Huawei Mate X6 review

Flagship camera kit you'd love

The Mate X6 has an incredibly powerful flagship camera system on its back, one that is quite similar to Honor Magic V3's. There is a 50MP OIS primary camera with variable aperture, a 48MP OIS 4x telephoto/telemacro, a 40MP AF ultrawide shooter, and a spectrum sensor for enhanced color accuracy. There is also laser assistance for better focus accuracy and some neat camera tricks.

Let's not forget there are two 8MP selfie cameras inside perforation on each screen.

The main shooter has a variable f/1.4 - 4.0 lens and features a 24mm focal length. The telephoto and ultrawide camera offer macro modes, but the telephoto, also advertised as telemacro is the one intended for shooting close-ups.

Speaking of macro, Huawei will add eDOF functionality with an upcoming firmware update. This will allow you to automatically capture closeup scenes at different focus points and combine them in a single image with a larger depth of field so more of the subject is in focus.

What is interesting about the three main cameras on the back is that they feature RYYB color filters instead of RGGB and Huawei aims to achieve higher color accuracy together with the spectrum sensor.

• Wide (main): 50MP, 0.89µm, f/1.4 - f/4.0, 24mm, PDAF, Laser AF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Ultrawide: 40MP, f/2.2, 13mm, PDAF; 4K@60fps
• Telephoto/macro 4x: 48MP, f/3.0, 90mm, PDAF, OIS; 4K@60fps
• Spectrum sensor (Ultra Chroma Camera): 1.5 million spectral channels
• Cover selfie camera: 8MP, f/2.4, 26mm, fixed focus; 4K@30fps
• Internal selfie camera: 8MP, f/2.2, 26mm, fixed focus; 4K@30fps

The camera is no different than the ones on the last few Mate and P phones. It offers Huawei's AI, just as before. It recognizes and tunes settings for a ton of scenes. There's a toggle in the viewfinder for turning AI enhancements off and on, so you don't have to go into settings for that.

For the back setup, you get W, 1x, 2x, 4x and 10x options.

There's a Pro mode, too, where you can adjust parameters yourself - aperture for the main camera (f/1.4, f/1.6, f/1.8, f/2.0, f/2.2, f/2.5, f/2.8, f/3.2, f/3.5, f/4.0), ISO, shutter speed (1/4000s to 30s), exposure compensation (-4 to +4EV in 1/3 stop increments), and white balance (presets and specific light temperature). You can also choose the focus mode (single, continuous, and manual). If the phone thinks you messed up the exposure, an icon will pop up to warn you.

The foldable factor allows for some cool extra functionality. When shooting with the Mate X6 open, you can transfer the entire camera app UI to the cover screen and use it as a viewfinder for rear camera selfies and video.

Daylight photo quality

The main camera saves wonderful 12MP photos. The resolved detail is plentiful, the white balance is accurate, and the colors are lively and true to life. Noise is absent. The dynamic range is adequate and not over the top. We can also praise the balanced processing that leads to natural-looking detail - from foliage to live subjects with solid facial rendering.

The variable aperture allows you to control the depth of field and the light that gets through naturally. This means shooting at the largest f/1.4 aperture will give you an incredibly shallow depth of field (DoF) with excellent bokeh. It is also great for night photos. Smaller apertures are ideal when we require more of your subject to be in focus, which can be great for closer subjects that the large sensor can struggle to capture with good focus. Most of the daylight photos were shot at f/2.0, which was chosen by the camera algorithm.

Main camera

There is an option to save 25MP photos instead of 12MP, just like on the iPhones. The results are similar- the drop in detail is compensated with some extra sharpening. We do not think you get more detail, at least one that will make sense shooting in such resolution. However, some intricate objects are better visible this way, so it is up to you to decide. We, personally, would stick to regular resolution and 2x zoom instead.

12.5MP • 25MP • 12.5MP • 25MP

The 2x lossless zoom is incredibly good - the quality is almost as great as the standard 1x zoom. Zooming at 100% reveals some artifacts and/or artificial-looking areas that posed a challenge to the ISP and a minor drop in detail in areas of high intricacy, such as foliage.

Main camera, 2x zoom

Shooting in full 50MP res does not bring many benefits unless you aim at less processed photos, so you can tune it to your liking. The images offer a good amount of detail and a less HDR-y look. Downscaling them to 12MP will not offer a meaningful increase in detail.

Main camera, 50MP

The telephoto camera's default zoom is 4X, and the photos are superb. The rendition is very pleasant, and everything looks natural instead of overprocessed. The dynamic range is wide across all photos, the contrast is kept high, there is no visible noise, and the white balance and color accuracy are as consistent as on the other cameras. Detail and global sharpness are slightly lower than what the main camera offers, but still good.

People shots with this camera come out very good, with well-developed facial features but with a flattering rendition.

Telephoto camera, 4x zoom

The telephoto camera also offers telemacro capabilities as it can shoot from as close as 5cm away! The macro photos are simply awesome.

Telemacro, 4x zoom

The camera app offers up to 10x hybrid zoom, but the 10x photos are not that detailed. In fact, they look like cropped and upscaled straight from the default 4x output. This was not the case with the Pura 70 Ultra and maybe Huawei will improve the quality with an update.

Telephoto camera, 10x zoom

Finally, the 40MP ultrawide camera saves 10MP photos, which are very good. The level of detail is high for such a type of camera, the dynamic range is great, the color presentation is as solid as across the other cameras, and the rendition is kept once again as natural as possible.

Ultrawide camera, 10MP

This ultrawide camera supports autofocus and can also double as a macro shooter. While the closeups photos are good, the telemacro are simply better-looking for their bokeh.

Ultrawide, macro

Portraits

The Mate X6 is a proficient portrait shooter, saving excellent portraits in 1x, 2x and 4x zoom levels. The color saturation is a bit over the top, though.

1x • 2x • 4x

1x • 2x • 4x

Selfies

The Huawei Mate X6 has two identical 8MP selfie cameras - one is inside a punch hole on the cover screen and the other one is inside a punch hole on the inner display.

Both offer magnificent 8MP selfies with lovely subject rendition benefiting from incredibly high detail, low noise, accurate colors and wide dynamic range. We had initial doubts about the quality of these cameras, but were we in for a surprise.

Selfies, 8MP

You can also take selfies with the rear cameras by using the cover screen as a viewfinder. This way you will get high-res high-quality shots.

1x • 1x • 2x • 2x

Low-light photo quality

The Mate X6 features a high-res sensor on the main camera, and the maximum aperture of f/1.4 should help in low-light photography.

Some sort of automatic night mode kicks sometimes, mostly on the ultrawide-angle camera, but it happens quite rarely and in very dark conditions.

The default night shots from the main camera are excellent - there is plenty of resolved detail, well-cleaned noise, accurate color saturation and balanced exposure. The dynamic range is solid.

You have probably noticed the somewhat washed-out or polished look on buildings and other objects - this is probably the result of slightly too aggressive noise reduction.

Main camera

The Night Mode mostly boosts the color saturation and brightness to rather unrealistic levels.

Main camera, night mode

The 2x zoom works rather well at night, too. The zoomed photos are good, almost as good as the 1x standard one, but the polished look is even more evident here.

Main camera, 2x zoom

The telephoto camera saves excellent photos at night with enough detail, low noise, good dynamic range and balanced exposure. They look natural and the camera handles most scenes adequately and without needing Night Mode.

Telephoto camera, 4x zoom

Of course, 10x zoom is an option, but it is a digital zoom that is lacking in detail big time.

Telephoto camera, 10x zoom

Finally, let's look at some ultrawide photos. Those are quite nice with more than enough detail, low noise, and matching colors, contrast and dynamic range to the main camera. This camera cannot offer the same per-pixel sharpness as primary shooter, though, and some artefacts, over-sharpening and it further exaggerates the oil painting look - not to photo ruining extent, though.

Ultrawide camera

The Night Mode may help for a bit brighter and more detailed ultrawide photos, but the saturation and vibrancy are way over the top.

Ultrawide camera, Night Mode

Video quality

The Huawei Mate X6 captures videos up to 4K at 60fps on all of its rear cameras and there is always-on stabilization process. The 8MP selfies are limited to 4K at 30fps.

First, excuse the fog and pollution around here, which makes the distinctive haze visible across all videos.

Unfortunately, Huawei's video quality has deteriorated since the P40 and P50 series and it has never really recovered. The daylight videos are good, but far from the best in the class. The resolved detail is enough, but we expected more. The footage is a bit soft and washed-out. Other than that - the dynamic range is wide, the colors are accurate, and there is no observable noise.

The same pretty much applies to the ultrawide and telephoto camera, too. The 10x footage is digitally zoomed, as you can imagine.

The low-light videos are very good - the main camera offers great clips with a lot of fine detail, superb color saturation, dynamic range and adequate even if a bit aggressive noise reduction.

The same is valid for the zoom and ultrawide cameras, but with a bit less detail and more washed-out look due to even more aggressive noise reduction.

Finally, the stabilization works great with high-proficiency.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.