Update 08/06/19, 06:45 AM EST: HUawei has begun rolling out the update to the Huawei Y9 Prime as well. Original article from July 16, 2019 is preserved as below.

Magic UI 2.1 is the next major update to Honor's UX, which in turn builds upon the changes and improvements that Huawei undertakes for EMUI 9.1. The Magic UI 2.1 update was set to arrive on the Chinese variants of Honor View20 and Honor Magic 2 in May, while global variants received the update in June. Meanwhile, EMUI 9.1 is rolling out to devices over the next few months as well. Now, Honor and Huawei have announced that several of its previous devices, including the Honor 8X, Honor 10, Honor View10, Huawei P30 Lite, and Huawei P20 Lite will receive GPU Turbo 3.0 with this update.

The list of devices scheduled to receive GPU Turbo 3.0:

Meanwhile, the Honor View20 and Honor 20 Lite have already received their updates.

Highlights of Magic UI 2.1/EMUI 9.1 include the newest update to GPU Turbo 3.0, which now covers a total of 25 games such as Fortnite, Real Racing 3, PES 2019, Fifa Mobile, Minecraft, and others. This update manages to reduce power consumption on the device during gameplay by up to 10% without needing to compromise on graphics performance, allowing users to game for a longer period of time. It was previously limited to flagship devices, but now it's coming to many more.

Another headlining feature for Magic UI 2.1 is the rollout of EROFS file system. EROFS stands for "Extendable Read-Only File System", and this new development from Huawei features an improved compression mode that focuses on performance and speed. Claimed improvements include an increase in random read performance by an average of 20% along with an increase in app start-up speed by 10%. This file system also promises to improve data reading performance in low-memory conditions, as well as improve the security of system files, though further details on how exactly it does this have not been disclosed.

Other smaller improvements include AI Vlog Editing feature which takes out the effort from combining several photo moments into a cinematic video, similar to what Google does often through Google Photos. Magic UI 2.1 also features new icons that have better readability, and new wallpapers. On the Honor View20, the new update also brings the AR Measure App Everywhere, which takes advantage of the ToF sensor on the device to serve as a means to measure objects in a jiffy.

Update: EMUI 9.1 with GPU Turbo 3.0 rolling out for Huawei Y9 Prime

The Huawei Y9 Prime was launched in India a week ago, and curiously, the phone launched with EMUI 9.0. Thankfully though, Huawei has already begun rolling out the EMUI 9.1 update for the phone. Newer devices should hopefully come with this update preloaded out-of-the-box. This ensures that all users will be on the latest update to Huawei's UX on this device, enjoying features such as EROFS and GPU Turbo 3.0.

Note: Huawei/Honor have stopped providing official bootloader unlock codes for its devices. Therefore, the bootloaders of their devices cannot be unlocked, which means that users cannot root or install custom ROMs.