I want to warn everybody to buy a Honor or Huawei cellphone in and from China now. I know they are much cheaper than here, but even in China nowadays they are unusable because they block everything from Google.

You cannot install Google Playstore or any other service that is needed to run Android properly.

I lived in China for some month before and came back home with my Honor 8x from there. Before leaving China I went to the Huawei Service Center to get the Malaysia Android version from them. They were friendly, but refused, because of Chinese Goverment regulations I only can do this at the Huawei service center in my home country. Unfortunately the Huawei Service Center in Ipoh probably is the worst in the world. They just want to make money with you and are unfriendly and unhelpful.

They ask me to pay about RM 1800 (!!!) to get the system changed to Malaysia

I wish I never would have changed from Samsung to Honor. Yes, Honor is much cheaper, but Samsung is a worldwide brand with woldwide accurate service.

If anyone has a tutorial how to install Google Services, Playstore ... on my useless 8x brick, please let me know.

why didnt u tell the SC the phone is rm950 for a new set. plus u should have recorded a video them asking for 1800 so u can post it on fb

I told them that this is a joke when buying a new one costs 1000. Did not impress them too much. Yes a video of this would be great fun for others

try search through xda

or here

https://forum.xda-developers.com/honor-8x

wanna add, huawei splurge on advertising, bad image like this will hurt them, do get in touch with them on fb and see if they can assist

Thanks, will try. The XDA tutorial sounds a little bit challenging for my level of knowledge

Speaking of bad image, many of us were promised voucher (check the【HONOR X LOWYAT Special Collaboration Offer】post) and never received. Honor just ignored our multiple inquiries.

I was going to use the voucher to buy a Honor phone. I guess they did not want my business. Now I am so glad I did not buy the Honor phone.

What a [Dis]Honor company!

I tried but the result is very disappointing. They say they cannot help, the Device Operation System cannot be changed.

Only thing I can do is to try to get Google Mobile Service installed on my Honor 8X somehow.

Without this for example the AirAsia app cannot be used, Grab cannot be used and so on. Funny, even the pre-installed Honor Health app cannot be used properly outside China because it needs Googlemaps

I learnt my lessen, run back to Samsung and never buy a Huawei/Honor cellphone again, no matter if in China, Malaysia or elsewhere. In the end, Chinese government seems to decide what you can use it for. Or even worse things.

So u plan to sell your China phone ?

I have a Chinese Honor 8X and mine runs all google apps just fine...
just follow the instructions here... not very hard to get google play services working on your phone

https://www.oscrunch.com/2018/12/03/gmsanzh...-gms-installer/

reminder DON"T upgrade to EMUI 9... if you have already upgraded to EMUI 9, do a revert through your Honor suite...(the huawei desktop app) .. ...

Thanks, yes, I managed to install the GMS on my Honor and can use it now more or less like a normal cellphone.

Anyway, Huawei and Honar are dead now, killed by Donald Trump

Nah, the only thing that idiot can kill is his own business..
It's not hard to unlock the bootloader for the phones and worse come to worse we can easily move between android builds, the Kirin drivers are available online so all it takes is someone to spend the time to recompile the AOSP source codes ...

Sure you can.

But "normal" customers not accept a phone without Android, espcially in Europe, which is very important market for them.

AOSP = Android Open Source Project
Little known fact, Google releases the Android source codes and they are available as open source.. Which is how we have EMUI (Huawei), TouchWiz (now called Samsung Experience), Xperia UI (Sony), MIUI (Xiaomi), HTC Sense, FireOS (Amazon Kindles), or for the non proprietary flavours.. LineageOS (formerly Cyanogen), Cooperhead, OmniRom

So Huawei, even with their trade ban will still have access to the source codes.. the only real impact is that they will have slower access to the security updates and will have to either wait for the fix to be released into the open source repository.. or have to write their own fixes. And as i said.. worse comes to worse.. you can always use a custom ROM.... like i said.. I am not worried at all about the trade ban... i am just annoyed at how dumb this president is and how little he understand about tariffs and economics..

I have a Chinese Honor 8x model, and I can run google store and all the google play service apps (Contacts, Maps, Chrome, etc) just fine..
Just follow these instruction and you will be fine.. https://www.oscrunch.com/2018/12/03/gmsanzh...-gms-installer/

AND DON'T UPGRADE TO EMUI9!!... (do a reset using Honor Suite if you already upgraded to EMUI 9)

How about Honor 20 lite (Malaysia)? Do we have problem install google apps?

local unit comes with google mobile services. no problem.

Yes, I also can use google services. But still there is another annoying problem. When you download apps from Google Playstore often you get the answer "This article is not available in your country". My country IS Malaysia, nothing else

So, if i have to said im looking to buy honor. Does the Malaysian set still receive Google Play service? Honor seem much cheaper and at low cost from other brand, plus im looking at least 4gb ram, to satisfy my need for gaming. Should i buy it or not? In case they(Huawei and Google) decide every China brand no longer receive update from either of them..

Lastly, please recommend other brand that has same price as Honor, heard this brand called Meizu? Is it any good?

Yes, Malaysia set Honor got comes with Google Mobile Services, as for now