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Honor is recruiting beta testers in India for the Honor 7X's EMUI 9 update based on Android 9 Pie
Honor is seeking beta testers in India for the upcoming Android Pie-based EMUI 9 update for its mid-range smartphone Honor 7X.
Honor 7X, a budget smartphone launched with Android 7.0 Nougat back in 2017, should soon receive its second major update after an Android Oreo upgrade last year. It was one of the 11 Huawei and Honor devices to have received the EMUI 9.1 beta based on Android 9 Pie in China last month. Its successor – the Honor 8X – is already getting a stable Android Pie update in China, and the 7X should follow shortly. But in the meanwhile, Honor has also started looking for beta testers for the Honor 7X in India, hinting that the stable update is on its way.
EMUI 9.1 beta rolls out to the Honor View 20, Honor Magic 2, Honor 7X/8X/9/10, Huawei P10, P20 Lite, Mate 20 Lite, and Nova 3/3i/2 in China
Huawei has started rolling out EMUI 9.1 beta to a large number of devices including Honor 7X/8X/9/10, Huawei P10, P20 Lite, Mate 20 Lite, others in China.
Huawei announced EMUI 9.1 based on Android 9.0 Pie last month at the Huawei P30 Pro launch. It comes with with a slew of changes over EMUI 9.0 including a simpler and more intuitive UI, GPU Turbo 3.0, nature alarm sounds, optimizations to HiVoice, improved AR functionality with HiVision, etc. While EMUI 9.1 is currently available on select devices including the P30 Pro, Mate 20 Pro, and the Mate 20 X, the company has promised the update for as many as 49 Huawei and Honor devices. Now, a beta update brings the latest EMUI to a dozen of devices in China and paves way for the global update.
The Honor 7X will likely get EMUI 9 based on Android Pie after all
Beta builds of EMUI 9 based on Android Pie have been spotted for the Chinese models of the Honor 7X, indicating that the device will get Pie after all.
The Honor 7X was launched in late 2017 with EMUI 5.1 based on Android 7.0 Nougat, which was slightly disappointing since Android Oreo was available at the time. Honor justified this move by stating that even though Android Oreo was available, it was not ready for Honor devices when the Honor 7X went into production. Honor promised that the phone would receive an Oreo update with EMUI 8, and they made good on that promise.
Android Pie ported to the Honor View 10, Huawei Mate 10 Pro, and more
Android Pie (Android 9) has been ported unofficially to the Honor View 10, but it also works on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro and some other devices too.
Android Pie is the hottest topic in the Android community right now. After releasing on the Google Pixel and Pixel 2, Essential PH-1, independent developers on our forums have been hard at work porting the latest Android release from AOSP to their devices. We've already seen the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Mi 3, Mi 4, Redmi 4X, ZenFone Max Pro M1, and the OnePlus 2/3/3T/X receive unofficial ports of Android 9 Pie, and now the Honor View 10 and Huawei Mate 10 Pro are joining the short list of devices with ported Android 9 releases.
Team OpenKirin opens website to support all EMUI 8 Huawei/Honor devices
Team OpenKirin aims to make the pure AOSP experience available for all supported Huawei and Honor devices running EMUI 8.
Huawei and their subsidiary Honor ship their smartphones and tablets with their EMUI software. It's a heavily modified version of the stock Android framework that offers a lot of features not found in AOSP. Some people prefer all of the added features while the stock Android purists would much rather have stock Android running on top of Huawei/Honor hardware. If that describes you, then you may want to check out the work done by the OpenKirin team. They recently released unofficial LineageOS, CarbonROM, and Resurrection Remix builds for all EMUI 8 devices.
Honor Play unveiled with "GPU Turbo" tech for gaming, Honor 9i mid-range announced too
Honor has just announced 2 new phones, the mid-range Honor 9i and the Honor Play with a feature called "GPU Turbo" to improve the mobile gaming experience.
We're starting to see smartphone companies create devices with a major emphasis on mobile gaming. Razer released a smartphone dedicated to gaming and ASUS just announced the ROG Phone, which again, is being marketed toward gamers. Honor has just announced two new phones, the mid-range Honor 9i and the Honor Play with a new feature called "GPU Turbo" that helps improve the mobile gaming experience. The company has also revealed how this GPU Turbo feature works and the list of other Honor devices that will receive the feature in a future update.
How to flash a Generic System Image (GSI) on Project Treble supported devices
So your device supports Project Treble, what does that mean for you? It means you can flash a Generic System Image such as LineageOS or Resurrection Remix! Enjoy AOSP-based custom ROMs! Here's a guide on how to install these ROMs.
If you've only heard of Project Treble in passing but haven't looked into it all that much, then you may have heard that it's supposed to help major Android updates roll out more quickly. At XDA, there's another benefit that we've spoken about at length: the ability to boot an AOSP Generic System Image (GSI) on any supported device. This means that devices that were once running heavily customized Android versions like Samsung Experience on the Samsung Galaxy S9 or EMUI 8 on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro can alternatively run software closer to that of the Google Pixel 2.
Here's a list of Android devices updated with Project Treble support
Project Treble is a major re-architecture of the way Android works. The result is that Android software updates should come faster on devices that support it. Also, it opens up a whole new avenue of custom ROMs. Check out if your device supports it!
Whereas Apple is able to keep most of their devices, even many older ones, up to date with the latest software (which sometimes involve rather controversial features), Android device makers have varying degrees of success keeping their devices up to date. Some device makers like Essential and Google are pretty good at providing security patches, while others can delay updates by months at a time. That's without considering major software updates such as from Android Nougat to Android Oreo, a software release which is installed on only slightly more than 1% of all Android devices. To combat slow Android updates, Google introduced Project Treble.
Before you can root your Honor 7X or install a custom recovery, you'll want to unlock your bootloader. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to get the unlock code for your device and how to use ADB to unlock your bootloader.
Honor 7X and Honor 8 will get EMUI 8 in Q2 2018 according to Honor France
Honor France, on its Twitter account, has announced that the Honor 7X and Honor 8 will receive EMUI 8 in Q2 2018. It is unclear if this update will bring Android Oreo to the Honor 8, however.
The Honor 8 and the Honor 7X are two of the most popular Honor smartphones of all time due to their pricing. The Honor 7X was just made available in a limited edition red due to its popularity. However, both of these devices have not yet been updated to EMUI 8, the latest version of Huawei's custom Android software, so owners of these two devices have been curious about when they would be getting the update. Earlier, it was confirmed that both of these devices will be receiving EMUI 8, and now Honor France says these two devices will both receive the update in the second quarter of this year.
Honor 7X Review
The Honor 7X is Huawei's newest mid-range flagship, and it's a bargain at $200. But just how well does it stand up to the competition? Check out our review.
The Honor 7X is the latest in Honor's long, evolving budget phone series. The Honor 5X and Honor 6X -- its predecessors -- were good phones for their respective prices, but the Honor 7x really hits the nail on the head in terms of design, performance, and camera capability. That's why we think the Honor 7X is the best budget phone you can buy today, with a starting price of just $199.