EMUI 12 Review, Since the imposition of sanctions against Huawei, various projects of the Chinese tech giant to internalize its products have been pursued more rapidly and vigorously. Huawei announced its ambitious project to release a proprietary operating system called Harmony OS, except for Apple, where all smartphone manufacturers around the world were using the popular Android operating system as the software core of their products; The operating system, which is currently available for Huawei devices inside China, is set to be phased out in other countries.

Along with the development and release of Harmony OS, Huawei did not abandon the EMUI user shell, which was developed based on Android, until the 11th version.

Recently, a new version of Huawei’s user interface called EMUI 12 was released for the brand’s smartphones in a situation where the name of the base kernel does not appear in the settings section. Still, with apps like Device Info, the user interface is based on Android 11. The following article will examine the Huawei EMUI 12 and enumerate its features and capabilities.

EMUI video review 12

User interface design

After working with EMUI 12 for a few minutes, you will notice that the Chinese have put the implementation of minimal style on their agenda and have used various elements to achieve this goal. Almost all the visual details in the new EMUI version are presented to the user in three colors: black, white, and blue, to convey a feeling of freshness at the same time. Huawei says that the new version’s design is inspired by nature. By simulating the force of gravity and the movements caused by magnetic force, the user interface animations are linked to natural events to offer the user a new level of depth.

One of the exciting and useful features added to EMUI 12 is adjusting the Device’s font size to the desired value. While other user interfaces, including the Samsung One UI, provide only a few limited and discontinuous values ​​for resizing fonts, EMUI 12 users can select any font size at a specified interval by moving the corresponding slider in the section. They will have settings.

One of the most significant changes to the apps page is the ability to enlarge folders. It will probably be an exciting and valuable feature for users who care about categorizing apps. To enlarge each folder, hold your finger on it and select Enlarge from the menu that appears. It would help if you did the same with the Shrink option to shrink the folder. Large folders show the icon of up to 6 applications to the user selectively; Other apps are hidden behind the last app on the list, and you have to tap on them to access them.

New control panel

One of the most significant changes to the new EMUI version can be seen in the control panel. Unlike the previous version, the notifications menu is separated from the quick settings; If you swipe down from the top right of the screen bar, the control panel will be available, and if you do the same from the left, you will see the notifications section. In addition, the control panel has undergone significant design changes. It is no longer presented to the user with a simple icon similar to what we are used to in the Samsung One UI. The new version uses a blockchain system identical to Xiaomi’s iOS or MIUI, and options such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and a music player are available in separate blocks.

The control panel broadly provides access to fast, everyday settings without entering the settings menu.

For example, managing audio files and managing devices connected to the phone via Bluetooth can do through this menu. But the feature that Huawei maneuvers a lot is Device + Smart Collaboration, which offers a function similar to the Super Device feature in Harmony OS 2 and allows the user to connect quickly and directly between different Huawei devices.

To activate + Device, all you have to do is select the Edit icon from the top of the control panel and enable the + Show Device option to display a separate block for it in the control panel menu. In this section, you can see a list of Huawei devices that can connect via Device +. For example, by linking to MatePad, MateBook laptops, or Huawei Vision smart TVs, you can use larger screens to manage tasks on the phone. In addition, with the connection of Badz, the user can listen to the content of TV or other devices without disturbing other members of the house.

App Gallery

Following the sanctions and the unavailability of Google services for the new Huawei handsets, the Chinese have developed a dedicated suite called HMS or Huawei Mobile Services, which offers alternatives to Google services; For example, users will have access to Petal Maps instead of Google Maps or Petal Search instead of Google Search. In our surveys, Petal Map showed a map of Iran; But it did not allow positioning.

Huawei’s alternative to Google’s Android Market, the Play Store, is called the App Gallery, making various apps available for download to users of the Chinese company’s handsets. Log in to the gallery app must be done via Huawei ID. Since Huawei must adhere to international sanctions against Iran when registering for Huawei ID, you will not find Iran’s name in the list of countries. It is recommended to choose options such as Iraq, UAE, or other neighboring countries.

Unfortunately, the Appagal library is not complete, and you will not earn much after registering and logging in. You will still have to download many applications from markets such as apkpure.

Although Huawei mobile services include apps-required APIs, such as location access or folder notifications, some apps rely solely on Google APIs to run. Even if installed successfully, they may run.

They have a problem. We have installed and run 126 applications to check their compatibility with HMS for your convenience. You can see the name and status of their implementation in the article on the compatibility of applications with Huawei HMS.

Fortunately, the problem of compatibility of apps with HMS has now been largely resolved, and you can run most of the side apps without any issues on the Huawei service platform; Note, however, that you will still not have access to many of Google’s most popular apps, such as Gmail and YouTube, and you should use the web version of these services if needed.

On the other hand, some Google applications such as Chrome and Maps can run on Huawei devices. Still, it will not be possible to use their valuable features such as logging in to a Google Account and recovering information such as history, passwords, bookmarks, and locations; So it still seems that for users who are heavily dependent on Google services, buying Huawei phones is not a good choice.

Function

Huawei says that EMUI 12 provides users with a high operating speed that does not slow down even under prolonged use, and apps load and run at the same rate as in the first days; Of course, the validity of this claim must test over time, and we can not comment on it at this time. Based on the information provided by the Chinese about EMUI 12, apps and web pages load simultaneously with users scrolling for a faster and lighter gaming experience.

Security

The new version of EMUI has also been improved in terms of security, and it is noteworthy that the prominent role of other Huawei devices in this area is evident; For example, the user can use the Huawei smartwatch as a trusted device to allow the user to unlock the device with Face Unlock only when the watch is connected to the phone. In addition, if you connect with + Device, it will be possible to unlock the phone by entering the password on the laptop or tablet.

Conclusion

Although the Huawei user interface is nothing short of comical in almost every way, it can not keep up with competitors in terms of features and capabilities. In the new version of EMUI, Huawei introduces some of the features of Harmony OS to the users in the framework of the previous version. Apart from the slight changes that have taken place in the design section, there is not much difference in the features section, and the EMUI 12 can not be considered much larger than the previous version.

On the other hand, despite the problems that Huawei phone users face when running some applications, for those accustomed to the ease and straightforwardness of working with Android phones, the issues caused by the lack of Google services may be annoying. Otherwise, the EMUI 12 will probably meet most of what you expect from a smartphone interface in various areas.