How do Chinese people think of HUAWEI?

[PostMeridy]

Personally, as a Chinese, I'm glad to see that there're more and more reviews from YouTube etc in these years, and yes, HUAWEI is kinda a so-called "Chinese pride" who presents a rapidly growing aspect of Chinese phones.

But also as a Chinese who's been using a HUAWEI devices as daily driver for a long time, there're still plenty of reason that stops me from continue to buy their devices. And the main problem is their system: EMUI. Yes, we know that Android skin can be easily changed thanks to theme store, but even comparing with other Chinese ROMs like MIUI in XiaoMi devices or H₂OS on OnePlus (or O₂OS), EMUI is staggeringly ugly. This is quite objective, but there really aren't any phones in 2017 or 2018 that run with such hideous pre-loaded skin like HUAWEI, and as the time pass, they didn't show any sign of changing it, EMUI 9.0 still contains so much over-saturated color even in the home screen that tries to kill your eyeballs- accompanied with their over-compromised screen.

Take P30 Pro for example, we all agree that its camera(s) are great, but HUAWEI has made so much compromise in the screen for the camera and its 4000 mAh+ battery. Long battery life is a good stuff, but we still need to criticize it's poor color accuracy and horrible in-range view.

Still, EMUI has its own stubborn and anti-humanity logics. For exemple, you're not allowed to switch to a non-HUAWEI-certified third-party launcher, for example, Nova Launcher, Lawnchair, CPL, Niagara Launcher, Microsoft Launcher -- pretty every single famous launcher you find on Play Store, it's non-certified. And what are those HUAWEI-certified launchers? Small Chinese launchers that even few Chinese know about. This frankly killed all the possibilities I could buy a HUAWEI device in the near future, and when you ask HUAWEI why they banned third-party launchers, they give a standardized answer:"For security reasons and maintain battery life."

That's not an answer.

Along with launcher issues, EMUI keeps ruining your use experience with its laggy animation, weird permission management, stupid interact logic and above all: its unacceptable attitude. They have a wallet app that you can sync your credit/debt card, your transportation card and other tickets in it, but with in-add-ads with non-removable red dots. You download the Clock app from Play Store and grant it with any possible permissions, you still won't receive the alarm in the next morning. They are all small pains that won't stop you from using a HUAWEI device, but it stay there, in the level of "usable" rather than "comfortable". I do get way better battery life from my HUAWEI Mate 9 Pro than my Pixel 2, but that's because I barely use that Mate 9 only as a hotspot device for my Pixel 2.

We do agree that HUAWEI provides excellent hardware, like their camera, gigantic battery and full function NFC, but their software is garbage, by any chance you use it daily, it gives you pain in every tiny aspects like a third-party clock app. To make matters worse, no bootloader unlock is allowed by now, HUAWEI simply strangle all the chance of consommer to make EMUI looks and feels better.

HUAWEI's attitude, in accompany with the worse-than-competitors system experience, has led to an extremely polarized comment in China. So as a Chinese advice, if you want to "make your Android devices more comfortable in your daily use", don't choose HUAWEI, or HONOR, 'caus EMUI sucks, even for a Chinese.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

the fact that Huawei is a chinese brand and being politically supported by gov, I assume it acts as a spyphone sending data away, (same as other chinese brands and also apple)

 

also thanks to xiaomi, giving an overall image to chinese phone are being cheap and copycats, Huawei has made its price tag(high end?) too high in comparison to other flagship phones, such as samsung / htc/lg etc.

it doesnt make any sense getting getting it over the other well-branded flagships.

 

[PostMeridy]

5 minutes ago, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

the fact that Huawei is a chinese brand and being politically supported by gov, I assume it acts as a spyphone sending data away, (same as other chinese brands and also apple)

 

also thanks to xiaomi, giving an overall image to chinese phone are being cheap and copycats, Huawei has made its price tag(high end?) too high in comparison to other flagship phones, such as samsung / htc/lg etc.

it doesnt make any sense getting getting it over the other well-branded flagships.

 

I agree with the part that Chinese phone brands give a overall "cheap and copying" impression, they are making efforts, just hasn't shown up yet. In comparison with other flagship phones like SAMSUNG or HTC or LG, HUAWEI occupe a way better popularity in Chinese mainland, but for anyone who has experienced for exemple Samsung Experience or HTC Sense, EMUI's attitude is unaccpetable, it kinda feels like you're borrowing a phone from HUAWEI rather than possessing a HUAWEI phone.

Big company lives on consommer data so... Yeah, that's unavoidable in 2019

[Pasi123]

On 4/24/2019 at 4:34 AM, PostMeridy said:

Still, EMUI has its own stubborn and anti-humanity logics. For exemple, you're not allowed to switch to a non-HUAWEI-certified third-party launcher, for example, Nova Launcher, Lawnchair, CPL, Niagara Launcher, Microsoft Launcher -- pretty every single famous launcher you find on Play Store, it's non-certified. And what are those HUAWEI-certified launchers? Small Chinese launchers that even few Chinese know about. This frankly killed all the possibilities I could buy a HUAWEI device in the near future, and when you ask HUAWEI why they banned third-party launchers, they give a standardized answer:"For security reasons and maintain battery life."

That's not an answer.

Since when you're not allowed to use non-Huawei-certified launcher? I've used Nova launcher on Huawei (Honor) phones for years.

 

In my opinion EMUI isn't as bad as people say it is. I've never had any laggy animations etc. and IMO the UI isn't ugly.

I'm not really a fan of the stock launcher which is why I use Nova Launcher.

[cengiz]

Chinese people think that it's a good phone for a good price and they couldn't care less about potential spying or anything like that.

 

For overseas people there are concerns about privacy but I'm more concerned about materials and build quality because I'm not trusting a huawei phone to go to hell and back with me just yet.