Last updated: April 4, 2024
Since a few months, Huawei is at the forefront of the trade war between USA and China. Donald Trump considers the world's number two smartphone maker to be "very dangerous".
As a result, it prohibits American companies from sharing their telecommunications technologies with Huawei. Results: Google banned Huawei from the Play Store and all of its services.
A serious situation that prompts us to ask an important question: should you buy a Huawei smartphone?
3 things to know before buying a Huawei phone
Do you want to buy a Huawei Smartphone? Here's what you need to know before you spend your money.
Huawei phone does not have a Play Store
Today, Huawei phones do not use Google services. This means no Google Play Store and no support for Google apps like Gmail, YouTube, Maps or the Chrome browser.
But that doesn't mean there aren't any apps at all. Huawei has developed its own platform (AppGallery) and strives to offer more and more applications. Many well-known apps are already available, such as Amazon, TikTok, Adidas Running, SnapChat, PicsArt and the very popular Fortnite.
Today, there are around 45 apps on the AppGallery, when the Play Store had 000 in March 2.
TrouveAPP, an alternative to Google Play Store
To fill the lack of applications on the AppGallery, Huawei developed TrouvApp, a proposal to download the most popular apps from the Google store.
TrouvApp presents itself as a search engine. You enter the name of the app in the search bar and it then tells you how you might download it. Two main solutions are offered.
- Download the app in .apk via an alternative store like APK Pure
- Download the app in .apk via the Huawei internet browser.
Flagship apps downloadable, but unusable
Applications like Gmail, Youtube, Uber and other apps are available for download via TrouvApp but cannot be used. And for good reason, Huwaei not only lost access to the Play Store, but also to Google Mobile Services (MSG).
Google Mobile Services is a toolkit used by app developers. This box contains very diverse functionalities, ranging from geolocation from logging into your Google account to using the smartphone camera. Thus, Snapchat does not have a location algorithm and uses the services of Snapchat location from Google to find your location.
To overcome this problem, you can always use the web versions of these applications, which are quite well done.
Conclusion
Huawei survived a challenge that would have killed almost any other business. Then do you still have to buy one of your smartphones. The answer is Yes.
A world without Google is possible like in China where 80% of smartphones work normally while Google is banned.
On the hardware side, the Chinese giant still offers a complete catalog of models by offering the most advanced components on the market. On the other hand, software side leaves something to be desired. A lot of handling to install applications detracts from ease of use.
Obviously, if you're a hack, you'll know how to get away with it easily.