• Why? Because it seemed like the most decent decision for me, after my Samsung Galaxy S7 died. Available in Japan, pinning down to the model was down with https://kakaku.com/ . mobile comparisons
• Software: EMUI 8, Huwaeis version of Android 8. EMUI 9 is available via upgrade, also Covid19 bluetooth functions are part of the later EMUI9 updates.
• Hardware:
  • released mid 2018
  • cpu HUAWEI Kirin 659, 8 cores, ROM 32GB RAM 4GB, connector USB Type-C
  • microSDXC card slow, battery 3000 mAh, 5.84“ screen, 2280×1080 pixel
  • Bluetooth 4.2 BLE, NFS, wlan 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• downsides:
  • camera shutter sound can not be muted on the Huawei images (really annoying in a concert)
  • Blokada, vpn adblocker, never worked for me properly on the Huawei images. Bromite is a browser which includes an adblocker.
  • As of 2021, I noticed heavy battery drain, even when entering the most extreme “power save mode”. Battery was empty after some hours, the upper side of the mobile also got warm even in standby/without using the mobile. Solution was to disable 4G, so effectively just allow 3G. This fixed the issue completely.

• google playstore
  • playstore is installed by default. I use it only for apps which I have payed for and which are not available via the yalp store:
  • PeakFinder AR
  • Tiny Tiny RSS unlocker
  • Google maps
• fdroid store
  • Amaze file manager
  • K-9 Mail, Syncthing (file syncing with other Linux systems), Tiny Tiny RSS, Tusky for Mastodon
  • FFUpdater (installs and updates firefox)
  • zapp - https://mediathekviewweb.de/ as app
  • known frdoid repos
• yalp store, aurora store
  • These are in fdroid, it can act as proxy to fetch from google store - for apps which are not on fdroid
  • the Line app is not in fdroid repos
  • EBookDroid (pdf reader), EBPocket Free (Japanese dictionary reader), Musicolet Music (player, can also conveniently seek in podcasts), Sony Headphones
  • Yahoo!乗換案内 (Tokyo train connections), Yahoo Map

These are not played by all players, for example mplayer outputs this:

Cannot find codec for audio format 0x4134504D.

File details:

[chris@Гага́рин master]$ mediainfo 20190224_135819.genji.m4a
General
Complete name                            : 20190224_135819.genji.m4a
Format                                   : ADTS
Format/Info                              : Audio Data Transport Stream
File size                                : 45.5 MiB
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
FileExtension_Invalid                    : aac aacp adts

Audio
Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Format version                           : Version 2
Codec ID                                 : 2
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 45.5 MiB (100%)
[chris@Гага́рин master]$ 

After installing packages gstreamer1-libav (from rpmfusion) and totem on Fedora, totem can play the recorded files.

• settings → system → about phone → tap “build number” 7 times, enables developer mode
• then: settings → system → developer options → usb debugging
• On Fedora: dnf -y install android-tools

adb devices
adb shell
pm list packages -s
pm list packages -s | grep -i huawei
pm uninstall --user 0 com.huawei.himovie.overseas