Honor 6A review: Hands-on with Honor’s Moto G5 wannabe

All phones look alike to a certain extent, but the Honor 6A’s resemblance to its rival the Moto G5 is a little closer than most.

With its gently curved metal rear panel, bracketed by plastic antenna panels at the top and bottom and its 5in display, the phones look like they were separated at birth.

The two handsets even have the same processor – an octa-core Snapdragon 430 – run the same software (Android 7.0 Nougat), and have the same resolution rear camera. Although the Honor costs £20 less than the Moto G5 did at launch, at the moment the two phones are twinned on price as well.

READ NEXT: Motorola Moto G5 review

Honor 6A: Specifications, price and release date

• Octa-core Snapdragon 430 processor (4 x 1.2GHz + 4 x 1GHz)
• 2GB RAM
• Storage: 16GB
• 5in IPS Full HD display
• Rear camera: 13mp, with phase detect autofocus and LED flash
• Front camera: 5mp
• Software: Android 7 Nougat with EMUI 5.1
• Price: £150
• Release date: Monday, 31st of July

Honor 6A: Key features and first impressions

The Honor 6A is certainly an interesting proposition and it’s a nicely designed handset, too. As with the G5, the 5in screen means it’s easier to slip into tight pockets than most flagship behemoths and it isn’t particularly heavy or bulky at 143g. The curved metal body feels comfortable to hold, although during the few minutes I had to use the phone at the briefing the screen was already beginning to pick up unsightly fingerprint grease.

I took a couple of snaps with the 13-megapixel camera, which has phase detect autofocus, just like the Moto G5, and although I can’t deliver a definitive verdict at this point, they looked perfectly acceptable to my eyes.

It’s also good to see Android 7 on board and although this is ‘enhanced’ with Huawei’s own Emotion UI software, version 5.1 is a lot better than previous versions. For example, it’s even now possible to reintroduce the app drawer if you want to.

On the downside, the Honor has a 720p screen where the Moto G5’s is 1080p – although you’ll probably struggle to tell the difference from normal viewing distances – and there’s no fingerprint reader for unlocking the device or making Google Play payments more convenient.

The Honor is slightly thinner than the Moto, though, it has a slightly bigger 3,020mAh battery and it’s good to see that there’s dual-SIM and microSD card storage expansion capabilities, although you won’t be able to swap out the battery.

Honor 6A review: Early verdict

First impressions are that the Honor 6A is a perfectly competent budget smartphone. It looks pretty good, its IPS screen appears to be better quality than most sub-£100 smartphones and with the same internals as the Moto G5 it looks to be a strong competitor.

Whether it’s better than the year-old Moto G4, though, which the Moto G5 still can’t match, despite being the newer handset, is another question entirely. We’ll answer that question in the full review, which we’ll bring you as soon as we lay our hands on a review sample.