Hello, my name is Mr Snrub, and I come from, uh … someplace far away
Huawei on Wednesday introduced its first tablets and smartphones running its HarmonyOS 2 software – and said 100 or so other devices will be able to upgrade to the totally-not-but-really-is-Android OS. The Chinese tech kit titan selected the MatePad Pro as its flagship launch device for the operating system. This 12.6-inch tablet computer targets the market occupied by premium gear like the iPad Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S7. Huawei angled the MatePad Pro toward creative types, touting the color accuracy and high contrast ratio of the 2560 x 1600,240 PPI OLED display, and suggesting it could serve as a second monitor for professional photographers. Under the hood, the embattled electronics giant has shoved a 10,050mAh battery which purportedly allows for 14-hours of continuous video playback, plus 5G and Wi-Fi 6 support, and a HiSilicon Kirin 9000E processor. Released in late 2020, and expected to feature in the long-awaited P50 flagship smartphone, this system-on-chip – sporting an Arm Cortex-A77 CPU core at 3.13GHz, three Cortex-A77s at 2.54GHz, and four Cortex-A55s at 2.05GHz – was built using TSMC’s 5nm process and includes a 22-core Arm Mali-G78 GPU, an AI accelerator, and Huawei’s Balong 5000 modem. The MatePro has 128GB or 256GB of flash storage and 8GB of RAM, and various interfaces – and no 3.5mm headphone jack. The premier tablet was accompanied by two smaller, and thus cheaper, devices: the 10.8-inch MatePad Pro and the 10.95-inch MatePad 11. Although similarly running HarmonyOS 2.0, these use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 870 and 865 system-on-chips respectively. At a launch event, Huawei said new versions of its Mate 40 series and Mate X2 smartphones will also run HarmonyOS 2. It added that «roughly 100 other Huawei devices – including both smartphones and tablets – will be upgraded to run on HarmonyOS 2, giving consumers access to a seamless intelligent experience across multiple devices in all different types of scenarios.» And let’s be real for a moment: HarmonyOS 2 is essentially the core of Android, with a Linux kernel, covered in Huawei’s special sauce. The manufacturing giant is not keen on publicizing that though it’s pretty obvious from a developer point of view, a deep analysis of the software, and that it even includes Android Q aka version 10’s Easter egg. HarmonyOS 2, aka Hongmeng, is not a written-from-scratch, ground-up operating system. There’s the HarmonyOS that is a microkernel based on Huawei’s LiteOS for Internet-of-Things devices, which is suitable for wearables, TVs, and small devices. But HarmonyOS 2 for smartphones and tablets? It’s definitely Huawei’s flavor of Android.
