The West’s crusade against Huawei’s phone and 5G businesses has had the world talking about a new tech cold war with China, as the company is being used as a pawn in a larger game by the White House administration.
Currently, there is a 90-day stay on the marching orders that the government sent to American companies to stop doing any business with Huawei, including providing software as Google does with its mobile operating system.
This pretty much came as a shock to the hundreds of millions of Huawei users outside of China who learned that in a short while their phones might be hobbled when it comes to Google apps, software, and security updates, quickly losing value.
We probed Huawei and its Honor subsidiary to clarify what exactly will and won’t work if the trade arguments with China don’t get resolved in due time, and it turns out that the apocalyptic scenarios about SD card support, or a cease of service functioning on existing phones, were a bit overblown.
As far as future Huawei and Honor phones like an eventual Mate 30 Pro are concerned, though, the situation is pretty much in limbo. Moreover, the Honor 20 Pro didn’t get Google-certified in time before the ban hammer dropped.