Huawei in January announced which of its phones are to receive an update to EMUI 10, the company’s version of Android 10. Despite its US trade ban, all the phones in question were released before the ban and can still run Google services – a slice of good news for Huawei fans.
The Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro (the latter finally coming to the UK on 20 February) already run EMUI 10, but were infamously the first phones not to run Google services.
The P30 Pro, P30, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20, Mate 20 X (4G) and Nova 5T phones were all released before the ban and will receive EMUI 10 as planned, if they have not already. With the P40 around the corner but unlikely to have Google support, it makes these six older phones the best six Huawei phones to own right now.
For our money the best is still the P30 Pro and it’ll stay that way until Huawei can get Google back on its flagships – assuming it does actually do this. We’ve since heard that even if it could run Google apps it would not, and it is reportedly working with Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo to create an alternative to Google Play for Chinese phones.
EMUI 10 is a decent update that we’ve been using for a while on the New P30 Pro. It makes the user interface slicker, brings a system wide dark mode, improved security and better connection to Huawei PCs – if you have one.
Huawei also promised the EMUI 10 “in later months” for the following phones, which is not exactly an encouraging timeline:
- Porsche Design Huawei Mate 20 RS
- Huawei Mate 20 X(5G)
- Huawei P30 lite
- Huawei Nova 4e
- Huawei P20
- Huawei P20 Pro
- Huawei Mate 10
- Huawei Mate 10 Pro
- Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10
- Porsche Design Huawei Mate RS
- Huawei Mate 20 lite
- Huawei P Smart 2019
- Huawei P Smart + 2019
- Huawei P Smart Pro
- Huawei P Smart Z
- Huawei Nova 4
- Huawei Nova Lite 3
Nevertheless it is good to see a company that many people are writing off delivering an extensive Android update across its range, and not just to flagship devices.
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Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.