looks ugly. Is there any Call / SMS blacklist feature?? And how much is the price?
Emui 3.0 UI is clean, consistent and modern looking. You’d love it. The Emui2.3 was like a half baked job.
Yes there is blacklist feature.
Price in china is 1999Yuan for 16gb (no NFC) and 2299 Yuan for 32Gb (with NFC).
oh great to hear there’s an NFC version … but at that price it would be hard to sell because it competes with mi4 and oneplus1 which has flagship class spec.
Mi4 and Honor 6 are equal on specs and becomes a matter of choosing between what negatives you can deal with more. While Honor 6 beats the one plus more easily.
Snapdragon 801 and an octa core A7 chipset is in no way on par. Even Gizchina stated it as mid-range while both mi4 and oneplus1 are considered as high end.
Its not in par only in terms of GPU. It does not make the performance of Kirin 920 less of a flagship in other departments as well as in real world usage, as a flagship is not argued just based on slight GPU performance.
Honor 6 is thinner and lighter, has Cat6 LTE, Dual sim, and SD card slot, all lacking on Mi4. Im also expecting Honor 6 will have much better battery life because of various engineering and software implementations on the Honor6.. So all these make up for the slight gaming performance (most likely unnoticeable) gain Mi4 might have.
Would be great to have a comparative review between Honor 6, Xiaomi Mi4, Meizu MX4, Nubia Z7 mini, VIvo Xshot, Sony Z3 compact and any other beast phone around the 5inch screen size.
The UI looks ugly. Is there any Call / SMS blacklist feature?? And how much is the price?
Emui 3.0 UI is clean, consistent and modern looking. You’d love it. The Emui2.3 was like a half baked job.
Yes there is blacklist feature.
Price in china is 1999Yuan for 16gb (no NFC) and 2299 Yuan for 32Gb (with NFC).
oh great to hear there’s an NFC version … but at that price it would be hard to sell because it competes with mi4 and oneplus1 which has flagship class spec.
Mi4 and Honor 6 are equal on specs and becomes a matter of choosing between what negatives you can deal with more. While Honor 6 beats the one plus more easily.
Snapdragon 801 and an octa core A7 chipset is in no way on par. Even Gizchina stated it as mid-range while both mi4 and oneplus1 are considered as high end.
Snapdragon 801 and an octa core A7 chipset is in no way on par. Even Gizchina stated it as mid-range while both mi4 and oneplus1 are considered as high end.
Its not in par only in terms of GPU. It does not make the performance of Kirin 920 less of a flagship in other departments as well as in real world usage, as a flagship is not argued just based on slight GPU performance.
Honor 6 is thinner and lighter, has Cat6 LTE, Dual sim, and SD card slot, all lacking on Mi4. Im also expecting Honor 6 will have much better battery life because of various engineering and software implementations on the Honor6.. So all these make up for the slight gaming performance (most likely unnoticeable) gain Mi4 might have.
Would be great to have a comparative review between Honor 6, Xiaomi Mi4, Meizu MX4, Nubia Z7 mini, VIvo Xshot, Sony Z3 compact and any other beast phone around the 5inch screen size.
Great post. It’s a shame that 4G frequency doesn’t work in Brazil.
Great post. It’s a shame that 4G frequency doesn’t work in Brazil.
Andi,
I am eagerly waiting for a Huawei Ascend Mate 7 review .
Please do it as soon as possible .
Andi,
I am eagerly waiting for a Huawei Ascend Mate 7 review .
Please do it as soon as possible .
Nice Review…I have seen in an another review that the back panel is neither glass nor scratch resistant and is easily damaged..also slippery..how do you feel?
Nice Review…I have seen in an another review that the back panel is neither glass nor scratch resistant and is easily damaged..also slippery..how do you feel?
honor 6 can record calling native?
honor 6 can record calling native?
What version is reviewed here? As the reviewer mentions both Sims can be 4g active. I have asked retailers before purchasing and they all tell 2nd Sun van vannly be usd in 2g mode. This is really important for me as I need signal for with and dataandsonal phone….
wondering what version of this phone was reviewed here? everytime I go to buy, I ask the retailer whether the dual sim will work with 4G on both sims, and they say no (unlike review here) that the secondary sim is 2G only….I really need data for both sims as one is work and one is personal…..
What version is reviewed here? As the reviewer mentions both Sims can be 4g active. I have asked retailers before purchasing and they all tell 2nd Sun van vannly be usd in 2g mode. This is really important for me as I need signal for with and dataandsonal phone….
wondering what version of this phone was reviewed here? everytime I go to buy, I ask the retailer whether the dual sim will work with 4G on both sims, and they say no (unlike review here) that the secondary sim is 2G only….I really need data for both sims as one is work and one is personal…..