The original Huawei Honor 6 that was released into Malaysia last September was quite a hit among many consumers in our market thanks to its potent combination of quality, performance, and affordability. It is certainly not going to be easy to top what Honor 6 has achieved but its newly launched successor – Honor 6 Plus – does have one rather interesting feature: a rear camera with two parallel 8-megapixels sensors.
According to Huawei, the setup which captures image at an effective resolution of 13-megapixels apparently allows for faster focusing and 60% increase of light sensitivity which should be fairly useful in low-light conditions. Additionally, it also lead to the creation of a mode called Wide Aperture that allow users utilize significant range of aperture from F0.95 to F16.
As unique as the camera might looked like, user’s camera general experience wasn’t affected by it though as users are still looking at a single viewfinder instead of a split screen viewfinder that correspond to each camera sensor. In addition to the dual-tone flash that accompanied the main camera, the Honor 6 Plus also comes with a front camera featuring an 8-megapixels sensor which is paired together with a wide-angle 5-elements lens.
Pre-installed with Huawei’s EMUI 3.0 on top on the device’s Android 4.4 operating system, the Honor 6 Plus is also equipped with a 5.5-inch full HD (1920 x 1080) display from JDI with a pixel density of 401ppi. Powered by Hisilicon Kirin 925 octa-core processor (also built by Huawei) that runs at a maximum speed of 1.8GHz, the smartphone also contains 3GB of RAM and 32GB worth of internal storage together with the support for microSD card with capacity of up to 128GB.
The microSD slot also acts as the second micro SIM card slot which supports LTE just like the main SIM card slot. As per the original Honor 6, the new Honor 6 Plus also supports LTE speed of up to 300Mbps even though such speed is not available in Malaysia just yet. To complete the package, Huawei has also equipped the device with an equally huge 3600mAh battery.
Design-wise, the Honor 6 Plus looked more or less like the original Honor 6 albiet with a larger display which subsequently leads to wider physique. In fact, the Honor 6 Plus has the same thickness as per Honor 6 at 7.5mm although the new smartphone is still slightly heavier at 165 grams.
Nevertheless, the device still feels pretty comfortable and light enough on our hands. While the subtle pattern on its multi-layered back cover might be an acquired taste, we were told that it is quite strong to the extent that it is actually able to repel bullets which is rather impressive.
As far as our first impressions are concerned, we don’t see any obvious flaws within the Honor 6 Plus. Performance-wise, it is pretty quick without any visible lags or stutter and the build quality of Honor 6 Plus seems to be slightly better than Honor 6 especially to its metal frame. The device might not be as affordable as the original Honor 6, but its price tag of RM 1,399 is still competitive enough to make a mark in our market.
