Honor 6 Plus Smartphone Review

Name: Honor 6 Plus
Brand: Honor

Are two better than one? The key feature of the Honor 6+ is the dual-camera of the smartphone. HTC tried this in the past as well and failed miserably, but the Chinese do a better job. The 6+ also convinces with a good set of features as well as great battery runtimes.

Daniel Schmidt, ✓ Stefanie Voigt (translated by Andreas Osthoff), Published 08/05/2015 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 ...

Android ARM Smartphone Touchscreen Phablet

For the original German review, see here.

The Honor 6 Plus is a 5.5-inch smartphone for 400 Euros (~$437) that scares off the competition with its features, at least on paper. The technical equipment does not really leave anything to be desired, but you should not expect new records in terms of performance. As expected, the smartphone is equipped with a Kirin processor from the parent group Huawei. Still, the P8 already showed that the performance is completely sufficient and provides a smooth user experience. One key feature is the dual-camera of the Honor 6+, which is also supposed to take good pictures in difficult lighting situations.

In the same price range are rivals like the HTC Desire Eye and Samsung Galaxy A5, and also the Huawei P8 which is just slightly more expensive. The majority of high-end smartphones from 2014 is now in this price range as well.

Test device courtesy of Honor Deutschland

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Honor 6 Plus (6 Series)

Processor

HiSilicon Kirin 925 8 x 1.8 GHz, Cortex-A15 / Cortex-A7

Graphics adapter

ARM Mali-T628 MP4

Memory

3 GB

Display

5.50 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel, capacitive touchscreen, NEO-IPS, LTPS, glossy: yes

Storage

32 GB eMMC Flash, 32 GB

, 25.5 GB free

Connections

1 USB 2.0, Audio Connections: combined headphones and microphone jack, Card Reader: MicroSD up to 128 GB (SD, SDHC, SDXC), Sensors: Position sensor, Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor, Proximity and G-sensor, Digital compass, GPS, Glonass, DLNA, Wifi Direct, MHL 2.0, OTG

Networking

802.11 b/g/n (b/g/n = Wi-Fi 4/), Bluetooth 4.0, GSM/GPRS/Edge (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz), UMTS/HSPA+ (850, 900, 1900 and 2100 MHz), LTE Cat. 4 (FDD: 1800, 2100 and 2600 MHz; TDD: 1900, 2300, 2500 and 2600 MHz), Head-SAR: 0.284 W/kg, Body-SAR: 0.464 W/kg

Size

height x width x depth (in mm): 7.5 x 150.4 x 75.7 ( = 0.3 x 5.92 x 2.98 in)

Battery

Lithium-Ion, 3600 mAh, Talk time 2G (according to manufacturer): 30 h, Talk time 3G (according to manufacturer): 23 h, Standby 2G (according to manufacturer): 636 h, Standby 3G (according to manufacturer): 690 h

Operating System

Android 4.4 KitKat

Camera

Webcam: 8 MP, Main camera: 2x 8 MP Dual-camera

Additional features

Speakers: Mono speaker, Keyboard: virtual, modular power adaptor, USB cable, protective display cover, quick-start guide, SIM tool, EMUI 3.0, Kingsoft Office, Smartphone Manager, 24 Months Warranty, Dual-SIM

Weight

164 g ( = 5.78 oz / 0.36 pounds), Power Supply: 70 g ( = 2.47 oz / 0.15 pounds)

Price

400 Euro

Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications.

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Case

The chassis of the Honor 6+ is made of durable fiber-glass. The alleged aluminum frame is made of plastic as well but looks quite appealing. This impression is also supported by the comparatively high weight of 164 grams. Honor specifies the height with 7.5 millimeters, but the smallest height we could measure was 7.65 millimeters, while the frame is almost 8 millimeters high.

The smartphone is very sturdy and there is just slight creaking when we try to twist it. Pressure is no problem for the Honor 6+, either, only heavy pressure directly on the display can create some ripples on the screen.

The battery of the smartphone is integrated. The two slots on the right side of the Honor 6+ are, unfortunately, not flush with the rest of the case but sit slightly deeper. The first slot can be equipped with a Micro-SIM card, the other one either with a Nano-SIM or a microSD card.

Connectivity

The Micro-USB 2.0 port of the Honor 6+ can be used to charge the smartphone and transfer files to a PC. It also supports OTG, so it is possible to attach external drives or input devices. MHL 2.0 is available as well, so you can transfer the display content to a TV with an optional cable. DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct are also integrated.

The microSD slot supports memory cards with a capacity of up to 128 GB. It is no problem to transfer apps to the additional storage (App2SD), but it is, unfortunately, not possible to install them there directly.

Thanks to the infrared sensor and the app Smart Controller, you can control your own home cinema and the climate control.

Software

The Honor 6+ is shipped with Google Android 4.4.2 and Huawei’s user interface EMUI 3.0. Similar to the Honor 6 or the Huawei P8, you don’t get an app drawer. We already know the Smartphone Manager from other models and it can be used to optimize the smartphone. You also get some handy little tools like a magnifier, a radio and a flashlight. Besides the Google apps, there is only one preloaded third-party app, the Office Suite from Kingsoft.

An update to Google Android 5.0.1 Lollipop and EMUI 3.1 is currently in the works and is supposed to be released this year.

Communication & GPS

The Honor 6+ was announced with dual-band Wi-Fi at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, but the actual production unit only supports the IEEE 802.11 standards b/g/n, which means you can only use 2.4 GHz networks. But the signal quality and the range are pretty good in return. The Honor 6+ can still recognize 5 GHz networks, but the signal quality is not very good in this case.

Mobile Internet connections can be established via HSPA+ (up to 42 Mbps) and LTE (up to 150 Mbps), but we miss the 800 MHz band for the latter. It should, however, work well in Asia thanks to the support of many TDD LTE frequencies. The signal quality was really good. It just seems that the Honor 6+ prefers the HSPA connection instead of the faster but also power-hungry LTE. While the Lumia 930 immediately connected to the LTE network of O2, the review unit only used HSPA+ but with a better signal quality.

Bluetooth is only available in version 4.0 but worked really well in our review.

The position of the smartphone can be located via GPS, Glonass and BeiDou. The satellite fix is also very fast and precise indoors. Outdoors, the accuracy is down to six meters, so we cannot criticize the performance.

We compared the accuracy of the Honor 6+ with the outdoor navigation device Garmin GPSMAP 64s. The smartphone does a pretty good job and the overall track length differs by around 500 meters from the professional device, which is slightly more than 2%. The reason is that the smartphone does not locate the position as often and therefore takes some shortcuts, which is easy to see in the bridge section.

Telephone & Voice Quality

The voice quality of the Honor 6+ is pretty decent and is sufficient for phone calls. Voices are slightly distorted on both sides, which does not create a natural sound, but it is otherwise free of distortions and allows convenient conversations. The speaker of the device leaves a good impression in quiet environments. It echoes just a bit, and it does not make an audible difference whether we hold the smartphone in our hand or if it is lying next to us on the table.

Cameras

Smartphones are continuing to get better cameras. The Honor 6+ has an 8 MP sensor at the front (3264x2448 pixels, 4:3, f/2.4), which is great news for selfie fans. You should only be careful with the automatic picture retouching because it uses a very strong soft focus, which can create a very artificial look at the highest setting. Both cameras offer many options and can also be triggered with a smile or via voice command, for example.

At the back is a dual-camera consisting of two 8 MP sensors that create one image with around 13 MP (4160x3120 pixels, 4:3, f/2.0). This is supposed to create good pictures, especially in difficult lighting conditions. HTC tried a similar thing with the One M8 and failed miserably, but Honor does a better job. The pictures are actually pretty sharp and the environment is bright when the lighting is bad, but you have to live with small fragments in return. Neither the Samsung Galaxy S6 nor the LG G4 have this problem, but the pictures are not quite as sharp. The edges of the Samsung device in particular appear a bit soft. The Lumia 930 is still undefeated in respect of the sharpness. The results of the LG G4 appear a bit more balanced, but the Honor 6+ still works very well.

The dual-camera also works well under daylight, but the pictures are not as sharp and detailed compared to the high-end competition. The peripheral areas in particular lack sharpness. We like the color reproduction, which leaves a comparatively natural impression. The dynamic range should be higher without HDR, which has to be activated manually. The short trigger time is great and reminds us of the Huawei P8, especially since the ultra-snapshot mode is also available and can be used to take a snapshot within one second with a double tap on the volume-down button.

The super-night mode implements a simplified long-term exposure, but it requires a solid underground or even better, a tripod. The function Wide Aperture simulates aperture ratios of f/0.95 up to f/16, but it does not improve the light sensitivity and just simulates an objective vignetting.

Videos on the Honor 6+ can be recorded in Full HD (1920x1080 pixels, 16:9, 30 fps). Sound is recorded in stereo and is a bit dull, but the picture quality is decent in return. There are also some features for videos like object tracking, but there is, unfortunately, no time-lapse or slow-motion feature.

All in all, Honor equips its flagship device with a good camera, but it cannot quite keep up with the high-end competition. It is well-suited for snapshots and medium-sized copies.

Image Comparison

Choose a scene and navigate within the first image. One click changes the position on touchscreens. One click on the zoomed-in image opens the original in a new window. The first image shows the scaled photograph of the test device.

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Accessories

The Honor 6+ is shipped with a modular power adaptor, a USB cable, a quick-start guide as well as a small SIM tool. Optional accessories are currently not available, but there are some in the pipeline.

Warranty

Honor grants a warranty of 24 months for its product.

Input Devices & Handling

The capacitive touchscreen of the Honor 6+ recognizes up to ten inputs simultaneously, and it has very good gliding capabilities. Even two fingers close to each other are recognized without problems, and there are no problems in the peripheral areas, either. Inputs are executed quickly and precisely.

The Android buttons of the Honor 6+ are on-screen buttons. This does reduce the visible screen area in some situations, but the majority of apps can fade them out. It is also possible to adjust the navigation bar to your own preferences. You can, for example, add another input field that gives direct access to the notification center.

The keyboard layout is identical to the Huawei P8 and offers language-specific adjustments. The keyboard layout is simple and allows a smooth typing experience. Swype inputs are supported just like automatic word predictions above the keyboard. You only have to live without a one-hand mode.

Display

The Full HD display (1920x1080 pixels) of the Honor 6+ measures 5.5-inches. This corresponds with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a pixel density of around 401 PPI, which means content is razor sharp. The subjective impression of the display is very good with rich colors and a very even brightness distribution.

The luminance of the review unit is convincing as well at up to 488 cd/m², even though it is still clearly beaten by the HTC Desire Eye, which manages an impressive value of 635 cd/m².


484 cd/m²	479 cd/m²	454 cd/m²
488 cd/m²	472 cd/m²	454 cd/m²
477 cd/m²	477 cd/m²	454 cd/m²

Distribution of brightness

X-Rite i1Pro 2

Maximum: 488 cd/m² (Nits) Average: 471 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 93 %
Center on Battery: 472 cd/m²
Contrast: 1686:1 (Black: 0.28 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 6.33 | 0.55-29.43 Ø5.2
ΔE Greyscale 7.39 | 0.57-98 Ø5.4
Gamma: 2.34

	Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Sony Xperia Z3 Compact Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AC, 16 GB eMMC Flash	LG G4 Adreno 418, 808 MSM8992, 32 GB eMMC Flash	Apple iPhone 6 Plus PowerVR GX6450, A8, 64 GB eMMC Flash
Screen		-41%	6%	3%	25%	-18%	-7%	-10%
Brightness middle	472	439 -7%	453 -4%	635 35%	482 2%	513 9%	566 20%	519 10%
Brightness	471	439 -7%	439 -7%	631 34%	432 -8%	500 6%	536 14%	496 5%
Brightness Distribution	93	93 0%	91 -2%	92 -1%	85 -9%	94 1%	90 -3%	90 -3%
Black Level *	0.28	0.8 -186%	0.28 -0%	0.54 -93%		0.41 -46%	0.47 -68%	0.62 -121%
Contrast	1686	549 -67%	1618 -4%	1176 -30%		1251 -26%	1204 -29%	837 -50%
Colorchecker dE 2000 *	6.33	7.06 -12%	4.7 26%	4.11 35%	2.15 66%	8.54 -35%	6.17 3%	3.67 42%
Greyscale dE 2000 *	7.39	8.08 -9%	5.03 32%	4.29 42%	1.81 76%	9.88 -34%	6.26 15%	3.78 49%
Gamma	2.34 ^94%	2.16 ^102%	2.27 ^97%	2.59 ^85%	2.42 ^91%	3.03 ^73%	2.48 ^89%	2.42 ^91%
CCT	8227 ^79%	8134 ^80%	7439 ^87%	6956 ^93%	6626 ^98%	8659 ^75%	8171 ^80%	7327 ^89%
Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998)			72.04				65.48
Color Space (Percent of sRGB)							98.63

* ... smaller is better

The black value of the Honor 6 Plus is identical to the Huawei P8 (0.28 cd/m², 1,618:1) and is really good. Thanks to the slightly higher brightness, you even get a better contrast ratio. The smartphone manages the highest value in our comparison group and can only be beaten by a rival with an OLED display.

We checked the color accuracy with a photo spectrometer and the software CalMAN. The grayscale quickly shows a slight blue cast, and the deviations from the ideal value are pretty high with a DeltaE over 7. It is basically the same situation for the ColorChecker, where the average deviation of the Honor 6+ is a bit better, but there are pretty big outliers in the blue spectrum. This was, however, no problem in practice. It is even possible to adjust the panel according to your own preferences thanks to a manual white balance.

Colorspace (target color space AdobeRGB)

Saturation Sweeps (target color space sRGB)

The outdoor capabilities of the Honor 6+ are decent. Reflections are reduced by the LTPS technology, and the high contrast ensures a good visibility of the screen even in bright environments. It is still not possible to watch a movie under direct sunlight, but this is a problem for pretty much every mobile device.

It is trickier under the sun, but the 6+ does a good job.

The viewing-angle stability of the LTPS panel inside the Honor 6+ is excellent. The colors are stable from every position and there are no ghost effects. You can only see a slight glow effect when you look at the display from extreme positions from an angle above or below.

Performance

The Honor 6 Plus uses the 32-bit SoC HiSilicon Kirin 925 with eight cores. It still consists of an older big.LITTLE configuration with four Cortex A7 and Cortex A15 cores each, which are clocked at 1.3 and 1.8 GHz, respectively. You also get 3 GB RAM and the integrated graphics card ARM Mali-T628 MP4, a powerful chip that we already know from the older Huawei Ascend Mate 7.

Our benchmarks show that the review unit is even a bit faster than the older sibling and is only beaten by the HTC Desire Eye (Snapdragon 801) and sometimes by the Huawei P8 (Kirin 930). The system performance is also very good. Micro stutters are hardly perceptible at all. It is, however, unfortunate that Honor did not use a 64-bit SoC, which would have resulted in a small performance gain with the upcoming update to Lollipop 5.1.

Smartbench 2012
Productivity Index (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	6469 points ∼34%
Honor 6	7002 points ∼37% +8%
Huawei P8	5433 points ∼29% -16%
HTC Desire EYE	9650 points ∼51% +49%
Samsung Galaxy A5	5826 points ∼31% -10%
Gaming Index (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	4363 points ∼95%
Honor 6	4327 points ∼94% -1%
Huawei P8	4340 points ∼94% -1%
HTC Desire EYE	4515 points ∼98% +3%
Samsung Galaxy A5	3262 points ∼71% -25%

Linpack Android / IOS
Single Thread (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	191.4 MFLOPS ∼19%
Honor 6	174 MFLOPS ∼17% -9%
Huawei P8	122 MFLOPS ∼12% -36%
HTC Desire EYE	389.9 MFLOPS ∼38% +104%
Samsung Galaxy A5	0 MFLOPS ∼0% -100%
Multi Thread (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	420.6 MFLOPS ∼14%
Honor 6	231 MFLOPS ∼8% -45%
Huawei P8	272.5 MFLOPS ∼9% -35%
HTC Desire EYE	839 MFLOPS ∼28% +99%
Samsung Galaxy A5	0 MFLOPS ∼0% -100%

AnTuTu v5 - Total Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	44523 Points ∼45%
Honor 6	41860 Points ∼42% -6%
Huawei P8	45927 Points ∼46% +3%
HTC Desire EYE	38920 Points ∼39% -13%
Samsung Galaxy A5	21589 Points ∼22% -52%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	42181 Points ∼43% -5%

3DMark
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	14201 Points ∼4%
Honor 6	14104 Points ∼4% -1%
Huawei P8	9080 Points ∼3% -36%
HTC Desire EYE	16238 Points ∼5% +14%
Samsung Galaxy A5	2627 Points ∼1% -82%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	13766 Points ∼4% -3%
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Graphics Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	14441 Points ∼2%
Honor 6	14522 Points ∼2% +1%
Huawei P8	8743 Points ∼1% -39%
HTC Desire EYE	16346 Points ∼2% +13%
Samsung Galaxy A5	2190 Points ∼0% -85%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	14432 Points ∼2% 0%
1280x720 offscreen Ice Storm Unlimited Physics (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	13420 Points ∼11%
Honor 6	12813 Points ∼11% -5%
Huawei P8	10494 Points ∼9% -22%
HTC Desire EYE	15872 Points ∼13% +18%
Samsung Galaxy A5	8690 Points ∼7% -35%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	11851 Points ∼10% -12%

GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7
T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	13 fps ∼0%
Honor 6	17 fps ∼1% +31%
Huawei P8	11 fps ∼0% -15%
HTC Desire EYE	22.9 fps ∼1% +76%
Samsung Galaxy A5	9.5 fps ∼0% -27%
1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	12 fps ∼0%
Honor 6	17 fps ∼0% +42%
Huawei P8	10 fps ∼0% -17%
HTC Desire EYE	21.9 fps ∼0% +83%
Samsung Galaxy A5	5.3 fps ∼0% -56%

GFXBench 3.0
on screen Manhattan Onscreen OGL (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	7.5 fps ∼2%
Honor 6	8.7 fps ∼2% +16%
Huawei P8	5.8 fps ∼2% -23%
HTC Desire EYE	10 fps ∼3% +33%
Samsung Galaxy A5	3.9 fps ∼1% -48%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	8.5 fps ∼2% +13%
1920x1080 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	6.6 fps ∼0%
Honor 6	8.1 fps ∼0% +23%
Huawei P8	5.5 fps ∼0% -17%
HTC Desire EYE	9.3 fps ∼1% +41%
Samsung Galaxy A5	1.8 fps ∼0% -73%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	8 fps ∼0% +21%

Geekbench 3
32 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	900 Points ∼18%
Honor 6	858 Points ∼17% -5%
Huawei P8	698 Points ∼14% -22%
HTC Desire EYE	952 Points ∼19% +6%
Samsung Galaxy A5	479 Points ∼9% -47%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	893 Points ∼17% -1%
32 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus	3250 Points ∼4%
Honor 6	3102 Points ∼4% -5%
Huawei P8	2955 Points ∼4% -9%
HTC Desire EYE	2785 Points ∼3% -14%
Samsung Galaxy A5	1437 Points ∼2% -56%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7	3178 Points ∼4% -2%

Legend

Honor 6 Plus HiSilicon Kirin 925, ARM Mali-T628 MP4, 32 GB eMMC Flash

Honor 6 HiSilicon Kirin 920, ARM Mali-T628 MP4, 16 GB eMMC Flash

Huawei P8 HiSilicon Kirin 930, ARM Mali-T628 MP4, 16 GB eMMC Flash

HTC Desire EYE Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AB, Qualcomm Adreno 330, 16 GB eMMC Flash

Samsung Galaxy A5 Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 MSM8916, Qualcomm Adreno 306, 16 GB eMMC Flash

Huawei Ascend Mate 7 HiSilicon Kirin 925, ARM Mali-T628 MP6, 16 GB eMMC Flash

We checked the browser performance with the preloaded Google Chrome 43. Subjectively, websites opened quickly and the benchmarks confirm this impression as well.

Octane V2 | Sunspider | BaseMark OS II | Mozilla Kraken 1.1 | WebXPRT 2015

Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	6370 Points ∼6%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	6363 Points ∼6% 0%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	4084 Points ∼4% -36%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	3028 Points ∼3% -52%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	2796 Points ∼3% -56%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	6552 Points ∼6% +3%

Sunspider - 1.0 Total Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	743 ms * ∼8%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	725 ms * ∼8% +2%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	1164 ms * ∼13% -57%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	594 ms * ∼7% +20%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	1360 ms * ∼15% -83%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	666 ms * ∼7% +10%

BaseMark OS II - Web (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	797 Points ∼33%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	790 Points ∼33% -1%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	694 Points ∼29% -13%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	1062 Points ∼44% +33%

Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	5501 ms * ∼6%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	5450 ms * ∼6% +1%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	11808 ms * ∼14% -115%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	10424 ms * ∼12% -89%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	13938 ms * ∼16% -153%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	5414 ms * ∼6% +2%

WebXPRT 2015 - Overall Score (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	94 Points ∼12%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	70 Points ∼9% -26%

* ... smaller is better

The Honor 6+ is equipped with 32 GB eMMC storage, and almost 26 GB can be used for your own files. The is quite a lot in this price range, but the storage is not very fast in return, even though the competition is not that fast in general. The performance is at least much better compared to the Honor 6.

The storage can be expanded by up to 128 GB via microSD card. We checked the performance with the fast memory card Toshiba Exceria (CX32UHS1, UHS-I Class 3, read: 85 MB/s, write: 55 MB/s). The result was sobering. We only measured 10.32 MB/s during writing, but it was at least twice as fast during reading. The performance is still sufficient to store videos directly onto the memory card. You only have to expect longer waiting times when you copy large files.

AndroBench 3-5 | BaseMark OS II

AndroBench 3-5
Sequential Read 256KB (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	109.8 MB/s ∼2%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	80 MB/s ∼2% -27%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	139.9 MB/s ∼3% +27%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	116.1 MB/s ∼3% +6%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	130 MB/s ∼3% +18%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	51.2 MB/s ∼1% -53%
Sequential Write 256KB (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	54.3 MB/s ∼2%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	29.6 MB/s ∼1% -45%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	39.58 MB/s ∼1% -27%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	22.67 MB/s ∼1% -58%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	71 MB/s ∼2% +31%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	10.43 MB/s ∼0% -81%
Random Read 4KB (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	20.8 MB/s ∼4%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	17 MB/s ∼3% -18%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	22.46 MB/s ∼4% +8%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	15.75 MB/s ∼3% -24%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	12 MB/s ∼2% -42%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	7.32 MB/s ∼1% -65%
Random Write 4KB (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	6.12 MB/s ∼1%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	5.3 MB/s ∼1% -13%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	10.04 MB/s ∼2% +64%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	1.77 MB/s ∼0% -71%
Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	6 MB/s ∼1% -2%
Huawei Ascend Mate 7 Mali-T628 MP6, Kirin 925, 16 GB eMMC Flash	1.05 MB/s ∼0% -83%

BaseMark OS II - Memory (sort by value)
Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	532 Points ∼5%
Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	508 Points ∼4% -5%
Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	1216 Points ∼10% +129%
HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	422 Points ∼4% -21%

Games

Games are no problem for the Honor 6+. The ARM Mali-T628 MP4 is powerful enough and supports modern graphics interfaces like OpenGL ES 3.0. More demanding titles like Asphalt 8 run just as smoothly as Angry Birds Transformers (see video).

The well working sensors, the good touchscreen and the great display complete the good gaming experience, only the speaker can be quickly covered by the finger when you hold the smartphone in landscape mode.

Emissions

Temperature

The Honor 6+ already gets lukewarm while idling and the surface temperatures can reach up to 44.4 °C under load. The two competitors stay much cooler and the Desire Eye stays below 36 °C despite the faster SoC. Still, the results are not critical by any means.

We performed a stress test with the GFXBench 3.1 Battery test. It runs the OpenGL ES 2.0 test T-Rex thirty times in a row while the battery capacity, the frame rate as well as the temperature of the SoC are logged. The performance of the Honor 6+ actually dropped to two-thirds of the original performance over the course of the test.

Max. Load

Idle


41.3 °C 106 F	41.4 °C 107 F	44.4 °C 112 F
40.2 °C 104 F	39.5 °C 103 F	41.5 °C 107 F
39 °C 102 F	39 °C 102 F	40.2 °C 104 F

Maximum: 44.4 °C = 112 F
Average: 40.7 °C = 105 F


39.4 °C 103 F	40.7 °C 105 F	40.5 °C 105 F
38.2 °C 101 F	38.9 °C 102 F	38.9 °C 102 F
37.5 °C 100 F	38.7 °C 102 F	38.7 °C 102 F

Maximum: 40.7 °C = 105 F
Average: 39.1 °C = 102 F

Power Supply (max.) 36.4 °C = 98 F | Room Temperature 24.3 °C = 76 F | Voltcraft IR-260

(-) The average temperature for the upper side under maximal load is 40.7 °C / 105 F, compared to the average of 32.6 °C / 91 F for the devices in the class Smartphone.
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 44.4 °C / 112 F, compared to the average of 34.9 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 52.9 °C for the class Smartphone.
(±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 40.7 °C / 105 F, compared to the average of 33.7 °C / 93 F
(±) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 33.1 °C / 92 F, compared to the device average of 32.6 °C / 91 F.

Speakers

The speaker of the Honor 6+ is located at the back. The position is not perfect, because you can easily cover it with a finger when you use the smartphone in landscape mode. The sound is also muffled on flat surface like a table due to the flat rear.

The sound itself is pretty balanced and clean up to a maximum volume of 50%, but there will be distortions after that. This is particularly noticeable when you listen to music. Rock music sometimes becomes a distorted screaming at the maximum setting. We therefore recommend headphones or external speakers, but the quality will be sufficient for occasional playback in quiet environments.

The stereo jack subjectively works without problems and there was hardly any signal noise.

Energy Management

Power Consumption

The Honor 6+ is not a particularly frugal device and consumes quite a lot power. Only the smaller sibling Honor 6 has similar power consumption but benefits from the smaller display. LG's G4 consumes more power under load.

The battery capacity is quite generous in return with 3,600 mAh and should be able to compensate for the higher consumption. The power adaptor has a nominal output of 10 Watts (2 Amps, 5 Volts) and is therefore powerful enough.

Power Consumption

Off / Standby	0 / 0.4 Watt
Idle	1.6 / 3 / 3.2 Watt
Load	5.6 / 7.6 Watt


Key: min: , med: , max: Voltcraft VC 870 Currently we use the Metrahit Energy, a professional single phase power quality and energy measurement digital multimeter, for our measurements. Find out more about it here. All of our test methods can be found here.

	Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	LG G4 Adreno 418, 808 MSM8992, 32 GB eMMC Flash	Apple iPhone 6 Plus PowerVR GX6450, A8, 64 GB eMMC Flash
Power Consumption		8%	28%	56%	49%	18%	36%
Idle Minimum *	1.6	1.7 -6%	0.7 56%	0.8 50%	0.3 81%	1.1 31%	0.5 69%
Idle Average *	3	2.4 20%	2 33%	1.2 60%	1.2 60%	1.5 50%	2.1 30%
Idle Maximum *	3.2	2.8 12%	2.1 34%	1.4 56%	1.5 53%	1.9 41%	2.5 22%
Load Average *	5.6	5.3 5%	4.9 12%	1.9 66%	3.8 32%	6.6 -18%	3.5 37%
Load Maximum *	7.6	6.8 11%	7.4 3%	4 47%	6.2 18%	8.8 -16%	5.8 24%

* ... smaller is better

Battery Runtime

The Honor 6+ can benefit from its powerful 3,600 mAh battery in the runtime tests and dominates the comparison group with good results in all scenarios. Our review unit lasts more than a day in the Reader’s Test and almost four hours under sustained maximum load.

Our tests with an adjusted display brightness (150 cd/m²) offer the best comparability. Both the video runtime test as well as the Wi-Fi test determine great results for the Honor 6+. Our new Wi-Fi test is more demanding, so the results cannot be directly compared to the old test. Those results are usually higher, but the Desire Eye could be one candidate that could have managed an even better result.

If you want to increase the runtimes even further, you can also find an ultra-energy-saving mode in the settings, but it does limit the functionality of the smartphone noticeably.

Battery Runtime

Idle (without WLAN, min brightness)		27h 25min
WiFi Websurfing		8h 55min
Big Buck Bunny H.264 1080p		11h 50min
Load (maximum brightness)		3h 58min

	Honor 6 Plus Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 925, 32 GB eMMC Flash	Honor 6 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 920, 16 GB eMMC Flash	HTC Desire EYE Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Samsung Galaxy A5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash	Huawei P8 Mali-T628 MP4, Kirin 930, 16 GB eMMC Flash	LG G4 Adreno 418, 808 MSM8992, 32 GB eMMC Flash	Apple iPhone 6 Plus PowerVR GX6450, A8, 64 GB eMMC Flash
Battery Runtime		-44%	-19%	-15%	-24%	-30%	-11%
Reader / Idle	1645		1433 -13%	1152 -30%	826 -50%	1654 1%	1436 -13%
H.264	710		503 -29%	597 -16%	581 -18%	501 -29%	675 -5%
WiFi v1.3	535				434 -19%	326 -39%
Load	238	134 -44%	200 -16%	242 2%	215 -10%	114 -52%	199 -16%
WiFi		454	914	533			777

Pros

+ Good list of features

+ Good display

+ Expandable storage

+ Radiation levels

+ Fast system performance

+ Good cameras

+ Great runtimes

Cons

- Limited WiFi range

- No 800 MHz LTE

- Slow microSD slot

- Weak speaker

- SoC throttling under load

Verdict

In review: Honor 6 Plus. Test model courtesy of Honor Germany.

The Honor 6+ from Huawei’s subsidiary is a successful smartphone, which does have a good camera, but the high-contrast display and the great battery runtimes are even more convincing. The list of features is pretty comprehensive and lacks just a few options. The hybrid slot means users have the choice between a storage expansion via microSD card or dual-SIM LTE.

The Honor 6+ can compensate for its small flaws with great battery runtimes, good cameras as well as good features and offers everything you expect from a good smartphone.

The small issues primarily concern details. The colors of the panel are not very accurate, LTE lacks the 800 MHz band, the microSD slot is very slow, and the speaker could be better as well. However, all these small issues will hardly be noticeable in practice, which is why the Honor 6 Plus is still a really good smartphone.

Honor 6 Plus - 2015-07-29 07/29/2015 v4^(old)
Daniel Schmidt

Chassis

80%

Keyboard

69 / 75 → 92%

Pointing Device

93%

Connectivity

48 / 60 → 80%

Weight

91%

Battery

94%

Display

85%

Games Performance

60 / 63 → 95%

Application Performance

49 / 70 → 70%

Temperature

80%

Noise

100%

Audio

53 / 91 → 58%

Camera

85%

Average

76%

86%

Smartphone - Weighted Average

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Editor of the original article: Daniel Schmidt - Managing Editor Mobile - 515 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2013

As a child I was fascinated by my Commodore 16, and this sparked my enthusiasm for computers. Using my first modem, I surfed the BTX videotext system and later the World Wide Web. I have always been captivated by the latest technologies, and this is especially true for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. I’ve been part of the Notebookcheck team since 2013 and have also on occasion written for Notebookinfo.de, and I’m looking forward to testing new innovations for our readers. I like to spend my spare time indulging in photography and barbecues and being with my family.

contact me via: @Tellheim, Facebook, tellheim1763, LinkedIn, Xing

Translator: Andreas Osthoff - Managing Editor Business Laptops - 1492 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2013

I grew up with modern consumer electronics and my first computer was a Commodore C64, which encouraged my interest in building my own systems. I started working as a review editor for Notebookcheck during my dual studies at Siemens. Currently, I am mainly responsible for dealing with business laptops and mobile workstations. It’s a great experience to be able to review the latest devices and technologies and then compare them with each other.

contact me via: LinkedIn

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> Notebook / Laptop Reviews and News > Reviews > Archive of our own reviews > Honor 6 Plus Smartphone Review

Daniel Schmidt, 2015-08- 5 (Update: 2018-05-15)