Honor 6X Targets Stake In Mid-Range Android Smartphone Market
CES 2017: The Huawei sub-brand looks to replicate the success of the Honor 5X
Honor is looking to cement its position in the mid-range smartphone market with the Honor 6X, a successor to its successful 5X model released in 2016.
Looking to build upon its mid-market chops, the Honor 6X comes with a specification sheet one would have expected to see from some of the higher-end smartphones a year or so ago, but aims to offer them at an affordable $249 (£229).
Honor 6X
For that sum the Honor 6X offers a 5.5 inch full high-definition display, clad in a metal unibody design to lend it am more premium look than its price point would usually allow, though it has a thickness of 8.2mm, a little more girth than some of the flagship smartphones form the more established tech firms.
Within the chassis, the Honor 6X fits a fingerprint scanners, dual rear camera array which combines a 12MP and 2MP lens to offer a wide-aperture shooting mode, an 8MP front facing camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, with charging coming in the form of a standard micro USB port rather than USB-C.
Beneath the hood, the Honor 6X debuts the Huawei Kirin 655 octa-core chip from its parent company, which offers a clock speed of 2.1GHz, which is partnered with 3GB of RAM, that should keep the smartphone running at a fair lick.
Internal storage weighs in at a standard 32GB, though some regions are reported to have access to a 64GB version. The battery offer 3340mAh, a fairly hefty power pack, which should see the smartphone offer over a day worth of solid use on a single charge.
Despite the debut of Android 7.0 Nougat, the Honor 6X belies its budget roots by offering the older Android 6.0 Marshmallow heavily tweaked with the Huawei Emotion UI 4.1 interface. Android 7.0 is set to arrive on the Honor 6X later this year with the release of Emotion UI 5.0, but as its stands the smartphone’s user interface will split opinion between those who like a heavily-modified user interface, different to others on the market, and those who prefer to have access to an almost unfettered version of Android.
The Honor 6X will hit UK shores from today onwards, with the US expecting a release January 10.
So far, the Honor 6X looks to offer a solid mid-rage specification that has become the hallmark of the Huawei sub-brand. However, its customised user interface will likely hold it back from becoming a smartphone rolled out to business workers, as often more robust and established smartphones are preferred for enterprise use.
Furthermore, Samsung revealed a mid-market take on its Galaxy range in the form of two new smartphones to the Galaxy A line, which will likely challenge Honor at the higher end of the mid-rage smartphone arena.
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