When OnePlus set a new record by delivering August 2019 security patches to OnePlus 7 Pro even before Google Pixel lineup, Huawei was not far behind. The Chinese telecommunication giant incorporated the same patchset for some of their devices (e.g. P20 Pro) and eventually made them available for end users.
Although we really don’t admire the shotgun marketing strategy of Huawei (and Honor), they are doing a wonderful job of keeping majority of their device portfolio up-to-date with the latest version of Android.
Updating the underlying Android layer is one thing, but producing periodic monthly security updates seems to be a hectic task for most of the smartphone makers. Keeping aside the Android One phones, very few OEMs deliver such patches to their non-flagship phones and Huawei is one of them.
The above screenshot was taken on an Indian Honor 9N unit. The mid-ranger phone was launched last year, sporting HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC and an adequate 3,400 mAh battery.
After a short beta testing phase, Huawei rolled out Pie based EMUI 9 OTA for Honor 9N in June. Another minor update appeared in July which brought a number of performance fixes, especially correcting the freezing issues. However, the long-anticipated GPU Turbo 3.0 could not make its way – even in August (9.1.0.118).
On the other hand, Honor 10 is another candidate here to grab the August security patch. It was the pocket friendly flagship from 2018, sporting a notched screen and Kirin 970 platform.
Honor China brought EMUI 9.1 to this phone in July, infused with the power of GPU Turbo 3.0, EROFS, July security patches and the typical Android Pie goodness. A broader rollout began after some days, and now Honor 10 users are being blessed with August patchset via software version 9.1.0.326.
I still can’t grasp the gigantic size of these monthly patches. I mean, is it really necessary to download a 3/4 GB package just to have new security patches? Huawei does deliver smaller incremental OTAs, but guess their update application needs some efficiency tweaks to request the most appropriately sized update.
Have you noticed any other change after installing the August update on your Honor 9N or Honor 10? Let us know by commenting below.
PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.
Kingshuk De
896 Posts
I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.
Next article View Article
