Huawei Honor 8 and Honor 6X are two amazing phones from Huawei’s Honor division, but they are quite different when looked at from different angles.
For starters, the Huawei Honor 8 is pricier when compared to the Honor 6X, but the question here is which one of the two delivers the more bang for your buck? In order to find out, let’s give them a head-to-head comparison and see the outcome.
As noted, the two are priced differently. Where the Huawei Honor 8 is priced between $350 and $400, the Huawei Honor 6X is valued at just $250. But which one delivers more when compared to its price tag?
Design and hardware
In the past, smartphone buyers would easily end up with an “affordable” device after foregoing things like quality looks and feel, but with the Honor 8 and Honor 6X, you get more than what you can expect to see on devices priced in the said ranges. The build quality and materials are great, with the smaller Honor 8 coming in with 2.5D glass front and rear panels that are joined by an anodized aluminum trim. As for the Honor 6X, you get a metallic build with beautifully finished chamfers and even though slightly larger, it feels a lot sturdy when holding in the hand.
While the design of the Honor 6X is great, it looks a little too mainstream. As for the Honor 8, you get something new and unique, although slightly smaller in size. But be warned that the all-glass design of the latter means that the phone is a bit slippery when compared to its counterpart. The screen size of the Honor 8 is at 5.2 inches while the Honor 6X comes with a larger 5.5-inch panel, but since both have the same Full HD resolution, you get sharper views on the smaller screen as compared to the larger model.
On the inside, the Huawei Honor 8 is far ahead of the Honor 6X. Where the former ships with a Kirin 950 flagship processor, the latter has a low-end Kirin 655 processor on board. However, both have the same 4GB RAM and 64GB of expandable storage, but the 6X also gets a 3GB RAM variant. Furthermore, you can still get 32GB of storage on either model, although this variant of the Honor 6X has 3GB RAM as compared to the same 4GB found on all variants of the Honor 8.
Software performance
Even though the Huawei Honor 8 and Honor 6X come preinstalled with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow alongside the EMUI 4.1 skin, those using the former can now get Android 7.0 Nougat installed on their phones via an OTA update. The update made an early appearance in Japan about two weeks ago, but the company has now made it official that the phone will be receiving the OS starting today.
Now that the Huawei Honor 6X is stuck on the older Marshmallow, there is no doubt that the Honor 8 is a much better option in terms of software than its counterpart. There are huge improvements that the new OS comes with, including the EMUI 5.0 skin that will make your Huawei phone feel more like an Android device.
Battery capacity and features
With huge display comes the need for a bigger battery and the Huawei Honor 6X does just this. It has a huge 3340mAh battery unit on board and even though this is well ahead of the 3000mAh unit that comes with the Honor 8, the phone still loses out on the fact that the latter supports fast charging technology. In addition, the high-end Honor 8 has a USB-C port instead of a microUSB port that features on the 6X, but the 6X’s Kirin 655 processor is not power-hungry like the Kirin 950 used on the Honor 8, which could mean the entry-level model delivers a longer battery life than its counterpart, but all these will depend on what you are using your phone for.
Camera specs
Huawei is one of the companies that are taking the dual-lens camera business serious. You’ll find this setup in high-end, midrange and low-end phones made by the Chinese OEM. In this case, both the Huawei Honor 8 and Honor 6X have dual-lens cameras on the back, but it is the pricier Honor 8 that takes the trophy home on this front.
The phone has twin 12MP sensors on the back, with one being a full-color sensor while the other is a monochrome or black-and-white sensor. Even though the 6X has the same setup, the monochrome lens is way smaller at 2MP, however, the difference between the two is not that big, especially when taking shots in good lighting conditions. Still, the Honor 8 brings features such as 4K video recording, dual-tone LED flash and laser AF – all of which add more quality to photos and videos captured via its dual-lens setup.
So, which of the two phones will you go for? Will it be the Huawei Honor 8 or the Honor 6X? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.