Hello everyone, I own the Mate 9 Lite (which is the latin american version of the Honor 6x, but distributed officially by Huawei over here) and I was chatting with a developer the other day, he is the developer of a custom rom known as BraiN EvolutioN for the 6x based on EMUI 5.1.
It was a group chat and I mentioned AOSP roms which I have been trying, long story short, he recommended to everyone to stick to EMUI-based roms because he was told by another huawei developer that AOSP roms "dilate" or slow ruin the partitions on Huawei/Honor phones, is this true? how so? I'm no expert but I have been flashing and rooting phones for more than 5 years now, Samsung, HTC, LG and now I own this Huawei. He said all those brands don't have such a problem because even Touchwiz that is pretty different, is still closer to stock Android than EMUI is, he said EMUI is too different and "zelous" of other software being installed, I never heard of such a thing so I wanted to confirm.
TL;DR: Is this true? Can partitions on a Huawei/Honor phone be physically ruined after some time because of flashing AOSP roms?
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Hey guys,
smashed my phone this week :crying: and now I'm thinking about picking up the P9!
I wanted to have a little discussion about how easy it is to root/mod Huawei phones in general, since I never owned one before. I realize that the P9 is just coming out and we don't have all the information yet, but the general policy from Huawei should translate to the P9 - i think.
So for example, unlocking the bootloader kinda gimped the camera on my previous phone (xperia z3c). Is this common practice? Can you root huawei phones without unlocking the bootloader? How about xposed?
And how willing are the devs to work on these products.
Oh and do you guys think the P9 will get double tap to wake eventually? I haven't seen confirmation if it exists, but this should be such a basic and standard feature these days that it's unbelievable that the P9 doesn't have it?
cheers and have a great day!
Matt
So all of my experience comes from a cheapo 7" tablet called the Honor T1 which my wife had. That's a really old device though and not very popular.
Anyway it was rootable with a chinese tool (language was an issue for me obviously) but it had basically zero dev support (unsurprisingly)
My question is if that's what I have to expect with the P9^^
come on guys I don't exactly need all facts^^ But let's discuss, give me your opinions! I will probably get my P9 tomorrow anyway so I'm looking forward to modding our P9 exactly the way we want.
clouds5 said:
come on guys I don't exactly need all facts^^ But let's discuss, give me your opinions! I will probably get my P9 tomorrow anyway so I'm looking forward to modding our P9 exactly the way we want.
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I'll (mostly likely) be getting the P9 Plus but am doing so in the realisation that full custom ROMs are unlikely to come to this device and those that do will likely not not have full functionality. Only for this phone is this not a deal breaker for me. If it was a pre-requisite for me buying a new phone I'd have been looking at the new Samsungs or HTC.
I really hope you won't be disappointed that you won't be able to get you P9 modded the way you want it, but I fear you may be.
clouds5 said:
Hey guys,
smashed my phone this week :crying: and now I'm thinking about picking up the P9!
I wanted to have a little discussion about how easy it is to root/mod Huawei phones in general, since I never owned one before. I realize that the P9 is just coming out and we don't have all the information yet, but the general policy from Huawei should translate to the P9 - i think.
So for example, unlocking the bootloader kinda gimped the camera on my previous phone (xperia z3c). Is this common practice? Can you root huawei phones without unlocking the bootloader? How about xposed?
And how willing are the devs to work on these products.
Oh and do you guys think the P9 will get double tap to wake eventually? I haven't seen confirmation if it exists, but this should be such a basic and standard feature these days that it's unbelievable that the P9 doesn't have it?
cheers and have a great day!
Matt
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Having owned four Huawei mobiles (P8, P8 Lite, Honor 6 and 4C) allow me to clarify some things for you:
Unlocking the bootloader is easy and won't effect any of the proprietary stuff (such as losing DRM keys, Bravia Engine on Sony devices). The bootloader once unlocked can also be re-locked pretty easily. I used P8 and unlocking bootloader didn't effected camera, sound, etc.
You can probably root Huawei devices without unlocking bootloader using Kingroot. Kingroot supports most of the Huawei devices and currently is also able to root Android 6.0 EMUI 4.0 devices. So I believe, Kingroot will add support for the P9 too.
Huawei devices lack development due to incomplete Kernel sources. I haven't the seen the face of stable Cyannogenmod for any of the Huawei devices I've owned. Honor 6 got CM 11 but was unstable for daily use. It's because of the Kirin SoC which has no good sources and is not development friendly. You won't find any spec sheet relating to any Kirin devices. Talking about Kernel sources, they're a mess and they won't even compile. Huawei releases some of the sources in order to be GPL compliant and if you try to compile AOSP, all proprietary stuff such as NFC, Fingerprint, IR Blaster (in this case) are extremely difficult to be run on custom ROM.
Since EMUI 3.1, almost all Huawei devices have double tap to wake feature. P9 should have it including off screen gestures and probably knock gestures.
Thx! Exactly the information I was looking for. This sounds good enough for me. I usually use stock roms with root/xposed and this should be possible on the P9. Good news about the bootloader as well.
The main reasons I used custom roms in the past was to improve performance and battery life. Both are basically not an issue anymore with current phones. And theming is built in anyway.
There are lots of interesting alt roms for the Mate 9. Has anyone developed (or be willing to develop) a custom rom for thr Pro? Pretty please!
The poor pro is being left behind... I realise this is largely because of limited geographic release but it's a great phone which deserves some attention. I'm not sure how ewsy/difficult it is to adapt the mate 9 custom roms for the Mate 9 pro... Or perhaps there are some Pro owner developers out there.
FYI I'm currently running LON-L29C636B225. Latest version appears to be B229.
Thanks in advance, and apologies if I missed something on this that has been posted already.
Did you tried to install a Mate 9 Rom?
Gesendet von meinem VKY-L29 mit Tapatalk
Blackball said:
Did you tried to install a Mate 9 Rom?
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No. I have asked on threads if a mate 9 rom would work on mate 9 pro and generally got a response of no or 'not sure'. Given that the correct region also seems to be important to make these roms work, I really didn't want to risk flashing a mate 9 image on my mate 9 pro in case of bricking. The twrp I flashed is also different from the standard mate 9 version.
I saw that KangVip build a rom for Mate9/pro...
http://club.huawei.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=2698&filter=typeid&typeid=4298
Isn't it just a different screen size/resolution? That shouldn't be a problem software size. I would imagine.
bejam said:
There are lots of interesting alt roms for the Mate 9. Has anyone developed (or be willing to develop) a custom rom for thr Pro? Pretty please!
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you should know that huawei phones will never have many if any custom roms. the few that have custom roms like the honor 8/P9 are loosing interest from the few devs that are trying to build roms. oreo might fix that but like i said, devs are loosing interest fast.
im waiting to see the pixel 2 and the LG v30. those will have great hardware and will have a huge custom rom support. never again huawei!
droidbot1337 said:
you should know that huawei phones will never have many if any custom roms. the few that have custom roms like the honor 8/P9 are loosing interest from the few devs that are trying to build roms. oreo might fix that but like i said, devs are loosing interest fast.
im waiting to see the pixel 2 and the LG v30. those will have great hardware and will have a huge custom rom support. never again huawei!
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Based on your response, why did YOU yourself even bother purchasing a Huawei device when you knew that rom development was going to lack?
I already knew for months before purchasing mine that ROM development was going to be small or basically non existent and I've been a ROM flasher for many many years, this is the first device I've ever own that I didn't have to root or even flash a ROM, seems you're pretty much unsatisfied because you can't flash any custom ROMs compared to other devices
XERO_Racer said:
Based on your response, why did YOU yourself even bother purchasing a Huawei device when you knew that rom development was going to lack?
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my only huawei devices have been the mate 7 which i bought brand new and a gifted bartered honor 5x and honor 8. i got rid 2 of them as soon as i could. the honor 5x is the only one i still have due to it having a snapdragon soc and a big custom rom selection.
had someone warned me about the mate 7 i would have not bought it but lesson learned. as i have stated many times, huawei hardware is great but their software is complete ****! thankfully huawei is becoming less popular on xda due to them going back on their word about providing major updates for 2 years.
to each their own i guess. you can stick with your huawei devices but most will never take hauwei serious for good reasons. LG v30 FTW!!!
droidbot1337 said:
my only huawei devices have been the mate 7 which i bought brand new and a gifted bartered honor 5x and honor 8. i got rid 2 of them as soon as i could. the honor 5x is the only one i still have due to it having a snapdragon soc and a big custom rom selection.
had someone warned me about the mate 7 i would have not bought it but lesson learned. as i have stated many times, huawei hardware is great but their software is complete ****! thankfully huawei is becoming less popular on xda due to them going back on their word about providing major updates for 2 years.
to each their own i guess. you can stick with your huawei devices but most will never take hauwei serious for good reasons. LG v30 FTW!!!
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Little bit of V30 fanboyism there?
EMUI 5.0 has never been a hiccup for me it's infact the best UI I have experienced so far alot better than 4.0.
Sucks to be you, should've done the research if you knew what you were getting yourself into but you learned it the hard way, but each to their own.
I rather have a device that rarely anyone knows about VS a phone or a brand that everyone knows, have fun with your V30, cuz I'm pretty content where I'm at, no need to go batsh** over what ROM has marginally better battery life or what kernel provided better performance or signal strength with modem files. TBH at least some credibility is due for them for actually polishing up EMUI, if they didn't care this brand wouldn't get far ?
Blackball said:
I saw that KangVip build a rom for Mate9/pro...
http://club.huawei.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=2698&filter=typeid&typeid=4298
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Great - I didn't know about this one! The only challenge for me is the Chinese forum. I know I can google transalte but it is still a bit of a struggle - especiall;y to post questions etc.
I was hoping that some of the custom versions for the Mate 9 could easily be adapted for the Pro. I guess the Pro is a mainly Chinese audience. Depsite these ROMs being based on EMUI, I was pleased of late to see that more of them are coming out. Just not for the pro!
I also notice that the kernel source has been released. Although those experimenting are still experiencing some issues with it. https://forum.xda-developers.com/mate-9/how-to/kernel-source-t3639912
But hopefully this means renewed iinterest from developes for an ASOP ROM for both mate 9 and the Pro!
Have we got any hope? Why don't they just say no?
Want updates? Get a Google Pixel, Sony XZ or OnePlus. Either factory or 3rd party, there's always some ROM.
As a rule of thumb Chinese (except OnePlus and probably some other) brands take your money and that's the end of story.
Honor 8 will not get Oreo update. Support won't tell you anything about their update policy.
Because they are not sure if they are gonna release Oreo for the Honor 8 or not.
I remember on Honor 6x forums, there is a post saying Honor 6x would get Oreo. If that's true, I don't see why Honor 8 cannot... Maybe HUAWEI hasn't decided whether or not they would build Oreo for more Honor devices.
Common, how naive can someone be? Who believes Huawei/Honor would disclose the update path before just before doing it? It would upset current ownsers.
We just need to look at how the brands I mentioned (plus HMD/Nokia) plan and communicate the updates: they publicly and officially communicate it months before doing it. No ifs or buts. Because it's a strong point in their favour. Not the case of Huawei.
It's clear as water but one might choose to believe in a different thing. Like pigs can fly.
Edit: this is nuts! Oneplus 2 will not receive official Oreo. Honor 7 neither (what a joke) and they were both lunched one month (2015) after the other. OP2 have Lineage R15 (Oreo) working. H7 have :laugh::laugh::laugh:
Snapdragon is the way to go.
jerryhou85 said:
I remember on Honor 6x forums, there is a post saying Honor 6x would get Oreo. If that's true, I don't see why Honor 8 cannot... Maybe HUAWEI hasn't decided whether or not they would build Oreo for more Honor devices.
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They say that they're testing it
zinko_pt said:
Common, how naive can someone be? Who believes Huawei/Honor would disclose the update path before just before doing it? It would upset current ownsers.
We just need to look at how the brands I mentioned (plus HMD/Nokia) plan and communicate the updates: they publicly and officially communicate it months before doing it. No ifs or buts. Because it's a strong point in their favour. Not the case of Huawei.
It's clear as water but one might choose to believe in a different thing. Like pigs can fly.
Edit: this is nuts! Oneplus 2 will not receive official Oreo. Honor 7 neither (what a joke) and they were both lunched one month (2015) after the other. OP2 have Lineage R15 (Oreo) working. H7 have :laugh::laugh::laugh:
Snapdragon is the way to go.
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I don't know the point of hiding everything. Say that you are testing it and we'll know soon, say that there is no hope, but just say something.
The support people know as much as you do on updates. They aren't told so they can't tell anyone else. That way, they aren't involved in any early release tests that they aren't supposed to provide support for.
What's the point of having inhouse processors if you don't optimise and update the device.? I know 2 years worth of updates is too much to ask, but it's been less than an year, and this device already feels abandoned. At the very least be like Xiaomi, update your own EMUI for most phones, if android updates are so big of an ask
It really has been a while since all the major ones got an update. I am just asking, because I don't like the fact, that Honor pushes out phones every 3 months while abandoning older phones such as the Honor 8 and now to me it seems the same for the custom roms here on XDA. Well ok, an OREO custom ROM came out a few weeks ago, but it seems to have the same bugs as the Nougat ones (which are still not fixed?). I dont want to moan or something like that, but can anyone give some clarification on that (like: we are still working on our roms but wont publish updates before everything works 100%)?
this is the way its going to be with huawei. if you want custom rom support look elswhere. at least the new phones will get treble which will help with running custom roms but i would still recommend another brand.
Go an Android One Device a few weeks ago, sadly my screen broke overnight (dont know why and how) and had to send the phone back, got my money back because i dont wanted to wait till 2018 to get my replacement phone (Xiaomi Mi A1 imported). Looking for a new device right now, seems like except for the google phones, there isnt a brand which supports atleast two major OS updates and then continues to give devs custom rom support. Had my eye on the Nokia ones (they just said, that they want to open the bootloaders), but I dont know if a Snapdragon 430 would make me happy.
I've had Moto's for several years through the Moto G4 and custom rom availability was the best thing about Motorola phones. That said, Lenovo ruined Motorola and the Honor 8 is still better even without custom rom support. I would take my Honor 8 over the rom rich Moto any day.
I'm waiting from from 6-7 Months now for a new Rom for Honor 8 and I'm not getting any Information about it. There Are Roms coming out for Redmi note 4 and Lower devices Like Pixel Experience, Lineage15.1. I mean is Redmi Note 4 is better than Honor 8?
THANKS
I think they're waiting Oreo for Treble Support.
We are all waiting for Oreo to drop on may, this will give us the opportunity to develop a Treble ROM based on the treble ROM AOSP by phuson. This ROM can be used as a base and it we'll be developed around the rom to make it perfect
Huawei/Honor's software support is pretty awful. I'm using a FRD-L04 and still using the October security update.
Can devs here make anything for the Honor 8 without Huawei releasing code first? I was pretty sure the answer is 'no'?
evilpaul13 said:
Huawei/Honor's software support is pretty awful. I'm using a FRD-L04 and still using the October security update.
Can devs here make anything for the Honor 8 without Huawei releasing code first? I was pretty sure the answer is 'no'?
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The only thing you can do is either wait or buy a new phone (what huawei and honor are actually hoping for).
I figured as much. They make really nice hardware (the design, actual SoC, camera, etc), but won't have a repeat customer with the dreadful software support I've received.
evilpaul13 said:
Huawei/Honor's software support is pretty awful. I'm using a FRD-L04 and still using the October security update.
Can devs here make anything for the Honor 8 without Huawei releasing code first? I was pretty sure the answer is 'no'?
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Honor 8's SoC is not like other phone with snapdragon SoC that can be ported to latest custom roms.
I think that with Oreo to arrive between April - June (Q2 2018) things will change, expecially if it will come (as it should) with full Treble support. In that case for all the developer would be easier to port any oreo-treble based custom rom to honor 8 or build a new one with less trouble and better compatibility. However, i take the opportunity here to thank all the developer who made custom roms until now for not abandoning this device and trying to fix all the bugs (aaaah that kirin....). Thank you all!