The Huawei Honor 6X is the newest member of the highly successful Honor family, at least for those in the U.S. and Europe at large.
The Honor 6X has just been launched in these two most popular markets, months after it was launched in China. The phone that was launched in the Asian country is the same model that will be coming to the U.S. and Europe. Just so you know, the new Huawei Honor 6X is the official successor to the Honor 5X, which was also announced at the same event as the former – CES 2016.
In essence, the Huawei Honor 6X is a finer version of the Honor 5X thanks to the more elegant-looking design, a more powerful processor, a larger battery and a dual-lens camera on the back.
Looking at the two phones will tell you that they are from the same OEM. The Honor 6X borrows some design elements from the Honor 5X, especially when looking at the front panel, but of course, the differences will always be there. You will notice that the new model is curvier than the 5X and has more weight than its predecessor, something that is a result of the more solid build the 6X comes with. In short, you have a more premium feeling Honor 6X as compared to the cheaper looking 5X.
Unlike the front panel, there are more differences when looking at the phones from the back. The Honor 5X has a single rear-facing camera while the Honor 6X comes with a dual-lens camera setup. Being another midrange phone, the 6X still keeps the microUSB connectivity used on the 5X – a weird move at a time when major companies are moving to USB-C connectivity.
In terms of specs, the new Huawei Honor 6X has the same 5.5-inch 1080p display screen that features on the Honor 5X. As noted earlier, you get a stronger Kirin 655 octa-core processor, taking over from the Snapdragon 616 used on the 5X. As for the RAM, the new 6X has two configurations of 3GB and 4GB, similar to the 5X which had 2GB and 3GB RAM options.
With Huawei at the heart of everything regarding the Honor 6X, the phone is expected to deliver a smoother experience for users. There is Android Marshmallow out of the box, but this shouldn’t be the end, especially since the Honor 5X came in with Android Lollipop and it is upgradable to Android Marshmallow. In short, an upgrade to Android Nougat should come at some point in future.
The Huawei Honor 6X comes with two storage options of 32GB and 64GB, beating the single 16GB option the Honor 5X came in with. But still, both units support microSD card storage.
It is on the camera aspect that Huawei Honor 6X trounces its counterpart even further. The new model has a 12MP+2MP camera on the back alongside an 8MP selfie sensor. As for the 5X, you get a 13MP snapper on the back paired with a 5MP selfie sensor. On paper, expect much better photography to come from the 6X as opposed to the 5X.
Given that the two phones come with the same screen size and resolution, you can be sure of a longer battery life on the new Honor 6X as compared to the 5X. This is true because the former has a larger 3340mAh battery that supports fast charging as compared to the slightly smaller 3000mAh unit on the latter. Both phones have a fingerprint scanner on the back.
For a price tag of just $249 for the entry-level Huawei Honor 6X, the Chinese OEM will for sure rack up some reasonable sales for this handset, just like it did with the Honor 5X. But given the that the market already has the likes of Moto G4 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, or even the slightly older OnePlus 2, it would be interesting to see how this new phone takes over from the Honor 5X.