Huawei Honor 6 Review
by Andrei Frumusanu & Joshua Ho on September 12, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Android
- Mobile
- Honor 6
Final Words & Conclusion
Huawei's attempt at attacking the high-end segment with its own new SoC created by its subsidiary HiSilicon gets off to a rough, but promising start. The Honor 6's software managed to impress me by including a lot of new innovative and useful features in the form of Huawei's implementation of Android - EmotionUI. While I reviewed version 2.3 that many in the western audience may not have the chance to experience, almost all of the unique features carry over to EmotionUI 3.0 already found in the Ascend Mate 7 and Ascend G7, with the Honor 6 supposedly also getting an update in the future.
The HiSilicon Hi3630, a.k.a. the Kirin 920/925 provides the first non-Samsung big.LITTLE implementation. While the performance on the CPU side was great, power consumption and software drivers were not. Huawei has a lot of potential for improvement here as long as they invest time and effort in trying to optimize the platform. Sadly on the GPU side, there's not much one can do about the Mali T628, I think Huawei chose a too small implementation of the GPU for it to be able to compete in the high end segment against the higher core versions from Samsung and Qualcomm's Adreno GPUs. The truly disappointing discovery was what seems to be a severe limitation on the SoC's ISP and camera capabilities.
The design of the phone is simplistic but still quite attractive. The greatest issue here is the glossy plastic back of the phone. Huawei is kind enough to provide both front and back screen protectors in their retail box, but this is just an excuse for bad material choice. The device could have done without the faux-glass back, as it otherwise offers solid build quality.
When considering all pros and cons of a device, it comes all down to pricing in the end. The $389 price tag of the Honor 6 may atone for some of its issues, but it still remains a doubtful purchase due to its abysmal Wi-Fi performance and mediocre camera. We don't have too many options in that price range - the OnePlus One and the Nexus 5 coming to mind. The OPO has become quite of a fiasco in terms of availability and it similarly suffers from some flaws in terms of software. So while the Nexus 5 is reaching to be 1 year old soon, it still might be the best alternative.
Of course Huawei isn't standing still. The Honor 6 is supposed to be a device mainly targeted at the Chinese market, and since I've started writing the review a couple of weeks ago, they have announced the Ascend Mate 7 with EmotionUI 3.0 powered by a slightly speed-bumped Hi3630. All in all, Huawei did an acceptable job, but the device falls short of expectations. Here's hoping that their engineers are listening and addressing the brought up issues in future products as I see good potential in its devices.
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DIYEyal - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
I found a typo in the battery life page: "I think this is due the phone having quite good thermal dissipation charateristics ."akshayprbhu - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
that is not a typo. The phone is having good thermal dissipation as it is cooler than similar spec phones when a performance test was done! Youtube for more proof...lilmoe - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Great review of what really matters. I especially liked the in-depth analysis of the SoC and its platform power in comparison to others. Looking forward to future reviews."Ideally, it would be interesting to see a 720p mode on 1440p screens as it would offer perfect scaling, with one logical pixel being mapped to exactly four physical ones, without the need for interpolation and upscaling artifacts"
If Samsung ever decides to put a 1440p panel on the GS6, I seriously hope they allow a 720p mode in their power saving options. Even if pentile, It would be MUCH sharper than any other 720p AMOLED panel since it's up-scaled. Actually, I seriously interested to see how it would look like. Plus, the added performance and battery life would be legendary on a phone faster and more efficient than the current GS5. Totally intriguing.
lilmoe - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Oh, this is just a suggestion. If you must use browser benchmarks to measure platform performance (sighs...), wouldn't it be better to use the stock browser since it's what most people use? You know, since the stock browser is usually more optimized for that specific device and generally performs better than Chrome. Using Chrome to see the difference of Android devices in comparison is OK since they'd be using the same browser running on the same OS, but definitely NOT OK in comparison with other platforms.Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm positive that I'm not.
aryonoco - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Thanks for the great review, this was the first time that any publication has exposed the inner workings of a Hisilicon SoC, and you've done a great job of that. However I wanted to mention here that I strongly disagree with your analysis of the software.Designing software that's going to be used by mass users is a constant balancing act between exposing enough power to satisfy different user requirements and power users, and yet keeping the UI simple enough so that the vast majority of users are not overwhelmed by the array of features. The Permission Management feature here, similar to those baked into many custom ROMs goes well over the line and is a huge user experience disaster. To ship an OEM ROM with this, is begging for a deluge of support calls from clueless customers who have disabled things and then wonder why their phone doesn't work as intended.
I'm not saying that the current permission management scenario in Android is perfect, far from it. I don't think anyone has figured out the perfect balance of how to inform users about third party apps without scaring them, turning the notices meaningless, or overwhelming users.
One of Anand's greatest assets was his ability to articulate his vision of good UI in various products. Him and Brian could explain why certain choices were made (for example in terms of treatment of external storage on Android, or the design tradeoffs about non-replaceable batteries) and the guiding principles behind them. File managers are archaic and confusing to 90% of users. I know the tech-savvy AT readership will disagree, but the whole concept of files and directories are broken for average users, especially on a device like a phone, and they are better off being abstracted away from them. Your comments on file managers in KitKat, or your praise of Huawei's software "enhancements" shows a lack of understanding of where the line is when it comes to UX design.
I hope that now that Anand is gone, AT doesn't become a place where the writers are blind to the needs of average customers. We do not need Android to regress to the wild days of Gingerbread, or worse, Windows Mobile.
Ethos Evoss - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Well, you complaining about huawei logo or writing missing and main thing is that you NEVER complained on iphones that they NEVER put writing on their phones but that is alright ? h ? people are so pathetic .. if apple wud make soome plastic dick sticking out from phone you guys would say that is fine bcos it is iphone and we will forgive that we will get used to it .. oohh jeezz naive peopleakshayprbhu - Friday, October 10, 2014 - link
the writings are a part of the mandatory regulations to denote the compliance with the telecom regulations. and it does not eat up too much space on the back.darkich - Sunday, September 14, 2014 - link
Absolutely great analysis. Andrei and Joshua, keep these top notch write ups coming!SeleniumGlow - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link
I was hoping that the Kirin processor would have a comparison with the MediaTek MT6592. But I guess there are some obvious differences in the Big Little implementation that will prevent it from being a good comparison.siberstorm - Monday, September 15, 2014 - link
The mediocre camera and obvious cutrate shoddiness (wtf the stabilization is just the 1080p field cut down to 720p with none of the rest of the sensor used, so ghetto) is unacceptable and this goes for the mate 7 as well. So bye bye huawei. I am still interested in the lenovo vibe z2 pro aka k920 and would love a review of that phone, but the chances of lenovo sending one to anandtech are slim, considering they arent gunning for the global market like huawei is.