Several device makers are rushing to announce their plans for the latest version of Android as well as announcing trial phases for the latest version of the world’s most popular mobile operating system. Samsung is already testing One UI 3, its take on Android 11 with its own additions, on several variants of its flagship devices. Huawei revealed its plans to the world just the other day.
Now, Oppo, is also joining the fray.
Android 11 is arriving, starting yesterday, on Oppo smartphones masked as ColorOS 11. This is pretty much in line with the company’s way of doing things over the years. ColorOS has been its driver with its colourfulness and, in the early years, its close resemblance to Apple’s iOS. It has, however, over the last few years, matured and shed off the iOS clone tag with several unique features and takes on the overall smartphone user experience while staying closer to the vision of Android as can be experienced on Google’s own Pixel smartphones and devices available under the Android One programme.
It is these different takes that will be a mainstay of ColorOS 11 which builds upon what Oppo has so far done as can be seen in the devices it offers in the Kenyan market like the Oppo Reno3 and, soon, its successor, the Oppo Reno4.
Top on the list of ColorOS 11 features is deep Google Lens integration with screenshots users take being easy to translate in a feature dubbed Three Finger Translate that Oppo says was developed in close partnership with Google.
There’s a new Device Control menu added for easy and quick access to the smart devices in one’s home.
FlexDrop, another feature, makes it easy for users to multi-task by letting them resize any app into a small floating window or mini window that can be accessed without leaving an already open window.
As far as customizations go, users can switch between three variations of the system-wide dark mode introduced in Android 10 – pitch dark, blue dark and grey dark – with the ability to have their icons and wallpapers automatically tuned to reflect their chosen dark mode shade.
Users can also come up with their own Always-On Display graphics – just in case you’re down for seeing your own ugly doodles displayed as “artwork” on your phone’s display all day long. The same is true of ringtones as well, in case Ringdroid was never enough.
To match its advancements in battery technology, Oppo is also baking into its Android experience a number of features. The Battery Guard feature “prevents damage from prolonged charging at unstable power voltages by learning user habits” and then pausing charging automatically when it hits the 80% mark at night “before resuming to achieve a full charge by the time users wake up.”
Another battery-centred feature lets users select up to 6 important/must-use apps that still run when Super Power Saving Mode, a low-battery mode, kicks in. With Super Power Saving Mode on, users can expect at least one and a half hours on WhatsApp and at least enough juice for an hour-long call.
Oppo’s Game Space, its own “gaming mode” is getting a complementary feature in ColorOS 11 called Immersive Mode. As the name suggests, it’s meant to allow the user to fully immerse themselves in the game they are playing by cutting the rest of the world: no calls, no social media notifications… Basically, very little distractions. It’ll even tough off certain gestures just in case they get activated by accident when you’re in the middle of a game.
To enhance responsiveness and reduce lag, which should be a thing of the fast as more and more apps become better optimized for use in the high-refresh-rate displays that are going to dominate the next year (they are already all the rage right now), Oppo has also added a number of features to ColorOS.
“UI First 2.0, which combines OPPO’s proprietary lag-reducing engine with Quantum Animation. This boosts RAM utilization by 45%, improving the response rate by 32% and the frame rate by 17%,” the company notes in a statement to the media announcing the rollout of ColorOS 11.
“AI App Preloading learns user behaviour to preload the most-used apps, reducing loading time. SuperTouch also intelligently identifies user scenarios and optimizes the touch response speed accordingly, improving system fluency.”
On the privacy front, a key theme in Android 11, on top of the privacy features that Google has included in the new version of Android, Oppo is offering users of its devices what it calls Private System, a Samsung Knox-style “separate system where a second version of apps and data runs independent of the original and is accessible only via a separate fingerprint scan or password.”
ColorOS 11 is available immediately as a beta to users of the Oppo Find X2 series (Find X2, Find X2 Pro, Find X2 Pro Automobili Lamborghini Edition). The final version will be released in coming weeks, according to Oppo.
Other devices will be updated as captured in this image:
“ColorOS 11 will be released in a batch-by-batch approach, starting with the Find X2 Series and Reno3 Series. The complete rollout will cover 28-plus phone models, including the Find, Reno, F, K, and A series,” the company adds.
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