Android 6.0 Marshmallow beta update now available for Huawei Honor 7 in India, limited to ‘registered’ users

Here is a good news for all the Huawei Honor 7 smartphone users. Huawei has released the beta version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow update in India. The OTA (over the air) update is limited to only those users who register through this link. Users will be asked to register their current software version along with their device’s IMEI number.

After the form submission through the above given link, the next step will be the verification of submitted information by Huawei.  The company will then start pushing the OTA update after 24 to 48 hours of form submission and verification. The update will bring along a variety of new features to the EMUI 4.0. We would like to inform our readers that this update is merely a “beta version” of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The final version of the update for the Honor 7 smartphone is expected to be rolled out sometime in January or early February.

For other Honor smartphones users, Huawei had already promised to roll out the Marshmallow update for the Honor 6, Honor 6 Plus, Honor 4X and Honor 4C smartphones by February 2016.

Meanwhile, here is the change log for Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the Honor 7 smartphone:

Camera

• New added professional mode. Under this mode, you can use professional parameters in any combination to achieve the desired effect
• New Added document readjustment function. When enabled, you can clearly capture the text content appearing the lens.

Gallery

• New added Paint filter, Feminine filter, and Photo filter. You can get more amazing images now.
• New added various labels, you can change the font size, color and location now.
• New added creating a memo on images supports you customize the unique memo for every image, and then set it as unique lock screen wallpaper.
• New added sports watermark element. Now you can add altitude data and your note on your travel photos.
• Optimized album functions. Now you can bulk add photos for the new album. This greatly simplifies the process of creating an album and then adding photos to it.
• Support you to print multiple images one time. It can save all selected images for printing as PDF and print them together.

Contacts

• New added Smart group function will help you to group your contacts according to company or organization names. If you want to group your contacts by this way, you just need to add company or organization names in contacts’ information. Your contacts will be automatically grouped.

Messages

• New added quickly reclaiming sending message, within 4 seconds after sending a message, you can reclaim it if you regret.

Application

• New added a compass application, it integrated the functions of level gauge and compass.
• New added alarm ring duration selections, now how long the alarm will ring all depends on you!

System

• New added screen recording function, with it enabled, you can easily record your screen operating steps, then make it to a small course and share with others.

Settings

• New added eyesight protection mode in Display settings when enabled, the backlight will be soft. It’s very helpful to relax your eye muscles keeping your eyes healthy.

Sony extends Marshmallow Concept trial into New Year, releases 6.0.1

Sony had been planning to bring its Sony Concept Android Marshmallow beta to a close later this week. However, the company has decided to continue the program into the New Year, following a very positive experience with testers.

The additional time is certainly good news for the tens of thousands of program participants and also means that Sony will have some additional time to collect more feedback and tweak its Marshmallow experience. There is a drawback here though, as the company doesn’t seem to know exactly when it plans to release an official Marshmallow build to its broader consumers. An update for the Z5 range had been expected in January.

                                          

However, the final release may be based on the slightly newer Android 6.0.1 version, as Sony has also just begun rollout out this software to its Concept beta testers. The new MMB29M.Z1.3021-somc version includes the 200 new emojis and “do not disturb until” tweaks, and also seems to have removed app drawer customization from Sony’s build. The OTA update should be hitting those in the trial sometime this week.

Honor 7 Gets Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update in India

Huawei’s Honor series has been flooded with new entrants every now and then but when it comes to updates the phones seemed to be somewhat neglected. Huawei isn’t really known for quick updates, specially for their international (non-Chinsese) builds, but that’s slowly changing. This time around, Huawei has taken care that the Honor 7, its freshest flagship is upgraded to the Android Marshmallow in India.

The Marshmallow update will be available for all the Indian users but it comes with a caveat – users need to register themselves (at this link) for the OTA update by updating their IMEI number and the software version. The company will then deploy the update to the user’s phone within the next 24 tp 48 hours. We really wonder why a user needs to go through all this hoopla just to receive the update, but then again it is worth the efforts considering the fact that it will update your phone with the latest Android available.

A quick recap on Honor 7 specifications, it comes with a 5.2-inch FHD display, 64-bit Kirin 935 paired with a 3GB of RAM. On the imaging front, the phone impresses with a 20-Megapixel primary sensor and a 8-Megapixel secondary sensor. Now that it comes with Marshmallow as well, Honor 7 looks like a great proposition at Rs 22,999.

Android updates have always been a pain point for the users since it needs to cross a handful of checkpoints to reach the users. The process is painstakingly slow especially when it comes to the network locked phone as the carrier is required to certify the update before its rolled out. In the current day scenario, OEMs like Xiaomi are instead rolling out their ROMs on the forums so that the users can manually update their device by flashing with the latest ROMs. By asking users to register for the OTA, Huawei is probably prioritizing users who actually care about OS updates over others who don’t really care to get the latest.

Xiaomi Mi 3, Mi 4 and Mi Note to Soon get Updated with Android 6.0 Marshmallow

Xiaomi will be soon releasing the Android 6.0 Marshmallow updates for a few of its devices including Xiaomi Mi 4, Mi Note and Mi 3. According to the MIUI operations manager, the update seems to be in the final stages of testing and will see the light soon.

This was an update that many were waiting for with bated breath and with this update Xiaomi will join a handful of other phone manufacturers who have already updated their phones with the Marshmallow. The update seems to have in fact reached the update validation stage which means that it might start seeding pronto.

Many Xiaomi users were dejected when the company still stuck to the age old Android KitKat 4.4 even after releasing the MIUI 7 ROM, but Xiaomi contradicted the apprehension saying that the base version of the OS wouldn’t matter as the features in MIUI 7 would be same. This is indeed a legit argument but it sort of loses its steam as some of the apps from the Playstore run only on the Android Lollipop and newer versions.

Now it seems that the phones will be directly updated to the Android Marshmallow. The update is currently in Beta stage, post which it will hit the developer version and finally it will shape up as a stable OTA update, the entire process will take some time. We still aren’t sure if the update is coming for international users as well, or just the Chinese users for now.

We would suggest the novice users to wait for the stable version as the Beta is susceptible to bugs and other malfunctions which might ultimately affect your phones functionality. On the other hand if you won’t mind getting your hands dirty and experiment along with the device, the beta update is for you. We shall be posting more details as and when they become. Stay tuned.