Huawei Y6 2018: Plans | Pricing | Specs

Huawei Y6 2018

• Display

  5.7 inches

  720 x 1440

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• Storage

  16GB

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• Battery size

  3,000 mAh

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The Huawei Y6 2018 provides a solid, if somewhat basic smartphone experience.

Huawei's Y-series phones are its budget offerings, where fancy features are somewhat compromised in the name of reaching a particular price point. However, that's absolutely par for the course in the budget space and it does have a few individual standout points that make it worthy of consideration.

Design

• 5.7-inch display
• Headphone jack

• Read more on the Huawei Y6 2018's design

  The Huawei Y6's design fits the bill for a budget phone almost precisely, because it's an essentially blandly designed phone. At the sub $200 price point, it's rare to see much design flourish. Equally there's nothing that's particularly off about the Huawei Y6's design. At 152.4 x 73 x 7.8mm it's moderately large in the hand or pocket.

  One standout feature of the Huawei Y6 2018 for its price point is the inclusion of a "fullview" 5.7-inch display. Fullview in this sense refers to a screen with an 18:9 aspect ratio, meaning it's a little taller than traditional 16:9 displays. That gives you more space to scroll down web pages or your social media feed, although it does also mean you'll either have to expand standard video or put up with small black borders when watching on your Huawei Y6 2018.

  We've seen a trend towards dropping the 3.5mm headphone jack on handsets, but thankfully that's not the case for the Huawei Y6 2018. It is Bluetooth compatible if wireless headphones are more your style.

Camera

• Basic rear camera
• Beauty mode for selfies

• Read more on the Huawei Y6 2018's camera

  Cameras are an area where budget phones often compromise, although matters are much better than they were some years ago, thanks to the slow trickle down of premium features to the more affordable set.

  The Huawei Y6 2018's camera specifications certainly are basic by 2019 standards, with a rear 13MP camera for basic photo taking. Around the front you'll find a front-facing 5MP camera. That's basic, but actually decent within the budget price range, where we still see some selfie cameras with just 2MP resolution. Huawei also bundles in a "beauty mode" for the front-facing camera, so you can smooth out your wrinkles somewhat for those essential Instagram shots. As always, take it easy on the smoothing, unless alien chic is the look you're actively chasing.

Performance

• Snapdragon 425 is a good choice at this price
• 16GB of onboard storage, but only around 9GB accessible
• Huawei's EMUI launcher can be messy

• Read more on the Huawei Y6 2018's performance

  The Huawei Y6 2018 runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, with just 2GB of RAM. That's solidly a budget recipe, and you shouldn't expect speedy performance out of the Huawei Y6 2018. However, it's actually a little better than we've seen in some competing handsets that use even slower processors, and sometimes even less RAM.

  On the storage front, Huawei keeps costs low by bundling just 16GB of onboard storage. Of that, only around 9GB is actually accessible, because the Android operating system takes its hit on storage. You can expand that with microSD cards, though, and pleasingly the Huawei Y6 2018 will take up to 2,56GB of additional storage. That much storage in a card may cost you more than the Huawei Y6 2018 does, but at least it's feasible.

  The Huawei Y6 2018 is an Android 8 phone, and we'd be surprised to see any updates to Android 9 or newer any time soon. One factor to take into consideration is that Huawei puts its own EMUI launcher on top of Android, so the Huawei Y6 2018 doesn't quite look or act like other Android phones. It's very much an acquired taste if you're coming from other Android phones with a more "clean" approach.

Battery

• 3,000mAh battery

• Read more on the Huawei Y6 2018's battery

  In the low-cost space, it's common for manufacturers to cut back on battery capacity. The Huawei Y6 2018's 3,000mAh battery isn't the largest we've seen, but it's also not a size that should particularly compromise its battery endurance. With careful use, single-day battery life should be achievable.

Pricing and availability

• The Huawei Y6 2018 retails in Australia for $159
• It's also available as a prepaid phone through Optus

Huawei Y6 2018

Huawei's affordable handset

The Huawei Y6 2018 provides solid value for the budget phone buyer.

The Huawei Y6 2018 has an aggressive price point of just $159, just a shade cheaper than many of its competitors. It's very much a story of being priced towards that budget market that can accept its performance compromises, but if that's you, it's worth considering alongside handsets such as the Nokia 2.1 or LG K9.

Huawei Y6 specs

Compare SIM-only plans for the Huawei Y6

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