Android 7.0 Nougat will be making its way to a wide array of Android devices in the future, but for now, only a beta is available, and only to a certain small subset of devices. Up until now, only the Nexus devices, certain Sony Xperia devices, and unofficial devices with their builds made by the community had any access to any form of Nougat. Now, a beta form of Nougat has surfaced for the Huawei P9, complete with the newest version of Huawei’s EMUI skin, version 5.0. This makes Huawei the first manufacturer to have a skinned version of Nougat available, beating out heavy hitters like Samsung and LG.
Although the version number in the About Phone menu lists 5.1, Huawei is notorious for spoofing that section to take some credence away from leaks. A quick run through CPU-Z reveals that the phone’s Android version is indeed 7.0. The video below gives a good look at some of the revamped UI elements present in the newest version of EMUI, from the newly accented status bar to the brand new, smoother animations for just about every action in the system. Along with the visual changes, there are a huge number of under-the-hood tweaks and brand new technologies featured in the newest update. Options for multiple users, interactive gestures, and a new ROG power saving mode developed by Huawei that lowers the screen resolution dynamically to save juice are all on board in the Nougat-based version of EMUI.
The update also includes a new Phone Manager app, a newly optimized built-in traffic manager, battery management with a two-day history, tweaks to the weather map that include hourly updates, and network optimizations meant to make network switching, jumping onto a network, and roaming all work better. EMUI 5.0 also includes camera optimizations to extract the best possible images and videos from the P9’s Leica-built dual-camera setup. The update is still in beta, but seems stable enough for daily use, if the test video is any indication. Interested users can head through the source link to XDA Developers, where each individual model’s forum will have detailed download and installation instructions. It should be noted that those on any kind of custom ROM will have to flash back to stock in order to flash this update, which can be obtained via OTA links.