Is my Huawei tablet destined for the scrapheap?
My trusty Huawei Q Mediapad M2 10in tablet works well, but some of the apps and other processes have slowed down or stopped working because it still runs Android 5.1. The tablet is far too good to consign to landfill, so is there any way I can update the operating system to Android 9? It would be a real shame if I had to stop using it. Frank Chambie
For the record, Android is now A up to version 12 – so in theory you’re able to aim higher than Android 9. Sadly, it’s all academic, because your device can’t run either version of Android – at least, not officially. Huawei wrote off your device after Android 5.1. We’re not saying that’s fair, or that your tablet wouldn’t be able run later versions, but that’s just how it is.
This means your only option is to root the device, then find and install an unofficial ROM for a later version of
Android. Rooting your device can be tricky, but it’s usually reasonably safe. However, the second part – downloading and installing an unofficial version of Android – is fraught with danger. That’s because any non-sanctioned ROM you find online might have been doctored by someone with malicious intent, or could cause problems running on a device for which it wasn’t designed.
If those warnings haven’t put you off, your starting point for rooting any Android device is the XDA Developer forum, at https://forum. xda-developers.com. Looking through the posts for your Mediapad M2 10, it seems that some people have managed to get Android 6 (Marshmallow) to work – see the long discussion thread at www.snipca.com/40357. We couldn’t find anyone who had pushed it further than that.
As your device is getting on a bit, the thread dates back to 2017, and many of the Rom-download links on the first couple of pages are now dead. You should still read the entire thread to understand how to proceed and for an insight into other people’s experiences, but you’ll need to skip to the later posts to obtain working download links. We found some links posted in 2021 that still work (see screenshot) but you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth the difficultly and risk of trying to navigate a Japanese website to download ROMS of unknown provenance.