The Chinese telecom giant launched HUAWEI Mate 8 as its flagship smartphone for the second half of 2015. It has been almost 5 years since the handset’s initial release. For context, it debuted around the time when iPhone 6s/6s Plus, Galaxy S6/S6 Edge, and Galaxy Note 5 were the talk of the town. But even after these many years, the phone is getting a new system update, which is unheard in the Android world.
Out of all the smartphones launched in 2015, the Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are the only devices to get regular software updates. These two are even eligible for iOS 14, which is set to release this fall.
Surprisingly, Huawei is rolling out a new system update to Mate 8 with build number 8.0.0.850 (C00) in China. It is probably the first time a five-year-old Android smartphone is getting an official software update from the company.
This handset currently runs EMUI 8.0 based on Android Oreo. For those unaware, it was the first Huawei device to launch with EMUI 4.0 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It got two major Android and EMUI updates as promised by the firm.
The new update for the HUAWEI Mate 8, which is being seeded out after the end of its software support bumps up the security patch level to July 2020. Most importantly, it adds the “Smart Charge” feature, which reduces battery ageing by adapting and preventing the battery from being continuously charged when full.
That said, the OTA update weighs 222MB in size and is currently limited to the Chinese variant of the phone with model number NXT-AL10. We expect the global variants to get it in the coming days.
It is worth noting that a similar update was also rolled out to HUAWEI Mate 9/Mate 9 Pro (2016), HUAWEI P9/P9 Plus (2016), and HUAWEI P10/P10 Plus (2017).
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