Apple's iSight cameras have always been superior to Android cameras, but Huawei took the bull by the horns with the Honor 6 Plus.
The iPhone has long been the best when it comes to smartphone cameras. Apple’s iSight cameras have been taken on by Samsung often, but barring the Galaxy Note 4, no Android phone has ever really been much of a challenge for the Cupertino-based technology giant. Until now.
It’s not surprising that the challenge comes from China. Honor, the newly launched brand owned by Huawei, is the newest competitor. The company recently launched its Honor 6 Plus smartphone in India, claiming that it is the world’s best smartphone camera, better than the iPhone 6 Plus.
We being eager to test Huawei’s claim, wasted no time in lining the Honor 6 Plus against the iPhone 6 and also threw-in an entry-level DSLR (Canon EOS 550D) in the mix. The DSLR serves its purpose as a benchmark for what smartphone cameras strive to achieve. You would be surprised by the final results though.
DSLR
While smartphone cameras aren't as good as DSLRs just yet, they're definitely headed that way. In this comparison, the DSLR serves more as a indication of what both these phones are striving for. The EOS 550D is an entry level DSLR, so it's going to take a long time before smartphones can actually replace the high-end DSLRs, assuming they ever do so.
From hereon, all images represent only the Honor 6 Plus and iPhone 6, indicated by their tites.
Bright Sunlight
We started our tests on a sunny note, taking all three contenders in bright light, putting them through our very basic test of capturing images in regular daylight, and what a bright sunny day it was! Helped us in gauging their tendency to over-expose images.
The Honor 6 Plus deals better with the shadows created and shows more fidelity in the images. In addition, images are also sharper and more vivid when taken using the Honor 6 Plus, as compared to the iPhone 6. The iPhone on the other hand, took very good pictures, but lacked the fidelity and vividity that the Honor device could give. As evident as it is, while all of them passed the test without breaking a sweat, the Honor 6 Plus has an edge over the iPhone 6.
Indoor Fluorescent light
With a large chunk of images captured via a smartphone are under fluorescent lights (indoors), our next test was done under such conditions.
The competition between the two phones was much closer in these conditions than it was under sunlight. The Honor 6 Plus got the edge because it produced a picture which was closer to the subject than the iPhone 6. The iPhone’s camera algorithm seems to be bungling the white balance by a bit in this case. The Honor 6 Plus though stays true to the source, reproducing a more exact picture. We’ll give the edge to the Honor 6 Plus for this reason, although which picture you like would depend on personal preference.
Studio Yellow Light
Studio conditions are rare for most of us, but they present a good testing ground for cameras. This is actually where the Honor 6 Plus surprised us the most. If you see the DSLR image above (racecar image), you’ll notice that the yellow tones are mellow. The Honor 6 Plus though retains the tone, producing an image that’s again very close to the source. Remember, the shots were taken under yellow lights and hence we were expecting the yellow tones to reflect on the greens.
Between the Honor 6 Plus and iPhone 6, the iPhone’s image seems a bit sharper in this case, but the Honor device is still the brighter and true to source image. The iPhone’s camera algorithm removes the yellow light from the image almost completely, making it hard to differentiate it from a regular image.
The Honor’s true to source picture is again what we prefer in this case, but you may prefer the iPhone for its whites.
Low light
While smartphone cameras have come a long way in dealing with low light conditions, they often struggle to give the desired results. Ironically, it is also the same light conditions that you face at parties and social gatherings.
Of all the conditions that we tried though, this is where the Honor 6 Plus really took the lead on the iPhone 6. Not only is the image brighter, the colours are more accurate and the details are much better than what the iPhone 6 can produce. Huawei’s dual-lens system seems to be really helping here. The setup allows the Honor 6 Plus to take more light, which allows better pictures.
Ultra Low Light
Turning the heat up a notch, we turned off the lights, almost completely. These aren’t regular shooting conditions and you’d seldom attempt to capture a shot under such conditions. What we wanted to test here was whether the dual lens n sensor combination allows the Honor 6 plus to go well beyond the normal call of duty. Due to some issues with the built-in focus assist lamp not firing, our D-SLR failed to capture an image, being unable to lock focus.
That said, you will notice that while the Honor 6 Plus continues to show better colours, you can see much more in the image taken by this phone than the iPhone 6. The Honor’s dual camera setup again gives it the edge here.
Note: The iPhone 6 Plus has optical image stabilisation, which gives it somewhat better low light performance, but from what we've seen, it's still not enough to beat the Honor 6 Plus.
Bottomline
Looking at the samples provided above, we would say the Honor 6 Plus does indeed have a better camera than the iPhone 6. That said, the result is not as evident as Honor would have you believe. There are certain areas, where many may prefer the iPhone 6.
In addition, Apple’s iPhone 6 takes almost no time to process and image, which means the time taken between clicking two pictures is almost nil. The Honor 6 Plus on the other hand, is slower in processing images. Having said that, the shutter response on the Honor 6 plus is almost instant, ensuring blur-free images. The additional time taken can be primairly attributed to the image processing engine
All things considered though, the Honor 6 Plus is still the better camera amongst the two and provides better colours and truer to the source images than the iPhone 6. We can’t wait for the Galaxy S6 to join this test.
Buy Huawei Honor 6 Plus on Flipkart at Rs. 26,499
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Prasid Banerjee
Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. View Full Profile
