Re White

Unboxing

The Honor 6X comes in pretty much the same packaging as the Honor 5X. A teal box with Honors branding, and an ordinary packaging layout. We really liked the way the Honor 8 was packaged, though, given the price difference, Honor didnt put as much effort into the unboxing experience.

Retail box

Under the boxs 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

Well 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 didnt skimp on the materials or batter y size when building the 6X. In fact, the Honor 6X weighs in at 162g, just a little more than the 5Xs 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 thats 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, its prone to smudges and fingerprints. In fact, you should probably keep it in a case, we dont recall when this corner of the phone got scuffed, but it did. Also, the plastic coating is pretty thin; we cant imagine a deep scratch on either bumper would look any better.

Gray models 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 dont protrude as to dig into your palm or anything like that. The phone feels pebble-like since corners and edges h ave been smoothed out.

Bottom • Top

The bottom bumper keeps the game grille layout thats 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. Well be putting the phones noise canceling capabilities to the test.

Left view • SIM trays

The left side of the phone has no physical buttons, only a hybrid SI M 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 years 5X was able to accommodate two SIM cards and a microSD card, so thats a downgrade.

The right side of the phone is home to the phones 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.

Right side • Closeup of buttons

Display

This display is 5.5 inches in diagonal at 1080p resolution, which calculates to 403 ppi. The Honor 6Xs display is definitely superior to that of the 5X. The updated panel brings better color accuracy, as well as improved brightness, better viewing angles, darker blacks, and Honor says this panel is about 10% more efficient than those found on previous-generation Honor products.

This display is of an LTPS nature which typically runs cooler than its LCD counterparts. The displays colors look great, though, lines are crisp, and text is sharp. When using Auto brightness adjustment, the screen wont get any brighter in direct sunlight, but the screens driver will adjust contrasts and temperatures so that the screen contents are better visible in sunlight. Weve seen that on other phones as well.

The panel on the Honor 6X also goes quite bright for its category, reaching a maximum brightness of 579nits. Color accuracy wasnt too bad either with an average deltaE of 5.6 and a maximum deltaE at 7.9 on the white spectrum. This is the result of whites looking slightly cooler than they are.

We had a second unit, so we decided to test it for color accuracy as well. Average deltaE was better on this unit at 4.5 while the max deltaE was 7.6 @ Orange-yellow.

Otherwise, screen brightness is quite good on this new generation of LTPS panels, easily reaching past 550nits. A screen that reaches a brightness of 500 nits is plenty bright for viewing in direct sunlight.

The display is able to get reasonably dim as well. The dimmest setting yielded a brightness of 5.5nits which, for the most part, ensures the phone wont blind you in the middle of the night.

Viewing angles are pretty good with no shifts in color temperature. There is a noticeable contrast shift when tilting the device forward or backward. All in all, we have no major qualms with the Honor 6Xs display.

Connectivity

For the primary SIM, the Honor 6X supports up to Cat6 LTE speeds of up to 300 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload speeds. Global and US models might differ in available LTE bands:

• Global bands: 1, 3, 7, 8, 38
• US Bands: 20, 2, 4, 5, 12, 38


3G bands include bands 1 (2100 MHz), 2 (1900 MHz), and 8 (900MHz). Other connectivity options include: Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, 2.4GHz, microUSB v2.0, and GPS/A-GPS/Glonass/BeiDou.

Remember, theres neither 5GHz Wi-Fi nor NFC connectivity options on the Honor 6X. Theres also no IR blaster like the Honor 8 has, and it likely wont make its way to this price range, at least not any time soon.

Battery life

Honor managed to get a higher capacity 3,340mAh battery in the 6X while keeping the overall size and dimensions of the phone very similar to the 5Xs. The company promises up to 2.2 days of endurance with normal usage and up to 1.5 days of battery power for heavy users. Weve put the Honor 6X through our own battery tests and heres what weve found.

The Honor 6X scored 23:06h in the call test, 13:41h in web browsing, and 13:18h of videos. T hat, combined with the standby score, yielded an overall score of 84h. This score means that if you used the phone for exactly one hour of calls, browsing, and video viewing each day, the phone would last about three and a half days. You can use our battery tool at the link toward the end of this section to tweak the battery scores to tailor them better to your own usage. Its inevitable that your personal usage will be different but weve established this one just so the battery life results we come up with are comparable.



You can definitely squeeze even more battery life with the standard power saving mode that the Honor 6X offers in its UI. We accidentally left this feature switched on for the phones browser test (the screen brightness was still 200nits for the tests in both cases), and the browser result gave us an unusually high score. The first-tier battery save mo de should really truly extend your battery endurance as it lowers the screen brightness a bit, switches the CPU to a more efficient mode, and reduces visual transitions and sync frequency.

EMUI gives a lot of control over which apps are allowed to run in the background, so make sure you stay on top of those unnecessary battery drainers. You can find these in Settings > Advanced > Battery Management.


Battery management options

Even with such a long endurance score, we feel the ph one is limited by its lack of a quick-charging capability. The phone is rated to charge at 5V@2A or 10W with the included charger. From a depleted battery, the Honor 6X charged up to 31% in 30 minutes. In an hour, it reached 57%, and it took about 2 and a half hours to restore fully the battery charge.

The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case youre interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones weve tested will compare under your own typical use.

The Honor 6X runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, layered with Huaweis EMUI 4.1, of course. By now, we pretty much expect phones released at the beginning of the year to come with the latest flavor of Android. Thankfully, Honor says it will update the 6X to Android Nougat / EMUI 5.0 sometime in Q2 2017.

There are definitely some improvements of EMUI 5.0 that are worth mentioning. You can have more than 9 quick toggles, and the in-line notification replies have been improved. There are visual improvements throughout the UI (i.e. no more teal), as well as overall improved optimizations, battery life refinements, and the option to use an app-drawer with the default launcher.

Keep in mind, that the UI will be even more refined with the Nougat update, which comes out with EMUI 5.0. There will be the option to get the app drawer back. The quick toggles will also look much better, and you will be allowed more than a 3x3 grid of toggles.

Anyway, here are the default home screens. Is something missing? Yeah, the app drawer button, which will be added with the new update. Right now, the UI is organized much like on the iPhone where all your apps reside on the homescreen.

You can also swipe down on a home screen (iOS-style) to bring up a search bar above a row of four of the most recently used apps. Here you can search for apps or contacts, or you can search the web or Twitter.

Homescreen 1 • Homescreen 2 • Swipe down for search box • Search contacts, Twitter, or Google

If you want to change the stock launcher, its not a straightforward process. Once you install your third party launcher, you need to go into the apps menu, and tap the default app settings. This is where youll be able to change various de fault apps i.e. the launcher.

Apps menu • Advanced app settings • Default apps

There are a few ways to customize your home screens with EMUIs stock launcher. Tap and hold on an empty area on a home screen, and you can change wallpapers, add widgets, choose a page transition, or change the number of apps per home screen.

Home screen menu • More settings • Wallpaper chooser

The Honor 6Xs fingerprint scanner works quite well. Its accurate and quick and brings you right past your lock screen. Setting it up is pretty straight forward. Youll want to add both index fingers so you can unlock the phone with either of your hands.

Adding a fingerprint and adjusting finge rprint settings

Speaking of which, the lock screen has the "magazine unlock" wallpaper, which changes every time you see the lock screen. Since youll be bypassing it every time you use the fingerprint, you wont see any notifications on the lock screen when you have any kind of security feature enabled (at least with the default settings). This is one of those things that are addressed with the Nougat update.

Unsecured lock screen • Swipe-up for control center style of tools • Secured lock screen

The notification shade is one of the major improvements of the Nougat / EMUI 5.0 update as well. The one in EMUI 4.1 is laid out like a timeline. The Shortcuts tab in the corner takes you to your quick toggles. Scroll down a bit, and youll see an edit button, which lets you switch out any of the toggles you dont like. The downside is the UI only allows a maximum of 9 active toggles.

Notification shade • "Shortcuts" tab • Editing primary shortcuts

The app-switcher key shows a single row of recent apps. The Nougat update will change this to rolodex-style cards for easier finding and faster te rmination of recent apps.

Recent apps

The recent apps key can also be used to initiate a dual-window session. The dual-window feature, again, will be improved once Nougat rolls around. As of this review, you can only enable a few apps to be used with the current dual-window implementation, most of which are stock Huawei apps.

Tap-and-hold recent apps key • Adding more apps to dual windows • Dual windows options

There are more than enough settings for tweaking the Honor 6X to your liking.

Settings 1 • Settings 2 • Settings 3 • Advanced settings

You can do things like change the display zoom and text size, add or remove the carrier name from the status bar, enable one-handed mode, customize the nav controls, or you can use the fingerprint scanner to pull the status bar down.

Smart assistance options • Nav bar options • Floating dock • Mini screen view

Wi-Fi+ knows when youre near your Wi-Fi hotspots and turns Wi-Fi off when youre out and about. The idea is for networks to switch optimally between Wi-Fi and mobile data to ensure a smooth transition into or out of Wi-Fi zones.

Wi-Fi+ introduction • Advanced Wi-Fi settings

There are plenty of display settings, including a color temperature tool for fine tun ing color accuracy.

Display settings 1 • Display settings 2 • Color temperature tool

There is also a built-in Eye Comfort mode, which puts an amber-yellow filter over your screen to block out blue light at night. This can be scheduled with a start and end time.

Eye comfort mode • Font size adjustment • View size adjustment

The Honor 6X comes equipped with lots of tweaks and settings for those whod like to squeeze every bit of juice from an overnight charge. The phone is constantly notifying you of when an app is using excessive amounts of power, to which you can force close the app, or totally prevent it from running in the background. Just remember you might miss notifications from the app if you do this.

Estimated battery life remaining • Power settings • Protected apps • Battery optimization tool

Anyone who takes "Do not disturb" mode very seriously will have various settings for customizing quiet times.

Do not disturb mode • Defining priority interruptions

Finally, for those customers who arent a part of Honors giant millennial target market, the Honor 5Xs UI is able to simplify its interface with an "Easy mode" of sorts. The essential apps are on the launcher, text is enlarged, and settings are simplified.

Simple home screen style • Simple launcher • Larger text in contacts • Simplified settings

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 Huaweis 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 s uch 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 6Xs Nougat update should improve on this aspect.

Lets 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.

Lets 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

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  82744
• Huawei nova
  65021
• Huawei Honor 6X
  57012
• Huawei P9 Lite
  52768
• Lenovo Moto M
  51831
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  45190
• Lenovo K6 Note
  44972
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  44438
• Huawei Honor 5X
  35469

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

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  1647
• Huawei Honor 6X
  1309
• Huawei P9 Lite
  1242
• Huawei nova
  1218
• Huawei Honor 5X
  874
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  815
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  799
• Lenovo K6 Note
  288

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

• Huawei Honor 6X
  3351
• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  3169
• Huawei nova
  3105
• Lenovo Moto M
  2921
• Huawei Honor 5X
  2035
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2027
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  1822

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  1472
• Huawei nova
  842
• Huawei Honor 6X
  801
• Lenovo Moto M
  771
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  669
• Lenovo K6 Note
  635
• Huawei Honor 5X
  616

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 aroun d results in slower graphics performance.

GFX 3.1 Car scene (offscreen)

Higher is better

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  5.6
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.6
• Huawei nova
  3.5
• Huawei P9 Lite
  2.8
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  2.6
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  2.6
• Lenovo Moto M
  2.5
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2.5

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.8
• Huawei nova
  3.7
• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  3.4
• Huawei P9 Lite
  3
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  2.8
• Lenovo Moto M
  2.7
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  2.6
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2.4

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  15
• Huawei nova
  10
• H uawei Honor 6X
  8.4
• Huawei P9 Lite
  7.8
• Lenovo Moto M
  7.1
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  6.4
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  6.4
• Huawei Honor 5X
  5.6

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  9.3
• Huawei nova
  6.3
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.8
• Le novo Moto M
  4.7
• Huawei P9 Lite
  4.6
• Lenovo K6 Note
  4.4
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  4.2
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  4.1

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

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  14651
• Huawei nova
  10511
• Huawei Honor 6X
  8458
• Huawei P9 Lite
  7681
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7480
• Lenovo Moto M
  6732
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  6380
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  5039
• Huawei Honor 5X
  5009

Basemark X (medium)

Higher is better

• Alcatel IDOL 4S
  24507
• Huawei nova
  21345
• Huawei Honor 6X
  16712
• Huawei P9 Lite
  15754
• Lenovo K6 Note
  15232
• Motorola Moto G4 Plus
  11566
• Huawei Honor 5X
  10107
• Samsung Galaxy C5
  9598

Even so, dont 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 Huaweis in-house chips, runs quite cool during prolonged use. When playing games from extended amounts of time, yo u can expect warmth to the touch. Weve seen phones get much warmer in the past.

Switching between apps or simultaneously updating a multitude of apps presents no challenge for the Honor 6Xs Kirin 655. Heck, it even powers up pretty fast. Huawei has done a wonderful job with the software-to-hardware optimization of its UI.

Telephony

The dialers default screen is the number pad in front of the most recent call history. You may use the number pad for alpha-numeric typing of the name, and if you still cant find that contact youre looking for, the Contacts tab is one tap away.

Dialer • Sm art dialing • browsing through contacts

The in-call screen is nicely designed, we like the looping animations around the contacts picture. A continuous loop signifies an outgoing call, which then becomes a minute minder. When the animation makes it all the way around, it means a minute of talk time has just passed. Also, if you raise the volume past the highest notch, you enable a Loud Voice mode that lets you hear the other caller through anything.

In-call screen • loud mode on

That said, the Honor 6Xs in-call noise canceling worked quite well. Our caller heard us just fine, even in noisy environments, and loud mode helped in some of these cases.

The Honor 6X is able to use dualSIM cards, but the second SIM is only capable of a 2G signal, while the primary SIM would connect to a 3G/4G connection. You can switch between slot 1 and 2 for which SIM youd like to set as the primary one.

DualSIM connection options

Text input

The Honor 5X comes with Google Keyboard out of the box. Sign into the Play Store and update it to the latest version; Google Keyboard is now called Gboard. Gboard has a refined appearance, you can perform a Google Search and input the results into text, right from the keyboard.

Google Keyboard standard view • Tap "G" for Google Search • Emoji

There is also a one-handed mode that shifts the buttons to either side of the screen to make one-handed text input easier.

Enabling one-handed mode • One-handed mode • Add Gboard language • English + Spanish enabled

Pre-installed apps

The Honor 6X has a few pre-installed apps, but thankfully they are not intrusive and can be easily uninstalled if they bother you.

Of course, you get the standard Google Suite. None of these apps can be uninstalled, only disabled. Moving on, you have the stock EMUI SMS app, and Chrome is the primary browser. There are a few pretty good tools like a proper file management app, health tracker, email client, as well as a Phone Manager app.

Home screen 1 • Homescreen 2 • Tools 1 • Tools 2

The Phone Manager is an all-in-one tool directory. It lets you optimize storage and RAM, kill battery-intensive tasks, manage locked apps, customize notifications, and it even h as one large button that optimizes all aspects of the system in a single tap.

Phone Manager • Tap to optimize all • Notification center • App Lock • Locked app

Theres a health app that comes pre-installed, and it has the basics to get you started with counting steps with the built-in sensor, and the ability to log your weight over time.

Health app • Basic details needed • Goal settings

Theres even an FM Radio app, which requires a wired headset. Theres also a straightforward voice recording app.

File manager • Select multiple files • voice recorder

The "Top apps" folder contains a few Honor apps and a bunch of third-party apps that you may or may not use. These are all removable, including the Hon or shortcuts. The most obtrusive pre-installed app is News Republic. It will display a notification of news in the notification shade without warning and without having set anything up with the app.

Top apps

Loudspeaker

Last year the Honor 5Xs loudspeaker scored Average in this test, so we are glad to see a louder speaker in the Honor 6X, which yielded a "Good" score. The speaker brings ample volume for ringtones and notifications, its just fine for watching videos, listening to voicemails, or hearing audio clips, though its quite tinny.

When it comes to audio quality, like many phones, bass playback is near-non-existent; meanwhile, higher treble tones begin distorting when at the higher volume levels to the point that it just sounds off-key sometimes. It sounds what youd imagine a water-proof speaker sounding after getting wet.

A proper gallery

With in increasing number of devices defaulting to Google Photos for their image browsing duties, folks have been vocal about preferring a proper gallery that allows easier navigation of albums and folders.

Luckily, the stock photo gallery in the Honor 6X delivers on these points and offers the traditional way of browsing photos on an Android phone. You can view all photos chronologically, or you can view your photos by album. You can also dig into the settings and find an option to hide albums from clogging up the directory.

Gallery timeline • Album view • Gallery settings • Hidden albums

Open a single image, and youll be given a host of sharing and editing options. The info icon can show you a quick glimpse of the image, and includes a histogram.

Single image view

The b uilt-in editor is quite capable as well. There are options for exposure adjustments, rotation and cropping tools, collage tools, lots of filters, beauty enhancements, color splash, image levels, even shadows, and highlights.

Very capable image editor

Video playback

The included video player is quite basic, but it works. It even has a pop-out window mode so you can watch a floating v ideo window while you perform other tasks.

Built-in video player

Music Player

The Mate 9 has a stylish Music app pre-installed. It offers four default playlists - songs, artists, albums, folders. You can create your playlists, too. The background of the app changes dynamically to match the album art, which is a nice little touch.

The music player

The Now Playing screen is pretty standard, it offers album art and lyrics. If youre especially into lyrics, you can have them overlayed on top the homescreen.

Now Playing • Swipe right for lyrics • Music player in notification shade • Lock screen controls

Audio quality doesn’t disappoint

The H uawei Honor 6X had decent clarity in both parts of our audio quality test. When hooked up to an active external amplifier it got mostly excellent scores. While the frequency response was a bit shakier than usual, it’s not something you’d notice in your daily usage.

Plugging in a pair of headphones caused an average increase in stereo crosstalk and a bit of extra damage to the frequency response but the overall result was still very decent.

The Honor 6X also really impressed with its loudness, posting high scores on both occasions, rounding up a very solid overall performance.

Anyway, here go the results so you can do your own comparisons.

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.

Dual camera for a midranger

The Honor 6X is among the first mid-range devices with a dual camera sensor setup for main p hotos. The company has used two cameras with drastically different resolutions: a 12MP camera + a 2MP depth sensor - most likely to keep costs down. Whereas the Honor 8 used a 12MP RGB sensor with a second 12MP black & white sensor, the Honor 6X uses a slightly inferior system. Here, the second sensor is used only for gathering depth information about the scene so that it allows applying high-quality faux bokeh effects (adding a blurry background behind your subjects).

There is no laser-assisted AF like there is on the Honor 8, nor a dual-tone LED flash. Those things dont necessarily matter for most conditions, such as outside in bright sunlight. The Honor 6X uses phase-detection autofocus, and the company claims the 6Xs camera can focus in 0.3 seconds.

Otherwise, the overall camera experience is quick and painless. Photos are taken quickly, and the camera ap p does not lag more than it should. We give Honor kudos for a well-made camera interface with quick focusing and fast-responding tasks like launching the gallery or editing a photo.

Lets get right into how the camera performed. Well start off with the standard UI and delve further in.

Camera UI

You get a pretty good viewfinder, and if youve ever used a Huawei phone in the past year or so, youll pretty much know where everything is. Swipe to the right for all the modes swipe to the left for settings, and a swipe up will take you to the gallery.

Viewfinder • Video viewfinder • Camera modes • settings

The secondary sens or is only active when a feature that requires it is selected. If a standard shot is taken and the 2MP sensor is covered with a finger, the camera would shoot just fine. In fact, youll be notified to "avoid covering the lenses before you start shooting" only when in wide aperture mode. This is perhaps the only mode that will use the second sensor.

Warning to stop covering the second sensor

The notification doesnt show in any other mode - not even night shot mode where it might have been useful. This essentially means the dual-camera is only good for wide-aperture mode, and nothing else.

This also means that taking a standard photo relies on the light from a single sensor rather than both sensors like on the Honor 8. Even so, choosing a dual-sensor setup over a single one is worth even for the wide-aperture mode alone as it works remarkably well.

Second sensor aside, the Honor 6X still offers a vast variety of shooting modes to bring out the creative shooter in you. While there is no proper monochrome mode, you can use the included filter in the built-in editor to make B&W photos. In fact, there are quite a few monochrome filters to choose from.

Variety of monochrome filters

Otherwise, theres a proper Pro mode that gives you full control of shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, exposure methods, manual focus, and white balance.

Pro mode

We feel like Pro mode should work in unison with wide aperture mode to give you an experience closer to a DSLR. But the (often) wonky bokeh effect might be reason enough to keep them separate. Maybe this is something that could be implemented in a future update, but for now, you cant set manual exposure in a wide-aperture photo. Perhaps you can use the focal point to expose your photo, and then apply the bokeh as usual.

Theres a beauty mode which throws a skin softening filter over people, HDR mode, Night shot, Panorama, "Good food," Light painting, Ti me-lapse, Slo-mo, Watermark, Audio note, and Document scan. Since Slo-mo records 640x480 video at 60fps, videos play at only half-speed. But hey, at least its there.

Most of those are pretty self-explanatory, others - not so much. Night shot mode uses longer exposure times to shoot in lower ambient lights, so it works best with a tripod. The Good food" mode makes photos look slightly warmer and more saturated to make food look its best.

Mode: Auto • Food mode • Auto • Food mode

Light painting uses long exposure times with software tricks to make long trails out of car lights.

Watermark mode somewhat mimics Snapchat overlay filters, and Audio Note takes a 10-second clip of audio after shooting a photo.

Taking a photo with a filter

Still photos

Creative modes aside, lets have a better look at photos taken with the default Auto mode.

Camera samples

The Honor 6X took pretty decent photos in ideal lighting conditions, but it was hard to get the camera to expose correctly under a moderate overcast, which weve been getting in New York City a lot lately.

The situation indoors doesnt get that muc h better. Textures look fuzzy, solid colors often come out noisy and much like outdoors, the cameras white balance is inconsistent and colors are noticeably off. The photo with the lemons kept showing them with an ugly green tone until the lime was placed in front. The green lime acted as a more accurate reference point for the camera to balance colors.

The limited dynamic range mean highlights tend to clip easily. Therefore, the resulting photos are underexposed to save the highlights. HDR doesnt really seem to do much of anything in most conditions. Though, where HDR did make a more noticeable change was in reducing most of the noise in scenes with low-light. Otherwise, in daytime photos, HDR only opens up the shadows a bit without affecting the highlights.

Lets move on to the cameras HDR mode.

HDR: Off • On • Off • On • Off • On • Off • On

The shot of the bridge with HDR mode opened up the shadows a bit around the base of the leave-less trees, but the highlights are mostly unaffected. The New York City street corner doesnt fare well either. Shadows are brought up a notch, but the building in the distance is more blown out with HDR mode than in a regular shot. Look out for a couple more HDR examples coming up in the low-light section.

HDR photos in sunlight did a better job out of rescuing the clipped highlights. In the park scene, you can see that this camera is prone to a red lens flare when the light source is really strong: like the sun.

Moving on to wide aperture mode, here are a couple of shots and some variations of the focal point with a simulated aperture of f/4.0.

Simulated f/4.0 aperture: Auto mode • background in focus • subject in focus • all in focus (f/16)

Simulated f/4.0 aperture: Auto mode • background in focus • subject in focus • all in focus (f/16)

Wide aperture mode is much like the iPhone 7 Pluss portrait mode, which uses the second camera to gather depth information about the scene in front of it. The Honor 6Xs wide aperture m ode makes use of the 2MP depth sensor.

Heres something worth noting: images taken in wide aperture mode tend to be slightly cooler than their counterparts shot in auto mode. Were not sure why this is. You can compare the first image to the other three in each wide aperture scene.

This mode works best when the subject is within 2 meters away from the camera and the bigger the distance to the background, the better. Ideal places would be a somewhat open area like a large room or a place with open areas like a park or lake.

The scene with the benches offers a pretty good look at what the mode is and isnt capable of. The photos with the focus on the table pretty much establishes that you cant expect a smartphone to simulate a professional-grade cameras lens-bokeh, at least not yet. Not without a more accurate way to gauge the depth of every single object.

Editing the focus and simulated aperture in viewfinder

On the bright side, you can edit the bokeh effect to simulate using an aperture from f/0.95 (most bokeh) all the way to f/16 (no bokeh), and you can change the point of focus and bokeh after the photo is taken. This will let you tweak the photo as much as you want before deciding if the shot is worthy of social media.

Finally, if you refer to the last photo of the first set of samples, it would give you an example of what the wi de-aperture mode is actually simulating. This is the cameras natural bokeh, but the only way to get this effect is to focus on a subject thats small and really up-close to the lens; in this case, the object was about 2 inches from the sensor. When the camera has to focus from really close - like a macro shot - everything further behind is blurred out.

Moving on, low light photos are quite noisy. Details become foggy & muddled and colors could be one or two notches more saturated.

Low light images

The sunset shown is not representative of the live scene that was experienced. As well, the second scene could make use of more vibrant colors and brighter shadows, the moderately cloudy weather was enough to throw th e camera off.

The actual low-light mode works much better to capture details and textures much more accurately. The only downside is, these results are only possible with a tripod. There are four different versions of each scene below.

Low light: Auto • HDR • Night Mode • Flash

Low light: Auto • HDR • Night Mode • Flash

Night mode acts as a Bulb mode on professional camera where once you press the shutter, it would continue shooting until you are happy with the exposure, which you see as a live preview on the screen. The shutter speed starts ticking right after you tap the shutter button and can be anywhere from 6 seconds to 14 seconds. The images retain a lot more detail and are the best among the samples we got out of the camera. The downside to that is you absolutely need to keep the camera super steady while its shooting.

8MP selfie camera

The front-facing camera is an 8MP snapper, and the resulting selfies look okay. Retained details of the subject are decent enough to be flattering while details in the backgro und arent maintained well. Background highlights clip easily in selfies probably due to the moderate dynamic range of the camera.

Beauty mode level: 0 • 5 • 10

Dynamic range isnt that much better than the main camera. The next selfie was taken in a trees shade near where the previous three were taken, this change in lighting causes the camera to blow out the highlights.

Dynamic range takes a hit when taking selfies in th e shade

Panorama

Panorama mode can be used in portrait or landscape mode, and its pretty much a shoot and sweep type of game. This one was taken in portrait mode with 3,008 pixels tall, and it caps off at 11,328 pixels wide. Oh yeah, theres also a wide-selfie mode which is accessed by toggling panorama mode with the front camera enabled.

Panorama sample

Panoramic selfie

Video recording

The videos samples look much better than still photos regarding color accuracy and exposure. The highway scene is exposed better, and we can see more blue hues in the sky than there are in images. Still, sharpness is a bit low and detai ls are spared. Surprisingly, audio is recorded in stereo, unlike many recent flagship devices like the Google Pixel, which only records a single audio channel.

The Honor 6X can only record video in 1080p and 720p resolutions - no 4K here. Theres also a Slo-mo mode which records at 60fps, but the video resolution is 640 x 480px.

Thankfully, theres a Pro mode for video as well so even content creators can get behind manual controls for video recording as well.

One last downside is the absence of any kind of stabilization for shooting video, so theres no need to put up moving samples of those.

1080p video is recorded around 17 Mbps while 720p plays back at around 12.3 Mbps. Both modes record video at a standard 30 frames per second. As always, you can download raw video samples at the following links: 1080p @ 30fps (15 sec ~33MB) / 720p @ 30fps (15 sec ~ 23MB)

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 cameras HDR mode also resulted with better photos than the 6Xs.

If youre expecting an iPhone 7 Plus-like experience with the dual-camera setup on the 6X, youll be quite disappointed. The camera is decent enough, but it aint 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 wont be the only one for long. ZTE is bring ing 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 its worth your investment, lets 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 HiSilicons Kirin 655 CPU and Huaweis 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 regardin g 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 doesnt mind EMUIs 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 dont mind the lack of a USB-C port, quick charging, and dual-band Wi-Fi, youll 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 well 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 Snapdrag on 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, theres also a dual-13MP camera setup, all for a price of $230. Thats $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.

ZTE Blade V8 Pro

We reviewed the Moto M not too long ago, and we think its a great alternative to those whod rather have a more vanilla approach when it comes to Android. The Moto M packs an additional GB of RAM (4GB), and a Helio P10, which offers comparable performance to both the Kirin 655 and the Snapdragon 625. Oh yeah, this guy gets the Helio P15 in India, but battery life is a bit plagued partly because of the MediaTek chips.

Motorola Moto M

The Lenovo K6 Note sports a Snapdragon 430 chipset, but unlike the Moto M, this UI features a wide variety of features baked into the UI. An AOSP-like appearance is complimented by custom features offered by Lenovo. While performance might not be on par, at least battery life will be. The K6 Notes 4,000 mAh battery yields the handset an impressive overall endurance score of 91h.

Lenovo K6 Note

The Honor 8 may be an alternative for those looking for something more. The Honor 8 launched in Q3 of last year and is the first Honor smartphone to come with a dual-camera. Though this cam era setup is superior because all photo modes make use of the secondary monochrome 12MP sensor and this helps take photos with better dynamic range, overall.

The Honor 8 is a higher price range, but youll at least be getting all the features the Honor 6X is missing: USB-C, Quick Charge 2.0, IR blaster, 5GHz Wi-Fi, and a customizable key that lives behind the fingerprint scanner. Granted, the Honor 8 is a bit smaller with a 5.2-inch screen, but if you are after the dual camera setup is a good proposition.

Huawei Honor 8

The Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017) might be your cup of tea if youre looking for something by a more renowned manufacturer. The Exynos 7880 chipset proves to be quite efficient: combined with a 3,000 mAh battery and an AMOLED screen, the Galaxy A5 (2017) yielded a 95h endurance score. Its also waterproof, but again, has a smal ler screen.

Samsung Galaxy A5 (2017)

Honors entry-level offering for the US is (still) a great value considering what you get: an all-around great-looking phone with a mostly-metal build, an efficient CPU, a great display, a quick dual-camera, a responsive fingerprint scanner, and an excellent battery life. But with Honors success in the segment, we expect to see even more great competition from similar contenders on this huge market.