Huawei Honor 6 Review
by Andrei Frumusanu & Joshua Ho on September 12, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Android
- Mobile
- Honor 6
We saw that the Mali T628 in the Kirin 920 is quite power hungry, but let's see exactly how much performance it delivers for that power.
The 3DMark graphics score falls in the middle inbetween the Adreno 320 and the Adreno 330. Due to the low physics score on the CPU side, the overall score is quite low compared to other flagships.
There's a similar trend going on with BaseMark X, the Kirin manages to outperform the Adreno 320 but can't touch the Adreno 330. In many cases it performs roughly at half the speed of competing flagships. Only when enabling the "Rog" mode and dropping to 720p does the GPU catch up the Adreno 330. In fact we can pretty much say that the Mali in the HiSilicon chip performs identically in 720p as the Adreno 330 does in 1080p. I'm suspecting a severe lack of fill-rate power on behalf of the Mali GPU.
This trend continues on to the GFXBench 3.0 tests. Interestingly, the performance delta is much smaller for the Manhattan test and is not that far off from the Adreno 330 as it was in the T-Rex. In 720p it catches up with the Adreno 330 on T-Rex and surpasses it in Manhattan. This again might indicate that the Mali has more ALU power and is bound by other factors in the T-Rex test. A look at the fill-rate tests confirm this suspicion, as it ends up slower than the Mali 450MP4 in the Kirin 910T:
It seems the MP4 configuration is too underpowerd to properly run 1080p content at optimal performance, its fillrate scores are quite poor and the GPU is even outperformed by architectures two generations behind.
An noticeable result is found in the accuracy tests of GFXBench: the Mali achieves consistently higher scores over the competition. While in no way noticeable, this would mean that ARM's drivers are doing a better work of rendering the intended scene.
All in all, the GPU is decidedly mid-range. If you plan on gaming a lot on your smartphone, a Hi3630 device such as the Honor 6 or Ascend Mate 7 may not deliver an experience as good as a competing device with a Qualcomm SoC.
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semo - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Why no user replaceable battery? I've heard all the reasons why I shouldn't care but I still want one and wonder if planned obsolescence is the only reason for not including it.Also, is Qi an option for this phone?
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
There is no Qi charging option.semo - Friday, September 12, 2014 - link
Thanks Andrei. I think it is worthwhile pointing out this missing feature in the article just like you did with the non-removable battery. It is important for some!marcokatz - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Well said. Also it's important to point at that this is an Apple-wannabe that no way can match up to some of the really highly rated phones out there. /Marco from http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/Excerpt - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Yeah bro, you tell em. And Andrea why U no learn Chinese man? I wanna know what that extra stuff does. I'm going to China in like, a minute, like everyone else. What, you don't care about me bro? I love you man.And does it have haptic feed-back for goodness snakes? I want them good vibes in me fingas.
What about a sit test? Most of us reading here have fat arses, do you know sit (test)? I don't know sit (test) but I wanna hear your experience with sitting, maybe try with a heavy object like a cow, yeah a bull sit test.
That'd be great keep up the good work. <3
Murloc - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
1. takes up space2. makes the phone structurally weaker
2. planned obsolence/forced service you have to pay a lot for are good ways to make money
Alexey291 - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Takes up literally no space seeing how Samsung S4 and S5 are both smaller and thinner than HTC One (M7 and M8 respectively)Arguably the back that's able to pop off makes the phone LESS prone to breaking as it allows the force to dissipate somewhat better than in the case of a rigid structure which simply breaks.
And lastly I am going to play the world's smallest violin for the POOR POOR manufacturers trying to make a quick buck from planned obsolescence or paid-for battery replacement.
I mean I know anandtech is all about manufacturer interests but I'll care about their concerns and problems the moment they stop earning millions upon millions in profits.
Intervenator - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Are you really saying that the S4 and S5 are thinner than the HTC One because of the replaceable battery? And that it takes up "literally no space"? Really?arsjum - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Not because of, in spite of.Alexey291 - Saturday, September 13, 2014 - link
Thank you sir. That's precisely what I meant. Its thinner and yet it has a replaceable battery. Impossiburu /o\To me personally all that "the replaceable battery is inefficient" nonsense is just that - nonsense. Some companies are just better at making thinner phones and some try to cut corners (and costs) at every possible stage.
And yes Anandtech has historically supported nothing but the manufacturer interests. They have been walking on these eggshells for a long time and that's precisely why they never directly criticise any dubious or greedy decision made by their sponsors :) In fact they sometimes go a step further and tell consumers (like myself) that we are wrong in wanting things like replaceable batteries and microsd slots because they are so "inefficient"
/sigh