A few days after The Mobile Indian highlighted the older operating system issue in Huawei devices under the Honor brand, the company today through an official communication informed us about the timeline in which the latest Android Lollipop operating system for its Honor series smartphones will be pushed.
Huawei has a range of devices under its Honor series which include Honor 6, Honor 6 Plus, Honor 4X and Honor 4C. While launching the devices in the past, Huawei had promised to roll out the Android Lollipop OS for them but is yet to do so – we had highlighted the issue in our earlier report.
But today, we have got an official confirmation from Huawei regarding the roll out of the Android Lollipop OS for Honor series smartphones, which currently run on Android KitKat version. Huawei’s Honor 4C will be the first device to get the Android Lollipop update on September 21, followed by Honor 6 (September 25), Honor 6 Plus (September 29) and Honor 4X (October 20).
Huawei will push the Lollipop update through SD card (side loading) mode instead of over the air update (OTA) method. As per Huawei, while upgrading devices from KitKat to Lollipop, the device partition table gets change. As a result, HOTA (Huawei’s Over the air update) or OTA updates create a lot of compatibility issues, hence the SD update.
The statement further added, “This is the decision by HQ (Huawei’s headquarter in China) right now. But we are working on the HOTA solution as well, so in the next Lollipop update if everything works fine we can provide HOTA.”
The essential difference between OTA and side loading mode is that in the former the user receives the update notification online and with just a click you can install it. However, the side loading mode requires you to download the package (update zip file) first on SD card (internal memory if expandable memory not available) from a weblink the company shares for the same. Then one has to Boot into recovery (power + volume down) mode where one has to first select “Wipe data and cache” then they have to go to homepage and select “Install from SD” and choose zip file that has been downloaded. After installing is done, reboot the device and you can start using the upgraded device.
In case of Honor devices, one can also go to the EMUI Updater App which come preinstalled in it and select “Local update” option to start the upgrading process. But, keep in mind that even if you are updating your device through the updater app you have to first download the zip file before initiating the process.
We also have the information about the website from where you will be able download the zip file. It is www.hihonor.in. Once you are on the site click “support” tab which is in the top navigation panel after that click on “download†button which is just below the top navigation panel and then finally scroll down to the software section on the page and click on the download tab corresponding to your Honor smartphone.
As of now there is no update package is available on the site but once the update is pushed you will able to see “Lollipop Update†tab appearing alongside the handset model.
Here we would also like to mention that currently Huawei is running a “Beta Testing Program” for Honor device users through their Facebook page. By being a part of the programme, Honor device users can get the update before the official launch. To participate in the programme, you have to send an email request, mentioning your email ID, contact details and IMEI number, to betaindia@huawei.com. If you want a stable update we would suggest you wait for the official launch because the update that will be provided at that time would have been tested for bugs and will give you a better user experience.