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As part of their efforts to get the EMUI 8, Android Oreo based update out, Huawei has opened up a limited beta for owners of the Huawei P10 and P10 Plus.  The program will allow a limited number of P10 users to sign up for the beta and download the Oreo based build to their devices.  The beta follows the release of the Oreo update for the Mate 9, last year’s flagship phablet from the company.

Huawei has already released the Oreo update for the P10 in China so this beta for the international versions of the phone will likely go quickly given the company has some experience with the build and the device together.

The Essential Phone has a new update rolling out that owners will want to install as soon as it is available for their device.  The update is build NMJ88C and it brings fixes for both the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities as well as the January Android Security Update patch.  The update is small so you can download it via your mobile data connection but WiFi is always recommended.

The update means that the Essential Phone will be one of the first phones outside of Google’s own devices to have the January security update.

For those that haven’t kept up, the Spectre and Meltdown security flaws were announced last week and are a fundamental issue with Intel, AMD and ARM processors.  If exploited, these vulnerabilities would allow for sensitive data to be stolen from the phone via memory that is normally off limits to the kernel.  It is a big deal and software developers like Google, Microsoft and Apple are having to address it quickly.  Phone manufactures, like Essential, will need to build fixes into their particular Android builds too.

Sony’s mid-range of Android phones are getting a refresh.  At CES 2018, the company announced that the Sony Xperia XA2 and XA2 Ultra and they are expected to be available in February.  These two phones are fundamentally the same when it comes to their internals with the XA2 Ultra sporting a 6″ display over the XA2’s 5.2″ display.  Both will render at 1920 x 1080 FHD and both are powered by the Snapdragon 630 SoC and 4GB of RAM.  Storage wise, you will have the option of 32GB or 64GB and there is a MicroSD expansion slot.

Camera wise, both have the same 23MP rear camera and both have 8MP, 120° wide angle selfie camera.  The XA2 Ultra adds a second front facing camera that has OIS despite the fact that the rear camera on either phone doesn’t have image stabilization.  Powering the Utra is a 3580mAh battery while the standard XA2 will have a 3300mAh battery.

At CES 2018, Huawei has announced that the Honor View 10 will be making its way to the United States in 2018.  The View 10 is currently Honor’s flagship device and will available in Europe and Asia starting today.  While a timeline wasn’t given on when the phone will hit the US, it appears to be in reasonably short order based on rumors.

For those that may not know the specs of the Honor View 10, they are pretty impressive.  The phone sports a 5.99″ IPS FHD display with a 18:9 ratio.  It is powered by Huawei’s Kirin 970 SoC, has up to 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of storage.  It has dual rear cameras of 16MP and 20MP while the selfie camera is a 13MP shooter.  All of this is powered by a 3750mAh battery.