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Stop worrying about the Huawei Mate 30: The Mate 20’s about to get a big update

The Huawei Mate 20 is about to get a software update to EMUI 9.1, which will bring with it a wealth of new features and general improvements.

The news broke on Monday when Huawei announced its latest EMUI 9.1 update roadmap on Reddit. EMUI 9.1 debuted on the Huawei P30 and Huawei P30 Pro earlier this year.

The release schedules the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20 RS Porsche Design, and the P20 Lite to get the update by the end of the week. EMUI 9.1 will then appear on the P20, P20 Pro, Nova 3, Nova 3i, P30 Lite, Mate 10, Mate 10 Pro, Mate 10 RS Porsche Design, Mate 9, Mate 9 Pro, Y9 2019, Y6 Pro 2019, and Y5 2019 in July. Finally the ancient P10 and P10 Pro will get the update in August.

Related: Best smartphone 2019

EMUI 9.1 is a performance focused update that brings a few nifty features. These include support for Huawei’s GPU Turbo 3.0 tech, which makes compatible games run faster, improved read/write speeds and battery optimisations Huawei claims will reduce power consumption by roughly 10%.

The news follows widespread concerns about Huawei’s follow up to the Mate 20: the Huawei Mate 30. The Mate 30 was rumoured to be a key release for Huawei designed to take on Samsung’s, also currently fictional, Galaxy Note 10 flagship phablet. Speculation suggested the Mate 30 would have an upgraded camera setup based on the P30 Pro’s, a more powerful CPU and increased amount of RAM.

But since the US-enforced executive order against Huawei it’s future has been in flux. The ban forced key companies, including Google, to cut ties with Huawei. This means future Huawei phones, like the Mate 30, won’t get an Android license – a move that will cut the handsets off from official software support from Google and key services including the Play Store.

Huawei and Google have mounted appeals to try and reverse the ban. The Chinese giant is also rumoured to be working on an Android replacement codenamed Hongmeng, though official details about the OS are few and far between.

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