Huawei Honor gets Android Ice Cream update 'first'

Huawei is supplying Ice Cream Sandwich code on its site to anyone who owns an Honor smartphone, beating out other manufacturers in supplying the Android 4.0 OS to its customers.

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Jessica Dolcourt

Dec. 12, 2011 11:33 a.m. PT

If, like me, you had assumed that the Samsung Nexus S would be the first Android phone to receive the official update to Ice Cream Sandwich (after its debut with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus), we'd both be wrong.

Huawei has bypassed carriers to distribute the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) operating system to owners of the Huawei Honor through its Web site. (The second tab below the image translates to Software.)

Of course, this demo build is not an official carrier push, and you'd have to be comfortable manually updating your phone from the kernel contained on the Web site. If you don't read the Chinese alphabet, you'll still be able to switch to other languages that Android supports.

Huawei Honor site for downloading the ICS kernel — The second tab, Software, contains the Ice Cream Sandwich kernel for the Huawei Honor smartphone. Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

Sure, it isn't the easiest way of sinking your teeth into Ice Cream Sandwich, but if you own the Huawei Honor and simply can't wait, this is one way to lord your new OS over almost everyone else.

Note: I've got the Honor in-house and plan to try my hand at updating to ICS after reviewing the phone in its pristine Gingerbread state.

[Via Phandroid and XDA]

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