Huawei Y6s Review - Y6 Pro 2019 on steroids!

We take a quick dive into the newly released Huawei Y6s with MediaTek Helio P35, 3GB RAM, a large 64GB storage, and a loudspeaker!

Huawei Y6s

Let's take a closer look and see if it is the new entry-level phone to pick for PHP 6,990.

Unboxing/Accessories

Inside the box of the Y6s

Huawei Y6s comes in the familiar white box with a render of the phone in front with regulatory information and branding on the side.

Inside the box are the phone unit, 5V/2A power plug, USB Type-A to a micro USB port, and SIM ejector tool.

Just note that this is not the retail box which will include the documentation. 

Build Quality/Design

Huawei Y6s rear

Huawei Y6s has a high-quality polycarbonate frame that is solid but incredibly lightweight. In front is a glass panel that covers the display.

Lightweight yet durable!

There is no mention of whether the display is Gorilla Glass protected. At the back is a glasstic panel. Both the front glass and rear glasstic panel make the Y6s a fingerprint magnet. Surprisingly, the phone is not slippery when held.

The screen is big for a budget phone at 6.09 inches and its screen-to-body ratio is considered as impressive at nearly 90 percent. The chin bezel is thick enough to house the Huawei logo, but the overall bezels are slim.

It also has a tiny dewdrop notch unlike other budget phones with thicker notches. We also like that Huawei was able to cleverly hide the LED notification and speaker grill above the notch.

At the back of the device is the rear camera, LED flash, fingerprint sensor, Huawei branding, and regulatory information.

Topside

On top are the 3.5mm headphone jack and a microphone port. While at the bottom are the speaker grills and the micro-USB port. Only the right side grill produces audio while the left side is for the microphone.

Bottom side

Above the display is a halo shaped notched that houses the front-facing selfie camera.

Left side

Right side

On the left side is the SIM card tray while on the right side is the volume rocker and the power button.

Multimedia Experience

Huawei Y6s's display!

In front of the 6.09-inch 2.5D curved IPS 720p display with slim side bezels, thick bottom bezels, and a halo notch on top. It has a ppi of 276 which is able to display crisp readable text and images.

It produces bright and vibrant colors. The display can be customized to be warmer, colder, or more color accurate. It also has an eye-comfort mode that can be enabled perpetually or scheduled.

Above the notch is the earpiece speaker grill that also hides the LED notification light. A feature that is becoming rare.

The display accurately and quickly registers up to 10 multiple points of touch simultaneously which makes it good for games and apps that take advantage of it.

On top of the phone is the 3.5mm headphone jack but our Y6s unit did not arrive with headphones. 

The bottom-firing speaker at maximum volume can get loud enough to fill a room but at maximum volume, the sound produced has noticeable distortion and "tingy-ness" At 70 percent volume, the sound is clearer and with the best separation, it can produce.

The earpiece produces clear sound in calls and the multiple microphone set-up allows for clear calls and voice recording.

Cameras

13MP rear camera

At the back of the Y6s is a 13MP f/1.8 camera with an LED flash. The camera app has the following modes: Beauty, Photo, Video, Pro, Panorama, and HDR.

Huawei Y6s Camera app

The Beauty Mode has up to 10 levels of beautification while the Pro mode allows for control of ISO (100-3200), Shutter speed (1/4000 to 8 seconds), EV (+-4), and White balance.

Assistive grid and location tags can be enabled. There is no Night Mode.

Rear Camera Samples

Rear camera daylight

In daylight, the Huawei Y6s takes decently sharp pictures with good contrast. The colors of the image, however, is a mixed bag. The color reproduction is realistic and is not saturated.

Against the light

Even for against the light shots, the cameras of this device did a pretty decent job.

Close-up

The shot that we took here is highly detailed with slight depth. Sadly, there's no portrait mode. 

Huawei Y6s indoors

In well lit indoor environments, the image remains the same as the outdoor shots. Images are decently sharp with good contrast. Color reproduction is again on point.

Huawei Y6s low light

In low light, the Y6s was able to retain good color reproduction while maintaining a decent amount of sharpness despite the observable increased amount of grain. Overexposed areas are also well controlled.

Another low light sample

In short, the Huawei Y6s performs decently across lighting conditions with the only noticeable concern is increased grain in low light that somewhat decreases sharpness.

We would have been even happier if the Y6s had Night mode.

Huawei Y6s' front-facing camera

In front is an 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera with a screen flash. In the camera app, the following modes are available: Beauty, Photo, and Video.

Like the rear camera, the Beauty mode has up to 10 levels of beautification. There is no Bokeh or portrait mode.

Huawei Y6s selfie camera app

Selfie Camera Samples

Daylight selfie

In daylight, selfies have good sharpness and good contrast. Colors are vibrant but the white balance tends to favor the warmer side with Neil's skin being warmer in the image than in real life.

Wide and detailed for a budget selfie cam

Another thing that we like about it is its field of view. It is not narrow at all.

Indoor selfie

In indoors, the selfie image retains good sharpness and good contrast with a more accurate white balance. The colors are also vibrant as seen with the red signs and the orange lanyard.

Low light with screen flash

In low light, the selfie camera images can be significantly improved. There is a huge amount of grain that has softened the image and has ruined the color of accurate color reproduction. 

Overexposed areas are somewhat controlled.

In the video, the Y6s can record up to 1080p 30fps with the rear-facing camera and the front-facing. Both cameras do not have either an EIS or an OIS option.

Note: You may watch the video samples here.

Performance/UI

Huawei Y6s benchmarks

GeekBench 5 surprisingly is not compatible with the Huawei Y6s's 2.3GHz 64-bit Helio P35 octa-core processor and PowerVR GE8320. So we only have AnTuTu and 3D Mark benchmark scores. They Y6s performed well considering that it is priced at PHP 6990. It got 105+K in AnTuTu and 482/532 in Sling Shot OpenGL/Sling Shot Vulkan.

It has 3GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 512GB via microSD.

Daily tasks like navigating through the menus, launching apps, web surfing, YouTube/Netflix streaming are a breeze with the Helio P35 and the 720p display.

Good speed for the price!

We did not experience lag or slowdowns with basic tasks and with a conservative number of apps in the background. It starts struggling when more than 12 apps are in the background after a long day of not closing a long list of apps.

Huawei Y6s' EMUI 9.1

Under the hood is EMUI 9.1 based on Android 9.1. Like the rest of Huawei's phone from 2019, EMUI has made significant visual changes that have improved the quality of life software experience for users.

It is one of the fastest skins around yes but like previous iterations, there are still quirks that make the skin polarizing. You either like it or you don't. If you've never liked EMUI before, it is still hard to like it now, but if you've loved EMUI before, you will love the new improvements.

Powering the device is a 3,020mAh battery that is charged via micro-USB with a 5V2A power plug. Charging time from 0 to 100 percent takes around 60 minutes.

In our daily routine that involves unplugging the phone at 8AM with calling, texting, web surfing, e-mailing, YouTube/Spotify/Netflix streaming with some games, we would get home at 8PM with under 10 percent of battery life. Even with the 720p display, the 3020mAh battery is only barely enough for the day.

It has Face Unlock and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. Both are easy to set-up and both quickly register our faces/fingerprint and unlocks the phone instantaneously.

See also: OPPO A5s vs Huawei Y6s vs Samsung Galaxy A10s - The great budget phone fight!

Pros - Pretty design, Good build materials, great specs to price ratio, bright and vibrant screen

Cons - Micro USB, 3,020mAh battery could be bigger, hit or miss low light camera performance

Huawei Y6s Specs

Display: 6.09-inch 2.5D curved IPS screen w/ HD+ 1520 x 720 resolution at 276 ppi

CPU: 2.3GHz 64-bit Helio P35 octa-core processor

GPU: PowerVR GE8320

RAM: 3GB

ROM: 64GB expandable via microSD card slot up to 512GB (dedicated)

Back Camera: 13MP f/1.8 w/ PDAF and LED flash

Selfie Camera: 8MP f/2.0 w/ screen flash

Battery: 3,020mAh

OS: Android 9.1 Pie w/ EMUI 9.1

Connectivity: WiFi, 700MHz 4G LTE, Bluetooth, built-in FM Radio, GPS, GLONASS, dual SIM (nano)

Sensors: Accelerometer, light, proximity, sound

Others: Face unlock, loudspeaker, Colors: orchid blue, starry black

Dimensions: 156.28 x 73.5 x 8 mm

Weight: 150 g

Price: PHP 6,990

Verdict

For its PHP 6,990 starting price, the Huawei Y6s offers decent price to spec ratio while offering decent performance across all categories. This means that the Y6s aren't the best in its class, but it is up there and we recommend it for people who love EMUI and is looking for a decent phone for its price.

Build/Design - 4
Multimedia Experience - 4
Cameras - 4
Performance 4.25
Average - 4.07/5

What do you guys think?