New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Unlike Apple, Android OEMs need time to shape up newer version of Android for their existing devices. More and more companies are now taking part in the early testing phase of Google’s upcoming major version update aka Android Q, but day-one OTA is still a dream for majority of the Android users.

android_q_beta_oems
The above OEMs are testing Android Q besides Google on their phones

Some of these vendors prefer to announce an estimated date of delivering the update, but often end up with a heavily rushed, botched build. Others, like OnePlus, do not want to give any kind of approximation to avoid further issues.

Zenfone-Max-Pro-M2-ZB630KL
Asus ZenFone Max Pro M2: The first few Pie builds were filled with bugs

Chinese OEM Huawei (along with their sub-brand Honor) usually takes a middlesome policy. They do provide software updates for their legacy devices, but after a series of thorough internal and public beta testing phases.

Afterwards, they declare a tentative timing to rollout the final stable build. One such list was surfaced earlier, according to which a bunch of phones such as Huawei P10/P10 Plus were supposedly running though internal beta testing of EMUI 9.1 (based on Android 9.0 Pie).

Weibo-list-of-huawei-phones-to-get-EMUI9.1

Now we have the official confirmation of the claim as Huawei China is recruiting public beta testers of EMUI 9.1 for the following phones:

  • Huawei P10
  • Huawei P10 Plus
  • Huawei Mate 9
  • Huawei Mate 9 Pro
  • Huawei Mate 9 Porsche Edition
  • Huawei nova 2s
  • Honor 9
  • Honor V9

These devices are circa 2017 and powered by HiSilicon Kirin 960 SoC. Most of them were launched with Android Nougat, although some of them came with preinstalled Oreo based EMUI 8.0.

The eligible device variants along with the required baseline software version identifiers are listed below:

huawei_2017_kirin_960_emui_9.1_beta_list
Click/Tap to zoom

While Huawei P10/P10 Plus and nova 2s are receiving EMUI 9.1.0.186 as the first public beta, Huawei Mate 9/9 Pro/9 Porsche Edition are getting EMUI 9.1.0.193. Remaining phones in the above list are blessed with 9.1.0.180 build.

According to Huawei/Honor, minimum 6 GB free space is mandatory to install the beta updates properly. Having root access may create problems while installing these EMUI 9.1 builds, thus it is advisable to restore stock firmware beforehand.

huawei_2017_kirin_960_emui_9.1_beta_registration

As readers may notice, interested users have to submit a handful of unique identifiers such as both IMEIs as well as MEID via an online questionnaire. Further details can be found in the official beta recruitment thread.

FYI, the current EMUI 9.1 beta is only applicable for Chinese units. Global users can install the builds after rebranding their phones, but this is not the appropriate place for such discussion.

Update 1 (July 20)

Huawei rolled out the initial EMUI 9.1 beta for Honor 9/V9 and Huawei nova 2s. The 9.1.0.18 build brought GPU Turbo 3.0 and many more new features. For further info, see here.

Update 2 (August 5)

Huawei P10 Plus and Honor 9 are now getting EMUI 9.1 update with July patch level, EROFS & GPU Turbo 3.0. The August security patch for P10 (Plus) can be located too. Details here and here.

Update 3 (August 26)

EMUI 9.1 update for Huawei P10 is now available across multiple regions as OTA. The OEM also pushed a minor patch to improve fingerprint unlock speed. Head over to this article for further info.

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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.

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