Huawei P8 Lite 2017/Honor 8 Lite Android Oreo update brings Project Treble support

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

The Huawei P8 Lite 2017 and the Honor 8 Lite are different names for the same phone. Both phones have the same list of specifications, which include the HiSilicon Kirin 655 system-on-chip, 3GB of RAM paired with 16GB of storage or 4GB of RAM paired with 64GB of storage, 5.2-inch Full HD (1920×1080) IPS display, 12MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, and a 3000mAh battery. The Huawei P8 Lite 2017 was released in January 2017 with EMUI 5.0 on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. The Honor 8 Lite was released a few months later for different markets.

In recent months, we have seen past Huawei and Honor devices be officially updated with Project Treble support. The Huawei Mate 9, Huawei P10 and P10 Plus, Honor 8 Pro, Honor 7X, and more have received Project Treble support with their Android Oreo updates. Now, the Huawei P8 Lite 2017/Honor 8 Lite is joining the list of Huawei phones which have been officially updated with Project Treble support.

Users of the Huawei P8 Lite 2017 PRA will have to rebrand their device to Honor 8 Lite AL00C/AL00X/TL10C B220. Then, they can install the beta Chinese Android Oreo-based EMUI 8 update for the Honor 8 Lite, which brings Project Treble support. The guide to install the beta update has been given by XDA Senior Member Fr0nk:

Download this TWRP image.

Download last Android Oreo update.zip from here and put it on external storage.

Download nocheck recovery.

Flash TWRP from bootloader.

Boot into TWRP > Click Install > Select Image Install > Select nocheck.img and install in recovery partition.

In TWRP menu, Click Advanced > Select Terminal and type ”echo –update_package=/sdcard/update.zip > /cache/recovery/command” without quotation marks.

In TWRP terminal type “reboot recovery”. It should restart automatically and complete the installation.

Before booting, go into stock Huawei recovery and perform a data format, and then reboot.

After having installed the beta Android Oreo update, Huawei P8 Lite 2017/Honor 8 Lite users can choose to keep using EMUI 8.0. They can install the Play Store in EMUI by downloading and flashing the Android Oreo TWRP, installing the GMScore.apk (which will lead to the device automatically rebooting), and then installing the Play Store and Google Service APKs.

Alternatively, users can choose to flash a Generic System Image (GSI) of Android Oreo. They can flash an AOSP GSI such as Phh-Treble by XDA Recognized Developer phhusson. The instructions to do this (via XDA Senior Member Fr0nk) are:

Download Android Oreo TWRP for the device.

Download a Generic System Image.

Flash TWRP Oreo. In TWRP, click on Install > select install image and install to a system image partition.

Do a factory reset, and then reboot.

XDA Recognized Contributor haky 86 has also released unofficial Project Treble-enabled LineageOS 15.1 (based on Android 8.1 Oreo) for the Huawei P8 Lite 2017. The instructions to install unofficial LineageOS 15.1 on the P8 Lite 2017 are:

Download the tar.gz archive.

Extract system.img using an archive manager.

Reboot to fastboot mode and run: fastboot flash system system.img && fastboot reboot.

Reboot to TWRP and run factory reset to boot LineageOS-15.1.

Currently, NFC does not work in the unofficial LineageOS 15.1 ROM, and signal is always reported to be low. The developer states that he is planning to fix both bugs.

Source 1: XDA ForumsDownload LineageOS 15.1 (Project Treble-enabled) for the Huawei P8 Lite 2017