Software - Emotion UI
Software – Emotion UI
The Huawei EMUI – an Android software user interface from a Chinese OEM for their smartphones. It’s one of the interfaces which is not accepted widely. People don’t like it, in fact the ones I have links to, none of them are interested in anyway with EMUI. But I am here to tell that I am one of those (may be a few) who actually like the Huawei’s user interface. One of the elements which I believe people don’t like in it, is the lack of app drawer which is a standard feature of AOSP (with Google’s default interface). Samsung, LG, HTC, mostly other manufacturers provide their skins with an app launcher along side the home screens only for your favourite items. So there is no doubt that it could be good and required feature for most as the user base combined has been used to with.
On the other hand running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Huawei with their EMUI version 4.1 seems to be working more for their customers to give as much useful and quick information as needed than the manufacturers who provide the likes of default UI of Android. More specifically I liked the notifications on P9 which are really well organised and informative as well as they have actions to respond right from there. There are notifications about app permissions as well as it prompts about the apps which are consuming more power than they should (may be annoying to some). So it could be very friendly for power efficiency seekers to know which of their actions need more power on a specific Huawei smartphone.
Turning the phone on (or waking it up) of course bring you a lock screen, on the EMUI you get handful of quick access shortcuts on the lock screen which take you directly into that tool or app unless you don’t have a security mode on. The lock screen can be managed where the default is magazine-style which keeps changing the background photo every time the phone wakes up. You can turn it off from settings and rather have single static image for you on the background if you like.
You should be aware that the lock screen is only presented if you wake the phone by pressing the power button. As Huawei P9 features a fingerprint scanner that is in always-on state and it does not need you to press power button first and then unlock the screen with a fingertip scan. Instead the fingertip scan will take you directly to the home screen from a sleeping phone, if you touch the fingerprint scanner. Video demo after the break.
Home screen also offers great flexibility to ease you desire taking from customizing it with live widgets and backgrounds to resizing the grid layout to adjust more icons in a row. Down at the bottom of the display it offers a sticky apps/icons row which doesn’t change while swiping through the home screens just like any other user interface.
Folders are pretty common which cover the full screen as an overlay when open. Long tapping at a blank area on the home screen initiates edit mode where you can rearrange the the screens, add/remove them, change the transition how the home screens swipe away, add/remove widgets, change wallpapers or themes. Edit mode can also be triggered by pinching on the home screen. In fact you can change the order of the soft keys (back, home and recent) on navigation bar in settings if you like.
The app switcher is presented in a simple horizontal slider with the app’s last state glimpse along with the current RAM information (free/total). App can be closed by swiping up-side while the down-side will lock the app to keep from closing when you hit “kill all” apps.
Huawei P9 offers to rearrange your home screen icons in 3 grid layouts with maximum 5 icons in a row or in a column – 4×5 or 5×4 or 5×5. There is an “auto-align” feature that if you move an icon from its place, another icon will take it to realign all the icons without leaving a blank space unlike what you can see in the first screen above – by default this feature is turned off. You can also manually align the home screen by shaking the phone if the “shake” featured is turned on in settings. The badge (notification counter on app icon) can also be turned off on individual apps.
The status bar reflects most of the things going on in the phone and the drop-down panel provides access to the notifications and shortcuts in two separate tabs/sections. Notifications, as told above are really well designed and organized and when applicable, a notification can be expanded by swiping down where you can have access to the actions to respond. On the other hand the “shortcut” section provides 3×3 grid of quick toggles along with a brightness slider.
Another good thing is that you can select your favourite tools as your shortcuts as the toggles can be customized. Scroll the shortcuts up where you can see an edit option, it gives you a wide array of icons which are not currently visible so that you can switch them with the ones in top 9 (3×3) icons. Sorry, only eight of them can be switched as the “Settings” button will stay there whether you want it or not.
Phone Manager comes along with the Huawei P9 that offers features to optimize system, manage traffic, filtering incoming calls/texts, monitoring and managing battery consumption and managing notifications for individual apps. More importantly the notification manager gives you option to control notifications from apps that you don’t want as frequently and the way they notify you (on status bar, banners and/or lock screen). While the battery manager comes with different types of saving modes including the ultra-saving mode where you are left with the most desirable features of a phone, calling/texting and a few others features to keep you on with the phone for several bonus hours if you don’t have a reach to the charger.
Fingerprint scanner on Huawei P9 is one of the fastest and efficient out there. You can quickly register multiple fingers and start using it with tightened security on the Huawei P9. The always-on state of the sensor in fingerprint scanner is the key that leads you to instant unlocking the phone from a sleeping mode.
