Why Honor 9x Pro is NOT an Android phone

Weird way to start a post. But this is not my usual kind. So, here we go:

What?
This is a request not to waste your money on Honor 9x Pro.

Why?
Honor 9x Pro runs on the basic Android OS (what is AOSP or Android Open Source Project). However, most of what we "know" as Android is powered by what we call "Google Mobile Service" that runs on top of the AOSP code. Without that running, your phone will not have the Google Play Store, you will not be able to enjoy most of the apps that you think are "part of Android" - GMaps, Google Search, GMail, Google Photos and more. And without the play store you will not be able to install apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Hotstar, Youtube, Redbus..heck any app that you know that your friends/relatives have.

The lowdown:
Subsequent to Trump's tantrums about suspected Huawei's back-channel spying through their 5G devices, US companies were ordered not to have any partnership with Huawei. So, Google promptly stopped supporting Huawei devices. However, since basic Android is open-source, it couldn't stop Huawei from using it. But most of what Google developed over that layer (called GMS) that "breathes" life into the OS just won't work as it requires license from Google which was denied to Huawei. This happened last year. While Honor 9x just escaped the ban as it was released before the ban came into effect, Honor 9x Pro has been released just now.

This is what Google says:

Does Amazon sell 9x Pro?

As of today, Amazon doesn't list the phone.

How is this marketed in Flipkart?

Now. This is interesting. FK lists this phone under "android phones" (I chose brand name = "honor" as a filter to float it to the top).

This is misleading as it is not at all comparable to other "Android" phones that run Android with GMS. When I ventured to see if this is mentioned as part of the listing, it took me down a rabbit hole. We start:

This is the listing page:

Even if you squint long enough, you wouldn't find any mention of GMS or the fact that you will not be able to install almost any standard "Android app" anywhere here in the page. When you scroll to "Specifications" in the page and click on "Read More", you'll expand into a rather long specification section:

In case you didn't notice, buried under the fifth scroll or so, is this message (emphases mine):

Wow! "Not pre-installed"? Heck you can never install it (without breaking the law, that is) and it is not that GMS "may not work". It just "WILL NOT WORK".Takes quite a bit of persistence to spot this message. Even more so, if you are browsing on a handheld

And this is THE message that would be central to so many people's buying decisions. It has been conveniently given an undeserving burial. So what is the consequence? The review section will throw some light (I changed the sort order of reviews to "negative first"):

Almost every -ve review talks just about 2 things - Absence of Play Store and the inability to install any app - or even side-load them.

I asked FK's smartphone head about this. This is how the conversation went. Pat came the reply: "The platform clearly mentions that it doesn't support (sic) Google" and is accompanied by a friendly advise that went, "contact Honor and make your app compatible with their ecosystem like many others do"! The only problem is that "many others" have not made their apps compatible, yet! (More on that below)

And you'll find some poor, confused souls asking questions on how to install taken-for-granted apps on the phone they just bought: 

This is one link that explains you how to do it:

https://club.hihonor.com/in/topic/512739/detail.htm#detail-topic

An excerpt:

Not the neatest of ways to download something like WhatsApp and Facebook after spending almost 14k on your new phone! And, it doesn't stop there. Most apps wouldn't work because most Android apps (APKs) assume google services to be present in the environment they are running (naturally). Without that, in Honor 9x Pro you will face crashes and some may not even start. 

If you are an organization, you have 2 options: You either hire a team to develop and maintain this "Honor" app (that just runs on Honor phones) to be on a par with your Android/iOS app or, just wrap your Mobile Web offering and pass it on as an app. It is not tough to guess what most companies would do! And soon, Honor Play Store will be full of such "quality" apps!

I am baffled though, that with such basic handicaps FK shows that the phone has a 4.4 rating! 

Honor definitely seems to be doing something to mitigate it. On Twitter, you'll find armies of mercenaries eulogizing the fact that not having an app store is no big problem (though this fact, as we saw, is conveniently buried in their product page in FK). It doesn't take long for one to find that almost all the posts were made in a span of just 2 days and that most of them seem to have only Tweeted marketing messages in their accounts.

By the way, this page, from Honor's "community pages" tells you how to install GMS on Honor 9x Pro! Not sure if it is even legal. Opinions appreciated. It's a neat way for Honor to argue, if need be, that they didn't publish it "officially" but some Honor "fan" published it.

But for the time being, I suggest that you stay away from this phone if you want to save yourself some major disappointment.