Huawei Honor 6 review: Virtue in disguise

Synthetic benchmarks

The Honor 6 shows up well geared for battle. It utilizes an in-house HiSilicon Kirin 920 chipset with an octa-core processor. The processor is based on ARM's big.LITTLE architecture and uses four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 cores capable of working simultaneously. In the Honor 6 the Cortex-A15 cores are clocked at 1.7GHz, while the energy-efficient Cortex-A7 ones tick at 1.3GHz.

A somewhat dated Mali-T628 GPU is in charge of graphics, but should handle the 1080p resolution well enough as it has proven in the Exynos versions of the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3. Huawei has been generous with the operating memory and the Honor 6 is equipped with a solid 3 gigs of RAM.

It all adds up to a powerful package on paper and we got down to business to see how that translates in actual performance. The first set of tests, Antutu 5.0, Geekbench 3 and Basemark OS II test the CPU and overall system performance.

In Antutu, the Honor 6 held its own against the current crop of flagships, posting comparable results to the Galaxy S5 with Snapdragon 801 inside and slightly trailing behind the One (M8) and Xperia Z3 compact, the latter with half the pixels.

GeekBench 3 tells a similar story, with the Honor 6 on par with the Galaxy S5, only this time the Sony and HTC flagships show lower numbers. The point we're trying to make is that the Honor 6 is competing with the big boys out there.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Lenovo Vibe X2
  46666
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  46566
• HTC One (M8)
  44020
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  43164
• Huawei Honor 6
  42688
• Huawei Ascend P7
  28758
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  19690

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Lenovo Vibe X2
  3647
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  3175
• Huawei Honor 6
  3081
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  3011
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  2856
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• LG Nexus 5
  2453
• HTC One (M8)
  2367
• LG G2
  2243
• Huawei Ascend P7
  1895
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  1869
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  1377

The Honor 6 didn't fare as well in Basemark OS II, where its overall score was similar to the LG G2 which sports a Snapdragon 800 and 2 gigs of RAM. The top here is occupied by the stock-Android LG Nexus 5 and the Xiaomi Mi 4, miles ahead of the Huawei offering.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• LG Nexus 5
  1351
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  1324
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  1167
• HTC One (M8)
  1126
• Sony Xperia Z1
  1101
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  1082
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  930
• Huawei Honor 6
  863
• LG G2
  848
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  513

The CPU-specific parts of the benchmark, however, show that the Honor 6 was a respectable performer in single-core performance and at the top of the chart in multi-core numbers. All this suggests that probably a lack of software optimizations prevents the Honor 6 from shining in the combined score.

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 4
  2573
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  2571
• HTC One (M8)
  2428
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  2415
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  2282
• Huawei Honor 6
  2279
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  1187

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Lenovo Vibe X2
  13999
• Huawei Honor 6
  13916
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  10063
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  10063
• HTC One (M8)
  9860
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  9508
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  4208

Time to move on to graphics performance, and this is one area where the Honor 6 disappoints, but mostly due to the high standards it set for itself. The now ageing Mali-T628 is far from the best performers. In Basemark X the Huawei handset posted an unimpressive score and the flagships it beat in the previous chapter are retaliating.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  12396
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  12080
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  11744
• LG Nexus 5
  11638
• LG G2
  11101
• Sony Xperia Z1
  9399
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  6512
• Huawei Honor 6
  4868
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  1909

The Honor 6 did somewhat better in GFXBench, but still took quite a beating. In the T-Rex part of the benchmark it posted scores comparable to the Adreno 320 in the Snapdragon 600-equipped Galaxy S4 and the Lenovo Vibe X2. The more intense Manhattan portion is a closer run with the current flagship crowd, but these still posted about 50% better results than the Honor 6.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  28.4
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  27.8
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  27.6
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  27.4
• Sony Xperia Z1
  23
• LG Nexus 5
  23
• LG G2
  22
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  17.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  17.1
• Huawei Honor 6
  16
• Huawei Ascend P7
  12.3
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  5.4

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  41.3
• HTC One (M8)
  30.1
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  28.2
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  28.1
• LG Nexus 5
  24
• LG G2
  23.1
• Huawei Honor 6
  17
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  17
• Huawei Ascend P7
  12.4
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  9.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  11.8
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  11.8
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  11.6
• HTC One (M8)
  11.1
• Huawei Honor 6
  8.1
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  6.1
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  1.8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  25.4
• HTC One (M8)
  11.9
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  11.7
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  11.3
• Huawei Honor 6
  8.7
• Lenovo Vibe X2
  6.1
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  3.9

Web browsing performance was mostly unimpressive. The figures in Kraken 1.1 were on par with the LG Nexus 5 - good, but not great. In Java-script-intensive BrowserMark 2.1, on the other hand, the scores are mediocre. If it's any consolation, the Xiaomi Mi4 is not a good performer here either. As always, these numbers come from tests with the stock browser, while Google Chrome consistently posted better results, though not by much.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Lenovo Vibe X2
  4747
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  6043
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  6137
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  6480
• Huawei Honor 6
  6937
• LG Nexus 5
  7148
• HTC One (M8)
  10296
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  14488

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Lenovo Vibe X2
  2211
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  1500
• Samsung Galaxy S5 (S801)
  1398
• LG Nexus 5
  1286
• Lenovo S90 Sisley
  1076
• HTC One (M8)
  1069
• Huawei Honor 6
  745
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  744

To sum it all up, benchmark performance was a mixed bag. The excellent impression left after Antutu and GeekBench was marred by unremarkable scores in the graphics department, and things didn't get much better when it came to web browsing.

That being said, the Honor 6 never got in the way of day-to-day use and the user experience didn't suffer from any lag or hiccups. Tapping the task switcher shows a reading of available RAM and that rarely got below 1GB, regardless of usage. If intensive 3D gaming is not on top of your list of priorities, the Honor 6 will not disappoint.