Honor 6 review

A near high-end Android phone at half the price

Honor 6 review
Another surprisingly affordable handset from China

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The Honor 6 isn't alone when it comes to offering premium smartphone kicks for a mid-range price. In fact, there's an emerging market for such devices, with the very best offering more bang for your buck than any so-called flagship phone.

OnePlus One

The Honor 6 seems to be taking on the OnePlus One directly in the way that it offers a near-premium Android smartphone for well under £300.

If we were to choose we'd go with the OnePlus every time, however. At £269 for the 64GB version and £229 for the 16GB version, it offers a more distinctive design, competitive specs, including a larger 5.5-inch display, and a superior and infinitely more customisable CyanogenMod UI.

Honor 6 review

In fact, the only issue with the OnePlus One, now that the manufacturer has worked out some initial gremlins, is that it's so hard to buy one.

Nexus 5

Th Nexus 5, Google's outgoing flagship Android phone, is still a relevant option as evidenced by the fact that it's still available to purchase as new (and with no hint of a price drop) after the Nexus 6 launch.

The Nexus 5 doesn't seem to be quite as powerful as the Honor 6, and its 8MP camera is comparatively weak, but it has a strong 1080p 5-inch display and a distinctive blank canvass design.

Honor 6 review

It also has the benefit of being one of the few smartphones to run pure, unadulterated Android. By the time you read this, it will have received the Android 5.0 update, too, so even a year after its release the Nexus 5 will be on the cutting edge.

It's just a shame that Google hasn't bumped the price down to below the £250 mark.

Nokia Lumia 830

We like to throw in something a little different to these comparisons. Nokia's 'affordable flagship,' the Nokia Lumia 830, offers a similar design to the top-end Lumia 930, but with slightly rolled-back specs.

Admittedly, that means that the Lumia 830's 5-inch display 'only' manages a 720p resolution, which instantly makes it suffer against the Honor 6. Meanwhile, its low-end Snapdragon 400 CPU is thoroughly outgunned by the Kirin 920.

Honor 6 review

But the Lumia 830 is much nicer in the hand, it has a very strong 10MP PureView camera, and the Windows Phone 8.1 OS remains a refreshing (if flawed) alternative to the usual Android and iOS suspects.

Hovering somewhere just under the £300 mark, the Lumia 830 is probably the most expensive phone on this list - which makes it tough to justify given its weaker specs. But if you want a phone that actually looks and feels like a high-end phone, it's an option.

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