Q&A December 2020: HarmonyOS Mobile, EMUI 11, Google, Honor separation, Huawei P50, U.S ban and more

In 2020, there are a lot of things that happened in the Huawei world. This includes the launch of various new products and services, as well as challenges that kept increasing in the face of U.S. sanctions.

This year, Huawei introduced two new flagships – Huawei P40 and Mate 40 series, as well as EMUI 10.1 and EMUI 11. At Huawei Developers Conference 2020, the company unveiled HarmonyOS 2.0 also known as Hongmeng OS, laying out its development road map and adaptation process.

On the wearables section, Huawei released new smartwatches – Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro, Watch GT 2e, and Watch Fit, which enhances user experience and how you keep track of your health.

This year, the U.S. continues to imposed new sanctions on the product that Huawei sources from other countries and specifically made with U.S.-made technologies such as chipsets.

There are only a few weeks left for us to enter in 2021 but ahead of that, there are a few more launches and questions to cover. As recently, we’ve received over 200 hundred questions and queries from Huawei fans that came to us via Mail, Twitter, and Facebook. Some of these answers reflect our own opinions and it’s possible that it may not match everyone else’s.

Let’s start our December 2020 Q&A session:

Q1. Why Huawei is still not allowing Rooting.

A – We don’t have an exact answer to this.

Q2. When Huawei Book will be available in Germany

A – We don’t have an official confirmation on this matter.

Q3. Will there be a continuous SpO2 measure feature for Watch Fit?

A- Yes, Huawei Watch Fit has an Sp02 monitoring feature but, there’s no confirmation about 24 hours Sp02 monitoring for this Watch.

Q5. Huawei Y9 and Y9 Prime 2019 will get EMUI 11?

A- According to the official rollout plan, these phones aren’t eligible for EMUI 11.

Q6. Will there be a multi-window mode feature coming to Huawei P20 Pro?

A – No because the multi-window mode feature was introduced with EMUI 10.1 and P20 Pro is not compatible with EMUI 10.1.

HarmonyOS:

Q7. Will Honor smartphones get HarmonyOS update?

A- Currently, there’s no confirmation on this matter because it’s now an independent company.

Q8. HarmonyOS will support APK installations?

A- We’ll have to wait for official confirmation.

Q9. What’s the launch date of the HarmonyOS mobile beta?

A- HarmonyOS mobile beta for developers will be introduced on December 16 but its availability is yet to be revealed for general users.

Q10. Which devices will support HarmonyOS?

A- Currently, Huawei has not confirmed information about the HarmonyOS devices but the Chinese tech giant is likely to give this update first to the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) smartphones. You can check our list of expected devices to get HarmonyOS 2.0 upgrade here.

GMS, Sanctions and Chipset:

Q11. Will Huawei be able to use a Snapdragon processor in the Huawei P50 series?

A- Maybe, because Huawei can still use Kirin 9000 chipset in the Huawei P50 series but we cannot deny the possibility of using the Qualcomm chipset if it gets a license from the U.S. government.

Q12. Do you think new U.S. President Joe Biden will lift sanctions from Huawei?

A- We don’t know.

Q13. Do you think Huawei will get Google Mobile Services (GMS) back?

A- Yes, if the U.S. provides a license to Google to resume business with Huawei.

Q14. Huawei P40 Lite, P40 Lite 5G, Huawei P30 Pro New Edition, Nova 7i, and Nova 7 SE will get EMUI 11?

A- There is no official information regarding these devices will get EMUI 11 or not but since they’re the latest smartphones their chances for getting EMUI 11 are high.

Q15. When Honor 9X Pro will get EMUI 10

A – Honor has not confirmed EMUI 10 rollout date for Honor 9X Pro but its Chinese version has received even EMUI 10.1 long ago.

Q16. Can Huawei P50 series use under-display camera technology

A-  No, we don’t think so, but we’ll have to wait to clear the picture.

Q17. Will Huawei P30 devices will receive major future updates?

A- Currently, Huawei P30 and P30 Pro are running on EMUI 10.1 and it is also a part of EMUI 11 beta testing. Recently, Huawei has released the EMUI 11 stable version for P30 users in China, while global users will get EMUI 11 major upgrades in Q1 of 2021.

Q19. What will happen to Honor phones after Huawei and Honor separated?

A- Now, Honor will work as a separate smartphone company, and older Honor devices likely to remain unaffected by this separation.

Important: Will Huawei Central still cover news regarding Honor smartphones?

A- Yes, we’ll cover the news regarding Honor but it’ll mostly for existing smartphones that launched before the partition between Huawei and Honor that happened in November 2020 and we can also cover devices that will launch in the coming time.

Note: None of these answers were taken from Huawei.

If you’ve any other questions that we forgot to mention, then put it in the comment section.