Honor 6X Review- Does it have the SWAG?

Camera-centric smartphones are getting better, and the popularity of phones with dual camera setup is also on the rise. Huawei’s subsidiary brand Honor has dropped yet another smartphone with dual camera setup in the Indian market- the Honor 6X. Currently, it’s the cheapest phone with dual camera setup starting at Rs. 12,999 whereas the Coolpad Cool 1 with similar features costs Rs. 13,999. The main USP of the phone is the dual camera setup of course which provides great depth of field effect, and also, the Honor 6X comes with 3GB or 4GB of RAM and is powered by Kirin 655 processor, but does it stand out being the cheapest dual camera smartphone? Which one should you pick among the Moto G4 Plus, Redmi Note 4 or Cool 1 or the Honor 6X? Let’s find out in our detailed review of the Honor 6X.

Looks Swaggy? Let’s talk about the build and design

As the brand has been promoting the Honor 6X as Swag Phone, I guess we should talk about the design first. The Honor 6X looks premium, just like most of the other phones from Honor. However, it is more curved this time when compared to Honor 5X.

The phone features a 5.5-inch 2.5D curved display, above which you can find the selfie camera, earpiece, and ambient light sensor.

Navigation buttons are on the screen, not as separate capacitive buttons, which is good.

It has a metal unibody design and the back house the dual camera setup, the LED flash and the fingerprint sensor below the camera setup. Interestingly, the fingerprint scanner also works as gesture controller about which we will discuss later.

At the right edge of the phone you can find the volume rockers and the power button, and

on the left edge, there is a hybrid SIM tray which doubles as a microSD slot (two SIM cards or one SIM+one microSD card).

On top left edge there is a 3.5mm headphone jack – Thanks to Apple and LeEco, now we need to mention that too.

And at last, there is a microUSB port at the bottom, though it’s a bit surprising that Honor didn’t choose USB-C for the Honor 6X. Overall, the build and design are excellent I would say, but be careful with that little slippery back, try putting a nice case on.

Display

The Honor 6X sports a 5.5 inch full HD display, which is crisp and sharp. It is quite good to look at even under direct sunlight, and outdoor visibility is fine.

The viewing angle is good enough, and it doesn’t oversaturate the colors. Also, you get an option to adjust the color temperature according to your taste, along with a  blue light filter in case you don’t want to stress your eyes much while reading.

Hardware

The Honor 6X is powered by Huawei’s very own HiSilicon Kirin 655 octa-core processor which is based on four Cortex A53 clocked at 2.1GHz and remaining four A53 cores clocked slightly lower at 1.7GHz, coupled with Mali T-830 GPU. In the case of RAM there are two variants- 3GB RAM or 4GB RAM, pick the one based on your needs.

The fingerprint scanner on the back is just accurate and fast. It also comes with some gestures like swiping down opens the notification tray, or swiping left or right lets you browse the pics in the gallery. The highlight of the Honor 6X is the dual camera setup that includes a 12MP sensor for capturing pictures, coupled with a 2MP depth sensing camera to provide the bokeh or depth of field effect to portraits or macro shots. You can either focus while capturing a shot or can even refocus after you have taken the shot. There is an 8MP front camera as well for selfies and video calling.

Regarding connectivity, the Honor 6X has Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi, 4G VoLTE. The phone packs a 3340mAh battery with fast charging support.

OS

The Honor 6X runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box with EMUI 4.1 on top. EMUI is kinda similar to MiUI.

There is no app drawer, and all the apps are placed right on your home screen, but there is a theme app that lets you customize the interface, just in case you want to change any of these- wallpapers, lock screen style, icons, and fonts.

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There is also a dynamic lock screen wallpaper option which will let you set a new wallpaper automatically when you lock your phone. Upon drawing the notification bar, you will find the quick toggles which are customizable.

There is also an option to activate an on-screen floating dock with smart control options such as back, home, app switcher, lock the screen and clear recent apps.

One handed mode has also been included, in case you want to use the phone with just one hand.

There is a Health app that collects fitness data like the number of steps walked, distance covered, calories burned and more uses, etc. using the sensors onboard. According to Indian government’s norms, an SOS mode has been included for emergency situations.

Lastly, the phone supports VoLTE on both SIM slots, dual screen mode and also includes a harassment filter for avoiding unwanted calls and messages.

Performance

The 3GB RAM with 32GB of storage is quiet enough for a vast majority of the users. The Kirin 655, coupled with 3GB of RAM ensures smooth and lag free performance. There are no glitches or hiccups while switching between different apps or tabs while browsing the web. Even with multiple apps running in the background, the Honor 6X handled the multitasking well without any issues. While playing some arcade and casual games, the phone was performing incredibly smooth. Even heavy games like Asphalt 8 were handled well, but there were minor frame drops here and there sometimes, which can be forgiven considering that it is a mid-range phone and it’s focused for consumers who want a great camera phone, with good overall performance. The audio is clear and loud while using a pair of headphones and also the SWS mode included provides surround sound experience. There were no lags while playing full HD videos and the GPU handled gaming well I would say.

Camera Performance

Probably you scrolled here first to know about the performance of the Honor 6X regarding imaging. And yes, it does justice to the claim Honor has made. The 12MP snapper and the 2MP depth sensing camera helped me keep a subject in focus, blurring out the background. And provides magnificent DSLR-like bokeh effect.

The aperture range is also highly variable ranging from f/0.95 to f/16, which helps you add shallow depth-of-field effects. If you are in a hurry or took an instant snap, you won’t have to worry at all as the depth sensing camera will-will let you refocus any part of the phone has already been captured. You can access this feature via the Gallery app.

The camera interface is simple and easy to use- swiping from left to right brings up shooting modes known as beauty, panorama, HDR, etc. In pro mode, you can adjust the shutter speed, ISO, and auto white balance. Swiping right lets you get into camera settings.

The dual rear camera setup performs well in bright outdoor conditions. With the HDR mode turned on it adds some more detail and vibrancy to the images. Close portraits and macro shots are well composed. However, if you focus to subject in the foreground and switch the focus point, the bokeh effect will look a bit artificial. The overall camera experience is quite impressive- It is fast to focus and capture shots, photos yield excellent color reproduction, well detailed, and the balancing between highlights and shadows is quite good. Indoor shots are decent enough, but it struggles a bit in artificial and low–lighting conditions, and in these scenarios, you can clearly a bit of grain visible. It is also capable of shooting full HD videos, but yes, it focuses more on photos.

The front camera of the Honor 6X works just fine in outdoor conditions but disappoints while used indoors. There is a beauty mode, but we won’t recommend using it as it smoothens the skin too much. The on-screen flash helps a bit in low lighting conditions, but don’t expect anything extraordinary or exceptional.

The overall camera performance is quite satisfactory. Both the front and rear cameras perform well in bright lighting conditions or outdoor. The Honor 6X is ideal for those who take a lot of macro shots or portraits, for adding that shallow depth of field. The camera performs well considering that the Honor 6X retails starting at Rs. 12,999 only and if you need a phone that can add cool depth of field effect to your portraits, this is a good choice for sure.

Battery

The Honor 6X comes with 3340mAh battery and fast charging support. You can easily survive a day or even more without plugging it in. Internet browsing, some music, social networking, and calls – All combined will give you around four-five hours of screen on time which is good enough. Though, if you are a gamer, you may need to have a charge in between to keep it going for a day.

Final Verdict

The Honor 6X has definitely got a great design and build quality, matched with proper hardware and the decent battery. And Honor 6X performs really well in what it is made for – The camera. The dual camera setup is something that is quite rare at this price. If you’re kinda tight on budget, you should definitely have a look at this if you really think you need to capture some decent shots.