Honor 6: Huawei Brings 'World's Fastest 4G Phone' to UK and Europe

Huawei has brought its Honor brand to the UK and Europe for the first time with the launch of the Honor 6, an Android smartphone which will be sold through Amazon - not the network operators - for €299.99 (£236, $382).

Having already launched in its native China, the Honor 6 will go on sale in the UK and Europe from tomorrow, 29 October.

It has a 5in, Full HD screen, is available in black and white, and boasts Huawei's new, redesigned user interface. There's 16GB of storage and a microSD card slot to increase this by up to an additional 64GB.

The rear camera is 13-megapixel (MP) with dual LED flash and, borrowing a feature from the company's Ascend P7 handset, can take a photo in just 0.6 seconds with a double-press of the volume down button - even when the phone is asleep; there's also the option for manual focus, a rarity on smartphones.

The Honor 6 runs Android 4.4 KitKat on the company's own processor - an octa-core chip with four cores running at 1.7GHz and four running at 1.3GHz. A large 3GB of RAM is more than you get in a Samsung Galaxy S5 and means multitasking between apps should be smooth and responsive.

We'll be able to report back on this aspect once we've had some hands-on time with the phone.

Good news for selfie fans is the 5MP front-facing camera, which can record Full HD video and take images twice the size of most other smartphones. A highlighted feature for the Hono 6 is the ability to take panoramic photos with the front-facing camera.

The 5in screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a pixel density of 445 per inch, putting it in the same league as other flagship Android and iOS handsets.

Huawei claims the Honor 6's 3,100mAh battery is good for two full days of average use, or "more than a day" of heavy use - we're keen to put these claims to the test, and see how it stacks up against the current king of battery life, the Sony Xperia Z3.

Version 3.2 of Huawei's Emotion UI is a comprehensive upgrade from the company's previous user interface (as seen on the Ascend P6 and P7), with 650 changes creating a smoother, simpler and flatter design.

Faster 4G

Using CAT 6 technology, the Honor 6 can achieve 4G download speeds of up to 300Mbps, which is 14 times faster than the best 3G connection and double that of 4G devices using CAT 4, such as the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

However, it's worth remembering that despite the headline 300Mbps figure, the UK's 4G networks can't yet achieve this, and download speeds of around 30Mbps are closer to what you should expect. Some pockets of London can offer up to 100Mbps through EE.

A new sales model

Instead of selling the Honor 6 through high street phone shops and network providers, Huawei is using what it calls a C2B (consumer to business) model, meaning the phone will be sold only through Amazon.

This gives Huawei the freedom to sell to the customer directly, rather than enter negotiations with the networks. With cheaper SIM-only plans gaining in popularity, this could be a sound move for the company.