Home / News / Phone News
News

Older Huawei devices get new features with EMUI 10.1 update

Huawei is bringing its latest EMUI 10.1 user experience to older Huawei and Honor phones
By Alex Walker-Todd
Tech Advisor JUN 17, 2020 5:00 pm BST

While Huawei’s troubles with the US government are well-documented and ongoing at this point, the show must go on. On 17 June, the company confirmed that it’s bringing EMUI 10.1 to older Huawei and Honor phones.

Emotion UI (or EMUI) is the company’s own-brand user-experience which sits atop its Android-powered smartphones. When the company was a relatively new player in the smartphone space EMUI was mocked for its bloated and overcomplicated design.

Over the years, Huawei has worked hard to slim its user experience down and better appeal to the tastes and expectations of a global audience – leading to EMUI being a rather enjoyable take on Android in 2020.

The most recent iteration – EMUI 10.1 (based on Android 10) – launched alongside the company’s latest flagship phones, the Huawei P40 and P40 Pro. It brought with it a number of new features and refinements, and now, it’s coming to older Huawei phones too.

Which phones are getting EMUI 10.1?

There are the usual suspects; recent releases like the Huawei Nova 5T, Mate Xs and P40 Lite, but (perhaps more importantly) older phones benefit from the update too. Select Honor phones will also enjoy this release in the form of Magic UI 3.1.

Here’s the full list of 20 Huawei/Honor devices getting EMUI 10.1/Magic UI 3.1:

Related: Best Huawei phone 2020

What features are included in the EMUI 10.1 update?

Huawei has confirmed that irrespective of which device (mentioned above) you have, you’ll be getting the full gamut of new features. Here’s a rundown of everything coming in the EMUI 10.1 update:

  • Richer Always-on display support
  • Three new elemental-inspired unlock animations for devices with in-display fingerprint sensors
  • Sidebar and multi-window (split-screen multitasking) functionality
  • Friction slide – more natural physics-based scrolling animation
  • Huawei-to-Huawei (and Honor) proprietary video calling, called MeeTime (region-specific)
  • Enhanced Huawei Share with support for more device types
  • Improved multi-screen collaboration, including direct copy-and-paste, call handling from a PC and more
  • Cross-device photo gallery support, synchronised via your Huawei ID
  • Celia – Huawei’s own-brand voice assistant which, based on our experiences while reviewing the P40 Pro, is a serviceable stand-in for Google’s voice assistant

To that last point, it’s worth noting that this will be the first time EMUI 10.1 has come to devices – like the Huawei P30 Pro and Honor View 20 – that still support Google Mobile Services (GMS) and the Play Store.

While we’re yet to test the update on such a device ourselves, it’ll presumably give users the option to choose between services such as the Google voice assistant or Celia, depending on whether they prefer a more complete Huawei-based experience or not.

When does the Huawei EMUI 10.1 update come out?

Huawei cites a release starting in late June (no specified date), but if you’re device still hasn’t received the update by the time you read this and you’re sure it should have done by now, you can always check by going to Settings > System & Updates > Software Update or by opening the Support (HiCare) App, tapping on Quick Services > More and then selecting Update.