Earlier last week I had the chance to play around with Huawei’s all new Honor 6 Plus smartphone. If you haven’t heard of them before, Honor are a sub-brand of Huawei, and with their new 6 Plus smartphone they’re really shaking things up in the mid-range sector.
Until now, the Nexus 5 and One Plus One have, at least for me, been the stronger options in the middle of the market. Having played with Honor’s 6 Plus though, I have to say that I was left very impressed.
Honor 6 Plus
An impressive spec sheet
With a construction quality and spec sheet that punches well above its weight, this smartphone is very well positioned for customers wanting maximum bang for their buck. You can find the full spec sheet on their website, but with 3600 mAh battery, 3GB of RAM and an octa-core processor, this thing performed really well during my time with it. Everything from swiping around the app drawer and home screen to opening the camera app felt fast and fluid, and I really liked the bright and colourful 1080p display too.
One feature I particularly like about the Honor 6 Plus is that unlike other premium build smartphones like the HTC One, iPhone 6 & 6 Plus and Samsung’s new S6, it offers expandable storage. With 32GB of internal storage there’s plenty to get you started, but you can also use the Honor 6 Plus’ dual-SIM slot to throw in a MicroSD card too — something that’s bound to please users like me who want the best of build quality and expandability.
Speaking of build quality, this phone felt really nice in the hand. The metal frame feels premium and while the glass back is a fingerprint magnet, they blend together to give this £299 phone a very slick look.
Honor 6 Plus in gold looks very slick
Good quality camera
Give me a smartphone and one of the first apps I open is the camera, and luckily, the two rear-facing 8 megapixel shooters on the Honor 6 Plus didn’t disappoint. I couldn’t test it as much as I wanted, but given that we were at a bar with low light conditions, the photos actually came out very nicely with plenty of colour and high detail. It just kept surprising me that a phone of this price can perform so well.
You’ll find two 8 megapixel shooters at the back of the 6 Plus
Honor have this very cool feature baked into the camera app which allows you to adjust the depth of field on your shot while you take it. If this seems familiar, it is. HTC offered this feature with the One M8 but it’s a software feature available after your take your photo; the Honor 6 Plus on the other hand let’s you do it at the time of shooting. It was one of the features I enjoyed using a lot, and I imagine it’s something I’d use regularly if I owned a 6 Plus.
Final Thoughts
I have to say that Huawei have done a fabulous job on this smartphone. Despite the fact that I didn’t get too much time with it, this phone feels like it packs a well-rounded package of performance, style and value for money, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it for a full review.
