Honor 6X Launched But Faces Uphill Battle


Huawei’s sub-brand, Honor, announced the Honor 6X at CES yesterday, and although it does have dual cameras it also faces tough competition.

Last night at CES Honor unveiled the new Honor 6X smartphone and along with plans to launch the handset in high profile markets including India, however the new device will see tough competition from established rivals.

The Honor 6X is an all alloy smartphone with 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 FHD display, Kirin 655 SoC with 4 x 2.1Ghz Cortex A53 cores and 4 x 1.7Ghz cores plus Mali_T830MP2 GPU for graphical grunt. It’s no surprise to see this high-end mid-ranger has 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, 8 mega-pixel front camera nor a dual rear camera module.

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Like similar priced phones the rear cameras include a main 12 mega-pixel sensor for collecting the main image data, while a secondary 2 mega-pixel sensor works on building depth in to your photos.

It all looks rather good on paper, however one detail that many commenters were not happy about is the decision to launch the phone with Huawei’s own EMUI 4.1 which is based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. At the same time rivals are already updating to Android 7.0 and even Huawei devices have been receiving a vastly updates EMUI 5 based on Nougat, but we can only hope an update will come around sooner rather than later.

If the Honor 6X had launched last year then we would be all over this phone, but Xiaomi, Lenovo and LeEco all have equally good phones on the market at similar or lower pricing and those phones are available to buy now, it’s going to be a hard sell to get the Honor 6X in to many peoples hands until Android 7 comes along.

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26 Comments

  1. January 4, 2017

    how good is the kirin 655 compared to helio p20 and snapdragon 625? the mali GPU seems ratger weak, is it?

    • yalok
      January 5, 2017

      Definitely weaker in comparison to sd625.

      • January 5, 2017

        Specs are more than just numbers.
        Gaming performance may not be great, but guaranteed 2 years software updates, and great build quality, display and really awesome camera experience make it more than worthy to buy.

        • yalok
          January 5, 2017

          Don’t tell me, I’ve got honor 8 for myself.
          Still, if I was to choose between honor 6X and Xiaomi Redmi note 4X, I would get the latter.

          • January 6, 2017

            Funny how, when the Note 4X is still not available for sale. The Honor 6X is a great device to get now, there is always a better device coming, but you have to pick a phone.
            Btw, on Honor 8 myself 😀

            • yalok
              January 6, 2017

              A viable current alternative would be Redmi Note 3 Pro (Special Edition), that offers even better performance (CPU/GPU) and battery life at a lower price.

              Have you tried nougat beta on your honor 8? There is a thread on xda on how to do that without bootloader unlock.
              I’ve updated and it’s just as stable, but with more features, polish and fluidity.

            • January 9, 2017

              I’ll just wait for the stable stuff next month. Don’t go for beta builds, since I use my phone for work.
              Redmi Note 3 Pro is a good alternative at that price, but if going through your carrier or regular shops, they don’t sell Xiaomi there.
              Looking at what Sony, Samsung and LG have at that price point, the Honor 6X is a clear winner.

            • yalok
              January 9, 2017

              Considering how stable (I have yet to notice an issue) the latest beta is (it doesn’t even state that it’s beta anywhere in changelog or about section), I guess it will be released soon.

              About redmi note 3 pro, I agree, if one is to buy from a local shop, honor 6X will be a winner.
              In US there is a new competitor though, in face of ZTE Blade V8 Pro.

            • January 9, 2017

              That’s exactly my point, people always go Xiaomi, but not everyone can get one and some people don’t like it, which leaves you very little alternatives for a good performance at a low price with good build quality and software updates.
              People keep quoting Honor on the 5X Nougat delay, but it’s Qualcomm who are to blame, since they still haven’t updated their SD615 driver for Nougat, and that’s why we have no Nougat on Honor 5X.

      • Josef Izchaki
        August 17, 2017

        Completely untrue, and thus proven on speedtests vs. redmi note 4.

    • January 5, 2017

      Kirin 655 was meant to compete with SD617 and P10 and it is better than both, just lagging behind in gaming performance from the P20 and SD625, but then again, with that camera at 200$, can’t really complain much.

  2. kfjm254
    January 4, 2017

    how good is the kirin 655 compared to helio p20 and snapdragon 625? the mali GPU seems ratger weak, is it?

    • yalok
      January 5, 2017

      Definitely weaker in comparison to sd625.

    • Steven Fox
      January 5, 2017

      Specs are more than just numbers.
      Gaming performance may not be great, but guaranteed 2 years software updates, and great build quality, display and really awesome camera experience make it more than worthy to buy.

    • Steven Fox
      January 5, 2017

      Kirin 655 was meant to compete with SD617 and P10 and it is better than both, just lagging behind in gaming performance from the P20 and SD625, but then again, with that camera at 200$, can’t really complain much.

    • yalok
      January 5, 2017

      Don’t tell me, I’ve got honor 8 for myself.
      Still, if I was to choose between honor 6X and Xiaomi Redmi note 4X, I would get the latter.

    • Steven Fox
      January 6, 2017

      Funny how, when the Note 4X is still not available for sale. The Honor 6X is a great device to get now, there is always a better device coming, but you have to pick a phone.
      Btw, on Honor 8 myself 😀

    • yalok
      January 6, 2017

      A viable current alternative would be Redmi Note 3 Pro (Special Edition), that offers even better performance (CPU/GPU) and battery life at a lower price.

      Have you tried nougat beta on your honor 8? There is a thread on xda on how to do that without bootloader unlock.
      I’ve updated and it’s just as stable, but with more features, polish and fluidity.

    • Steven Fox
      January 9, 2017

      I’ll just wait for the stable stuff next month. Don’t go for beta builds, since I use my phone for work.
      Redmi Note 3 Pro is a good alternative at that price, but if going through your carrier or regular shops, they don’t sell Xiaomi there.
      Looking at what Sony, Samsung and LG have at that price point, the Honor 6X is a clear winner.

    • yalok
      January 9, 2017

      Considering how stable (I have yet to notice an issue) the latest beta is (it doesn’t even state that it’s beta anywhere in changelog or about section), I guess it will be released soon.

      About redmi note 3 pro, I agree, if one is to buy from a local shop, honor 6X will be a winner.
      In US there is a new competitor though, in face of ZTE Blade V8 Pro.

    • Steven Fox
      January 9, 2017

      That’s exactly my point, people always go Xiaomi, but not everyone can get one and some people don’t like it, which leaves you very little alternatives for a good performance at a low price with good build quality and software updates.
      People keep quoting Honor on the 5X Nougat delay, but it’s Qualcomm who are to blame, since they still haven’t updated their SD615 driver for Nougat, and that’s why we have no Nougat on Honor 5X.

    • Josef Izchaki
      August 17, 2017

      Completely untrue, and thus proven on speedtests vs. redmi note 4.

  3. yalok
    January 5, 2017

    Upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X looks more tempting.

  4. vijay sud
    January 5, 2017

    Huawei n Honor will have quite a fight in their hands at least in Indian market, with a tempting Sd 652, 4GB RAM Dual Cam Cool 1 in market for INR 13999. Unless Honor prices this right, it won’t be able to unseat the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and 4, which have gained a massive following in India.

  5. yalok
    January 5, 2017

    Upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X looks more tempting.

  6. vijay sud
    January 5, 2017

    Huawei n Honor will have quite a fight in their hands at least in Indian market, with a tempting Sd 652, 4GB RAM Dual Cam Cool 1 in market for INR 13999. Unless Honor prices this right, it won’t be able to unseat the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and 4, which have gained a massive following in India.