Huawei’s New Android Phone Lacks Luster Without Google Apps

The impact of the Trump administration’s blacklisting of Huawei was laid bare as the Chinese company unveiled a flagship smartphone that lacks any licensed Google apps, according to Bloomberg.

Announced at an event in Munich, the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro mark the brand’s first top-of-the-range device launch since it was forbidden in the spring from trading with American partners. Huawei Consumer Group CEO Richard Yu remained upbeat on stage during the company’s presentation, promising the phone would be a technological powerhouse with an unmatched new camera system.

The Mate 30 Pro runs on a version of Android that’s free and open-source, meaning companies don’t need a license from Google to use it. Huawei calls it EMUI10. But without the Play Store app repository, its still a barebones Android version underneath. Consumers will be able to can manually "side-load" some Google apps, or use available web versions, Richard Yu told reporters after the launch event. “We’re trying to make it okay for consumers but we need time to solve this issue,“ he said. "The consumer can make a compromise. It’s a balance.

On the inside, the Mate 30 Pro runs on the new Kirin 990 5G processor, made by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon, which packs more than 10.3 billion transistors into a space the size of a fingernail. The chip also combines a graphics processor, a 5G modem and dedicated neural processing units for accelerating AI tasks into one.

The Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro will go on sale in China next week and in Europe next month, costing 799 and 1099 euros respectively. Yu also announced Huawei’s folding phone, the Huawei Mate X, will go on sale in China in October. First announced in February, the phone supports 5G networks. It’ll be available in Europe next year, Yu said.