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With a weight of 165g and dimensions of 150.46 x 75.68 x 7.50mm (H x W x D) the Honor 6+ could well be a tight fit for those pockets designated for use to hold your smartphone.  I know I had to arrange the content of my jacket pockets in order to free up a suitable sized pocket to store this handset.  Admittedly the Honor 6+ is not the only handset to suffer from this problem but it does need to be taken into consideration.  Also due to the size of the device, those with smaller hands will definitely struggle with one-handed operations when using this well-made handset.

With a screen frame ration of 73.2%, the Honor 6+ has an IPS LCD capacitive touch-screen delivering a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels with 16 million colours.  Screen performance is of a high level with bright clear images and vibrant colours.

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Running around three sides of this handset is a silver metal band housing most of the external options and connection sockets.  The one exception is the Micro USB port on the base of the unit for charging the non-removable internal Li-Po 3600 mAh battery.  Positioned on the silver band on the top of the handset is a 3.5mm jack socket for connecting a headset.  Arranged down the right side of the handset are a standard, slightly raised, volume rocket and power button.  Located just below the power button are two concealed trays flush to the metal band.  These trays are accessed using a supplied pin tool.

Both of these trays can be used for a SIM card to give you the promised dual number functionality for home and business use.  However by taking this route you do remove the option of adding to the Honor 6+ default 32GB of internal storage.  If you feel that the generous 32GB of storage is not enough then you can replace the SIM card in the top tray with a micro SD card and increase storage by as much as 128GB.  As I have enough trouble remembering one number, let alone two, I know which I option I would go for, giving me more space for my content.

As you might expect, there are front and rear mounted cameras.  However you might be surprised to discover that both these image capturing devices are of the 8MP variety.  Various on-screen settings are available for the currently selected camera as you switch between still and video captures, with the rear camera giving a wide-angle option that is replaced by Beauty mode (never works for me) when capturing front-view Selfies.  The unit’s main camera gives you 3264 x 2448 pixels with support for autofocus, dual LED-flash, geo-tagging, touch focus and face detection.  Video can be captured at 1080p @ 30fps.

One of the first tasks I carry out, following the initial set-up procedure, with a new smartphone, is to check out the software version of Android that comes pre-installed.  Rather disappointedly, the Honor 6+ comes with Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) with no upgrade currently available although I have been assured that an upgrade is on the road map – hopefully before Lollipop has been superseded by the next version.  While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with Android KitKat, it is yesterday’s software and not what you would expect with a new device such as the Honor 6+.

Working in conjunction with Android KitKat is the HiSilicon Kirin 925 CPU Quad-core 1.8GHz Cortex-A14.  This is backed up by a Quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex A7 with a Mali-T628 MP4 GPU.  The Honor 6+ has 3GB of RAM and comes with built-in sensors for accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass.

Firing up the Honor 6+ requires a five second depress of the power button before any activity, in the form of a slight vibration, is detected.  A further 29 seconds are taken up before you arrive at the initial screen where a swipe will take you to the Home screen with its Emotion user interface.

The Emotion UI may not be everybody’s cup of tea.  However it does a reasonable job of displaying icons, allowing you to set up screens and providing access to the pre-installed apps and those you add from the Play Store or elsewhere. It is something you can learn to live with over time.  I was not over-impressed with this smartphone’s battery life.  Running my usual video test resulted in the battery curling up and switching off after a disappointing 7 ½ hours.

With regards to connectivity, the Honor 6+ is well served.  This handset supports GSM 900/1800MH and 850/1900MHz plus UMTS B1/B2/B5/B8 and FDD_LTE B1/B3/B7.  There is support for WLAN WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n along with WiFi Direct.  Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP and EDR is available.  Both NFC and USB OTG are supported.

At its launch, the Honor 6+ had a price tag of £299.99.  However checking the Amazon.co.uk website revealed that this handset is currently listed at £266.00.  However I would suggest waiting to see when Huawei come through the promised Android update.

http://weu.hihonor.com/en/pages/products/honor6plus