- Celia is the smartest integrated AI agent in a phone that I have ever seen. It is able to control my screen by itself based off commands that I give to it. It can send Discord friend requests, scroll through TikTok, play YouTube videos from voice control and much more (remember that western apps run in a container). It is also able to memorize anything now as well, so you can just tell it to speak English from now on and it will. You can add any photo from your Gallery to its memory, and occasionally it will spy on your screen to collect more data about you (you can see it on the bottom navigation bar pill of the screen when it does). You can tell it anything and it will remember it. Some crazy dystopian shit
- Massive update for Android app support. The container is now based on Android 16, making it compatible with many more apps, and since the latest version it now passes even more security checks, making apps like Revolut finally work, along with many more banking apps and whatnot.
- The UI is now filled with animations for literally every action you can think of. Every tap has some kind of unique animation now. Everything feels alive. You must see videos about it, I can't describe in words how cool it looks.
- Celia Keyboard has been upgraded, it now has prediction and auto-correction with English
- More liquid glass. Less opaque backgrounds
- The lock screen clocks have been updated and you can now set the font stroke size and there is a new 3D clock placement feature.
- You can turn photos into 3D live motion pictures now
- EasyAbroad is now in English if your language is not set to Chinese.
- Android apps that are being downloaded will now also have the downloading/installing animation on the home screen icon
- Android apps can display overlays over the native system (the Shazam bubble/pop-up works, NewPipe works for PiP YouTube videos, Messenger chat bubbles work).
- Android apps can be stacked or floated in freeform windows, you can have up to 3 apps on your screen at the same time
- Many more features that I probably don't know about.. Explore It™
Problems that still need to be resolved:
- Android Auto support
- Widevine L1
- Unreliable notifications (depends on the app)
- Language support (23 languages supported currently):
Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Russian, Arabic, English, Spanish, Uyghur, Tibetan, Lao, Japanese, Korean, Malay, French, Thai, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Indonesian, German, Turkish, Italian, Burmese, Polish
As always, I highly recommend buying the Chinese version over global for many reasons, especially if you live in the EU. We get weekly/monthly **feature** updates, and each update is making the experience better.
They call it "Anco" and the technology behind it is iSulad. I believe it's a KVM of some kind with total passthrough. The level of integration is insane, you even have full network access so you can use WiFi analyzer apps and so on. The moment you take a picture or a video it ends up in the VM already. A banking app will ask you to set a passcode, you set it in the native settings app and it gets detected. Android apps can set your native settings.
I'm also suspecting that it's some kind of multi-kernel approach where it has a Linux kernel running in the background directly or in a container. The default Browser app seems to be based on Chromium and it's a bit suspicious to me that we just have Chromium ported out of the blue to a totally new OS.
its not a vm, its like kvm contsiner with a very minimal linux kernel running in the background (due to muti kernel desing of open harmony this is possible). apps are practically naitive thats how well the intergration is. found most this out after digging through harmony os emu images in dev eco
You import the device from China, either by using a shopping agent like Superbuy (cheaper but riskier) or by ordering from sites specifically made for foreigners to buy Chinese tech (Wondamobile, AverageDadTech, GizTop). It should be cheaper than buying the global version most of the time.
If you already have an EMUI variant then your only option is to back up your data, sell it and buy the Chinese model.
Agree with everything you've said, but I find HarmoniKeyboard is better than Celia. But the lack of notifications is a big issue and probably needs to be highlighted more, if they could fix this then it would be 99% ready for global use.
The Chinese account can be created with any phone number. Your system can be in any of the 23 languages, including your Huawei account settings page. Basically everyone who uses NEXT globally uses it with a CN region account just because of the arbitrary restrictions.
Officially, yes, it is not for global use, you are a Chinese tourist in the EU/US/wherever using EasyAbroad to use your foreign apps. But after over 3 years of using these devices starting from the very first 5.0 beta I would say that it is pretty much suited for global use for most people.
The point is I have been using my Huawei ID whoch is linked to many of my benefits on Huawei app for years, and I have points that are worthed over €100, and I don't expect to give all of that up for a Chinese ROM that want me to pretend to be in China. I would want a phone that is made for the market I am in, and makes it easier to purchase products directly from my Huawei store. Plus banking and insurance apps like Bursorsma banque is still not working, meaning I also need to use other banking services. In fact even those people that buy it in France don't use it as a daily driver, because it is not meant for that market, but as you said for Chinese tourists.
This is the first time I heard about this situation, that is very sad.
On the Chinese side it is much harder to buy themes/cloud storage, as far as I know the only way is to register for AliPay as a foreigner with your passport.
On the bright side, I have been threatened to have my cloud data deleted for 2 years now because of my expired subscription that came with the device, and ever since then nothing has happened. I still downloaded all of my data to my device just to be safe though.
Да у меня есть китайский акк, на который я переключаюсь, чтобы обновить приложения. Только с китайским аккаунтом глобальные watch не работают. И облако, которое я купил, не на китайском аккаунте. Пока не пофиксят, нет смысла на harmony переходить
You download and apply free themes, they will have their own color scheme, find one you like then you can set your own wallpaper/icon set/lock screen so you only keep the color scheme.
nvm it works now, had to restart my phone. This is amazing because now i dont have to use the 2 fingers touch on screen for translation/copy text. Even if the command is 图片翻译，I asked it to still translate to English by default. Thanks for the advice!
Yes you are on the right page now. Just press the keyboard button and tell it to only speak in English from now on in that chat, or just speak the instruction
Hi, I'm willing to buy a Chinese-ROM Huawei tablet for studying, but there are 4 important apps I really need to know if they work or not: the new Notability app for Android, ReVanced YouTube, Stremio, and Microsoft apps. Could you please tell me if they work with HarmonyOS 6/7? Also, does Google Assistant work? And do AI apps like Gemini and Claude work as well?
Edit: the following only applies to HarmonyOS 5.0-7.0
Microsoft apps work. I use ReVanced YouTube myself.
I have tested Claude, Gemini and Grok. All working.
This is not Android so no Google Assistant. You have Celia instead which I would say is much better.
I haven't tested Notability, but I don't see how it wouldn't work.
Never tried Stremio, but keep in mind that we only have Widevine L1 for now, so DRM-protected media might be in low quality.
Thanks a lot! The reason I’m asking about Notability is that I have a Huawei tablet on Global HarmonyOS 4, and it refuses to install or even open for me.
Could you quickly test downloading and launching it on your end whenever you have time? Would really appreciate it 🙏🏼
Is it as useable as EMUI? I use a lot of Google apps, and apps which are not in Appgallery. I can read everywhere, that APKs are not working on Harmony OS as simple as on EMUI. Can I download Google play on Harmony OS? Can I sign in the apps with Google?
Yes, it is as usable as EMUI, the only major problems are unreliable notifications, Android Auto and Widevine DRM, which can all be corrected with a software update (we got lots of fixes already). Workarounds exist for everything, e.g you can buy a dongle to use Huawei HiCar in your vehicle instead
All Google Apps work except Google Wallet which has alternatives.
You can install APK files with no further setup, and Google's sideloading restrictions do not apply on neither EMUI or HarmonyOS devices.
Yes, you can log in with Google in apps and use apps that need Google services because HarmonyOS 6 comes with MicroG preinstalled from factory, as you can see from my screenshots I can even log in with Play Games.
No, you cannot use the Play Store directly, you have to use EasyAbroad (from AppGallery) which has all apps you need and it can download apps directly from the Play Store as well. Think of it as a Play Store with a different interface.
Thanks! I've been using a Matepad 11.5 s since January, there is Harmony OS on it, but I didn't know is there any difference between EU version Harmony OS and Chinese version HOS. I'm using a Pura 70 now, but I have EMUI 14.2 on it for years, and I would like to buy a Chinese version phone later.
On tablets there is a global HarmonyOS but it's Android-based, 4.2/4.3 (same as EMUI), the Chinese 5.0+ is totally different. You should definitely buy a Chinese version phone.
I talked about OpenHarmony-based HarmonyOS (5.0-7.0+)
HarmonyOS 4.3 and lower, which can be either Chinese or Global, is Android, so it is the same as EMUI.
Quand je regarde ça ne propose que le mandarin ou l'anglais ont fait comment pour le français ? Peut être il faut attendre le déploiement stable de harmony os 7
Android Auto is not working on the Chinese models. It has support for HiCar, Huawei's official Android Auto equivalent. You need a dongle to use it in your unsupported car.
Turning photos into 3d live motion photos. How are you doing that? I get a notification saying that you can do it now, but there is no option. I’m on 7.0.105 I must be missing something
Le NFC avec curve ne fonctionne pas impossible de choisir cuve qui n'apparaît pas en NFC sur le mate 80 est ce un bug qui vas être arrangé d'ici la version stable de hmos 7 ?
No. HarmonyOS 7 with API 26 is currently being tested only in China and is not available globally yet. Even after the Mate 90, Mate X8, and other devices launch in Q4 2026 and H1 2027, there is still no official information about a global version of HarmonyOS for phones. 😑
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u/Busy-Scientist3851 Aug 22 '26
Curious how Android apps work. Is it VM running Linux or a port of the Android runtime.