The Huawei Mate 8 receives a new update, almost five years after being released

It has been a few years since we reported on the Mate 8, but Huawei is still issuing updates to its former flagship. The company released the device in November 2015 running Android 6.0 Marshmallow, albeit the EMUI 4.0 skin of it, and delivered two OS updates before leaving it on EMUI 8.0. So, the Mate 8 may have been stuck on Android Oreo for a few years, but the device continues to receive new features and security patch updates.

According to Huawei Central, Huawei has begun rolling out the August update to handsets in China. The update brings the July 2020 set of security patches to the Mate 8, along with a battery abnormality detection feature. The website notes that Huawei may expand the update to other variants, but it could be a while before that is the case. The build number for the Chinese build is EMUI 8.0.0.850 (C00), for reference, which is a 222 MB over-the-air (OTA) upgrade.

Overall, it is encouraging to see Huawei continue to deliver software updates for a handset that is almost five years old, even if they essentially just contain security patches. However, it must be said that the company does not offer the same level of software support for all its devices. Huawei dropped the P20 Lite after one software update, for example, a move that it repeated for many Kirin 659-powered handsets.