Huawei has a very popular online only sub-brand Honor. And they have been going from strength to strength with it. The latest addition Honor 6X has the nickname “Swag Phone”. We have spent quite some time with it and here is our review of this interesting phone with a lot of value added features.
We have been using the Honor 6X for around a month now. The first thought that came to our mind when unboxed the device was class. The device looks and feels very very classy. Featuring a generous 5.5-inch full HD (1920*1080p) display, the ergonomically designed Honor 6X boasts a full metal slim body (8.2mm thick) with 2.5D glass on the front and curved panel on the back. The Honor 6X comes in three colors – gold, silver and gray – and the 32GB variant of the device will be available exclusively on Amazon.in, we got the gold one.
With an ample 5.5-inch full HD (1920*1080p) display, the device has a full metal slim body (8.2mm thick). The slight curve on the back makes the phone very easy to hold and it is not at all slippery or chunky. While people may feel and say that it looks like every other device, we noticed that the design language is the same as the Huawei Mate 9, the premium phablet from Huawei that has everybody waiting for it since it’s launch in China a few weeks ago. This means that there is a scheme behind the design and we see it as a conscious effort to stand out by Huawei and it has paid off. One look at the device and it screams SWAG all over. The young ones would definitely love this one.
The smartphone is localized for the Indian users with EMUI availability in 14 languages( Hindi, Bengali, Telegu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Maithili & Nepali) and comes with the SOS button which will act as an emergency alarm and send an SMS to preset numbers and also provide location information
The USP of this phone is the dual camera in the rear, this time it is not a monochrome and color camera combo, it is an additional camera that add depth of field to your photos. This is very visible in the photos that the camera churns out. The main 12MP camera is responsible for the composition of the image while the 2MP camera helps to get depth of field information, resulting in beautiful shots that are sharp and crisp. Combined with the camera’s wide aperture (F/0.95), the Honor 6X produces professional-looking background blur to make your subjects stand out. This, coupled with a 1.25um pixel size, enables the Honor 6X to capture quality shots even in low-light settings. The Honor 6X’s camera uses Phase Detection Auto Focus technology, which allows for an ultra-fast camera focus speed of 0.3 seconds. We tried this out by rapidly moving the camera around to change the focus and every single time, the focus was locked and ready really fast. There is an interesting good food mode that we enjoyed working with. The shots that came out were very impressive in that mode. Here are a few snaps that we clicked with the phone.
But make no mistake, this is not a one feature device. While the camera is the best thing about it, there are many other things that make this the real swag phone as it has been fondly named. The battery is one of them, rated at 3340 mAH, the battery is a big surprise. We threw above average usage with 4G constantly on and a lot of online streaming, but to our surprise, at the end of the day, the device had about 30% charge left on it. Given the price and the relatively less heavy frame, this is a nice feature indeed. Credit where it is due, the Kirin processor is one of the big reasons for this.
The Kirin 655 has a total of 8 cores out of which four cores are clocked at 2.1GHz and another four at 1.7 GHz. The phone comes in two variants one with 3 GB RAM and another with 4 GB RAM. We got the 4 GB version with 64 GB internal storage, the 3 GB version comes with 32 GB internal storage. Both the variants have a hybrid dual SIM slot where you can either have two SIM cards or one SIM with a microSD storage expansion, upto 128 GB is supported. The processor is a 16 nm one and has built in power saver options.
While the phone is not going to give you earth-shattering numbers on performance, it is no slouch either. We threw all sorts of games, videos and multitasking at it and it performed better than most of the contemporary devices that it is pitted against. All in all, we found no reasons to complain about the performance.
Additionally, the Honor 6X comes with a 1 year + 3 month warranty and a touch screen replacement in the first month. This is a very good option given the segment that the device is in. There are no competing devices that can match this. This shows the strength of Huawei’s manufacturing process and the depth of their inventory.
There are some nifty features like the WiFi Bridge option that allows you to use the phone as a WiFi signal extender. Other mobiles allow you to make them a hotspot when they are on the mobile network, but the Honor 6X can act as a wireless signal repeater for your WiFi signal and extend the area it covers.
There are a few minor peeves we have with the phone, one of them is the fact that given that there are only on-screen navigation buttons, the screen real estate could have been bigger and hence the experience would have gone to the next level. The other one is the fact that Huawei has missed the shot to move to USB Type-C connectors with this device. That would have been the icing on the cake. But then again, these are just peeves and not full blown issues. Given the price of Rs 12,999/- for the 3GB/32GB variant and Rs 15,999/- for the 4GB/64Gb variant, there really is not much to complain about here. It is a Win-Win option
Verdict
Swag was promised at Rs 12,999/- and Swag and some more has been delivered at that price! This is a close-your-eyes and buy device in the price bracket that it is in. We would very certainly recommend this one!
