The Honor 7X will likely get EMUI 9 based on Android Pie after all

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The Honor 7X was launched in late 2017 with EMUI 5.1 based on Android 7.0 Nougat, which was slightly disappointing since Android Oreo was available at the time. Honor justified this move by stating that even though Android Oreo was available, it was not ready for Honor devices when the Honor 7X went into production. Honor promised that the phone would receive an Oreo update with EMUI 8, and they made good on that promise.

Since the Honor 7X was a budget smartphone, it was widely speculated that the phone would not receive an Android 9 Pie update. Adding fuel to these speculations was also the fact that the device technically did receive a major Android update, going from Nougat to Oreo, a reasoning that some other OEMs adopt to weasel their way out of providing updates. Honor has not provided any statements or explanations on that end, so it seemed likely that the device would not receive much attentions anymore.

However, Huawei recently released a Beta build of EMUI 9 for the Honor 7X in China. This build is based on Android 9 Pie and was made available for Chinese models of the Honor 7X, namely BND-AL00, BND-AL10, and BND-TL10. The build numbers for the EMUI 9 beta are as follows:

BND-AL00C00E42R2P2B43-log (9.0.1.43)

BND-TL10C01E42R1P2B43-log (9.0.1.43)

BND-AL10C01E42R1P2B43-log (9.0.1.43)

The release of these beta builds for the device indicate that Honor intends to provide an Android Pie update to this budget device. However, since the company has made no official statements, there is a small probability that the beta may not translate into a stable release if the update is not deemed stable enough. This particular beta is also restricted to the Chinese region, so international users will have to wait a little more for a beta or stable release outside of China to enjoy Android Pie.

If you simply cannot wait anymore to try out Android Pie on your Honor 7X, have an unlocked bootloader and do not mind using a custom ROM, you can load up AOSP on your Honor 7X.

Note: Huawei has stopped providing official bootloader unlock codes for its devices. Therefore, the bootloaders of their devices cannot be unlocked, which means that users cannot root or install custom ROMs.

Honor 7X XDA Forums