Tag: OnePlus

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus will develop OxygenOS independently from ColorOS again

OnePlus and Oppo will continue developing OxygenOS and ColorOS independently, killing the plan to merge both into a single system.

Company co-founder Pete Lau addressed the plan in a blog post, writing that both OxygenOS and ColorOS would continue to work off the same codebase established with OxygenOS 12. According to Lau:

“While OxygenOS and ColorOS will continue to be developed on the same codebase – to allow for faster updates and better build quality – OxygenOS and ColorOS will remain independent brand properties. This new course was taken in accordance with feedback from our Community – we understand users of OxygenOS and ColorOS want each operating system to remain separate from each other with their own distinct properties.”

As Android Police points out, the original plan was for the OnePlus 10 series to debut with a merged operating system (OS) — however, reports from early February indicated the unified OS was nowhere to be seen.

Going forward with OxygenOS 13, Lau says the company wants to “deliver an experience that long-time OnePlus users will be familiar with while ensuring it upholds hallmarks of OxygenOS,” including a fast, smooth experience, “burdenless design,” and being easy to use.

Image credit: OnePlus

This all generally sounds like a move in the right direction. When OnePlus first announced the plans to merge OxygenOS and ColorOS, users were understandably skeptical. Turns out it was well placed — the integration didn’t seem to go well, with several reports coming out taking issue with how OxygenOS ended up much like ColorOS.

Hopefully, this change results in improvements to OxygenOS. Although I’ve had my issues with OnePlus’ software, I quite liked the look and feel of it pre-ColorOS.

Source: OnePlus, Via: Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus 10 Pro coming to Canada in March, possible foldable in late 2022

OnePlus has finally shared that the OnePlus 10 Pro is officially coming to North America near the end of March.

The company still hasn’t given out the exact release date, but sometime in the next 30 days, we can expect the OnePlus 10 Pro flagship. We already know a lot about the phone since it’s been out in China for months; you can read our previous coverage here. I’d also like to point out that OnePlus is milking its phone launch way too much. The phone is already out. Why are we playing these games where the company is hiding the release date less than 30 days out?

OnePlus confirmed that the OnePlus 10 Pro will ship with OxygenOS 12.1 out of the box when it arrives this spring. This is kind of a good thing since OxygenOS 12 has been a fairly buggy disaster for the company so far. OnePlus actually promised in 2021 that its 2022 flagship phones would be running a unified Android 13 profile at launch, so take all these new promises with a heavy grain of salt.

Plus, the company has struggled to even get OxygenOS 12 out on all of its phones. Even the Nord CE 2 5G, which was announced a few weeks ago, doesn’t run Android 12 yet. Beyond that, users aren’t super happy with the direction the operating system’s design has taken either.

During a briefing, OnePlus pledged to remedy that with a stock-like Android experience in Android 13. Still, I’d be hesitant to get excited about this unless you plan to buy a OnePlus 10 Pro. If the updates release at the same cadence as Android 12, it’s going to take a long time to come to older devices. For instance, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro flagships from 2020 only just got their first beta build of Android 12 a few days ago, months after the OnePlus 9 series.

During a call, the company also shared that it sold 11 million phones in 2021, which is a new record for the brand. What’s more exciting, though, is that OnePlus plans to release a device with 150-watt fast charging in Q2 2022 and a foldable possibly at the end of the year or early 2023. OnePlus’ parent company Oppo released a folding phone called the Find N in late 2021, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the OnePlus foldable followed similar design fundamentals.

Overall, OnePlus has made many promises regarding its software and hardware, but I wouldn’t trust these claims until we get our hands on the devices and run the software. OnePlus has been growing over the last few years, but its software support and hardware have been severely lacking since its more public merger with Oppo. It appears the company has noticed this reputation hit, and is working to remedy the situation, but it will need to make sure the next software update is clean and applies to more than one phone at a time to really keep users happy.

The company also announced it will push into new markets this year with intentions to move into Mexico and Latin America.

Stay tuned to MobileSyrup over the next few weeks for our review of the OnePlus 10 Pro.

Image credit: OnePlus 

Via: Android Authority

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus 10 might launch in Canada soon

OnePlus has started hinting that the OnePlus 10 Pro could soon make its way to North America.

This suggests that we might see the phone in Canada soon, but there’s no real mention of a release date unless the company plans to release the device on March 10th. Over on the company’s forums, there’s no mention of the  device either.

Last year, the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro launched globally on March 23rd, so it seems likely the OnePlus 10 will launch in March as well.

While there’s some excitement for the phone, OnePlus has already revealed the device in China, so pretty much everything you’d want to know about it is already online.

For instance, I recently learned that you can snap the OnePlus 10 Pro in half with enough force — kind of like a popsicle stick. You can watch the full JerryRigEverything video here.

Beyond that, the OnePlus just pulled back the curtain on an ‘Extreme Edition’ of the OnePlus 10 that features a white back panel and 512GB of storage. It’s unclear if this version of the device will come to Canada or North America at all.

Overall, the OnePlus 10 Pro is likely a decent smartphone, but the company seems to either be struggling with its Oppo merger or doesn’t as much about the North American market as it once did.

Source: OnePlus, JerryRigEverything, Notebookcheck

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus Valentine’s Day sale discounts OnePlus 9, 9 Pro, and earbuds

OnePlus is offering a few deals on phones for Valentine’s Day. Anyone looking to pick up a OnePlus device may want to take advantage of these offers.

Deals include discounts on the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro, 8T, Nord 200 5G, and accessory bundles. For example, you can nab the OnePlus Pro ‘Combo Bundle’ with the OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus Buds Pro for $1,229 (down from $1,698.99). Unfortunately, at the time of writing, that offer was out of stock.

Check out the other deals below:

You can check out all of OnePlus’ Valentine’s Day deals here.

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Mobile Syrup

These OnePlus phones have the latest Android security patch

Getting the proper updates in a timely manner on Android has always been a nightmare, but some manufacturers like Samsung have made strides to make the system better. OnePlus, unfortunately, hasn’t made the same headway.

So far, the company has updated the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro to OxygenOS 12 with the latest Android security updates.

Beyond that, in Canada, the OnePlus Nord N10 5G and the Nord N200 5G have both gotten the latest security patches, but are still running Android 11.

Any OnePlus phones older than that are still stuck on both Android 11 and various states of security updates. This even includes OnePlus’ other major flagships like the OnePlus 8 Pro and the OnePlus 7 Pro with the pop-up selfie cam.

Source: OnePlus, 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus 10 Pro still features XPan mode

OnePlus has been fairly disappointing as it merged publically within Oppo last year, but one silver lining was the niche, but fun to shoot with, XPan mode on the OnePlus 9 series.

I fell head over heels for it, so when OnePlus started trickling out information about the OnePlus 10 Pro, I was pretty disappointed that the company seemed to have forgotten about XPan mode. I even subtitled my camera preview article “Where’s XPan mode?” I took the news on the chin, but it made sense. Most reviewers passed it off as a side gimmick, and I can imagine that only the photography nerds who use OnePlus phones would get a kick out of it. That’s likely a small portion of the company’s consumer base.

I was still excited about the phone, and the camera features like the 150-degree fisheye mode seemed fun, but after a year of disappointment from OnePlus, this was a crappy way to start 2022.

Well, that’s all changed. Notable tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee got his hands on an imported OnePlus 10 Pro from China and confirmed that the new phone includes XPan mode!

There’s not much else to say about it, but as someone who’s been around tech for long enough to see some of my favourite tech gimmicks fade away, it’s always nice when a company decides to keep one alive, even if it’s just for the fans. I’ll reserve my full judgement of the phone for its North American release sometime later this year.

Images credit: MKBHD

Source: MKBHD

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus adds multi-device connection spec to OnePlus Buds Pro

In a surprising move, OnePlus has rolled out an update for the OnePlus Buds Pro earbuds that make it easier to switch between two devices.

Similar multi-point connection tech is part of what makes Apple’s AirPods so desirable. OnePlus says that OnePlus phone users can update the OnePlus Buds Pro through the Bluetooth settings, but other users will need to download the ‘Hey Melody’ app to get access.

When I when to apply the update on my OnePlus 9 Pro, I was able to update the buds at the bottom of the earbud’s settings page. Once installed, I needed to navigate back to the OnePlus Buds settings page and turn on ‘Dual Connection.’

You can’t manually select your secondary device from this menu, but it automatically picked up my iPhone that had been previously paired with the OnePlus Buds Pro in the past.

From there, I was able to get the earbuds to switch seamlessly between the OnePlus 9 Pro and iPhone. I will note that the earbuds will only switch when one device is paused. If you’re listening to music on a OnePlus device, simply playing content on another device won’t transfer it over. You need to pause the content on your current device first and then it moves over to your secondary device if it’s playing audio.

This worked a lot more seamlessly than I expected and added a lot of value to the already well-rounded OnePlus Buds Pro. It might not work as automatically as AirPods, but it’s still very convenient and offers the same productivity boost when working between a phone and a computer that I enjoy with Apple’s AirPods.

If you’re interested in the OnePlus Buds, you can read my full review here.

Source: OnePlus

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus shares specs for 2nd-gen Hasselblad camera system in OnePlus 10 Pro

With the Chinese launch date for the OnePlus 10 Pro fast approaching, the manufacturer has shared all of the camera specs for the upcoming flagship.

I’m most excited that all three of the new cameras on the phone’s back will support 10-bit colour. OnePlus also claims that the smartphone’s shooters display 25 percent more colour than the OnePlus 9 Pro.

On top of that, OnePlus says it’s building in a movie mode this year, giving mobile videographers control over ISO, shutter speed and other settings while filming. The company is also adding a LOG format to the camera to be slightly more easily colour matched to different cameras and more colour processing headroom when you’re editing.

As much as I praised the 14mm flatness of the OnePlus 9 Pro, as I predicted, the company is moving back to a more fisheye wide-angle lens this year. The ultra-wide-angle has a 150-degree field of view with a fisheye effect, but you can crop it into 110-degrees to get a flatter image that’s more like the OnePlus 9 Pro.

Unlike last year when OnePlus was hyping up all of its cameras by talking about their full-frame lens equivalents, that feature seems to have been ditched.

Much like Apple’s ProRaw file type, OnePlus will be using a new system called RAW+ that allows users to snap RAW images that still have computational photography advancements tucked within them. This is nice to have since computational photography is great for quickly snapping photos. If David Imel’s latest video is any indication, it’s the way to shoot on mobile phones until manufacturers start developing software for larger camera sensors.

OnePlus also says it can shoot 12-bit RAW images with this camera even though the sensors only support 10-bit. I’ve reached out to OnePlus for more information regarding how this will work.

I’ll also note that most of the demo images presented are in 4,080 x 3,060 pixels, making them much more square than the average smartphone photo. I don’t necessarily mind this since I’ll most likely crop most of my pictures in post anyway, but this makes me think that OnePlus might not be adding the XPan mode that I loved so much from the OnePlus 9 Pro.

OnePlus has been slowly revealing info about the OnePlus 10 Pro info leading up to the phone’s Chinese release on January 11th. If you want to learn more about the device’s specs, you can read that story here or look at more renders of the device here.

Image credit: OnePlus

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Mobile Syrup

The OnePlus 10 Pro has been unveiled

OnePlus has shown off the design of its latest smartphone flagship, the OnePlus 10 Pro.

The phone looks sleek with a matte or possibly even Sandstone-type finish. It’s hard to tell, and the company is keeping the device’s details pretty close to the chest before release.

OnePlus seems to be following a similar strategy to Google, which revealed details about its Pixel 6 series for months leading up to its release to help build hype for that phone. Now that OnePlus is following a similar path, we might start seeing longer pre-hype cycles for phones before they even come out.

Moving back to the OnePlus 10 Pro, you’ll notice that it looks to be large like last year’s OnePlus 9 Pro and sports three rear cameras and a large flash. The’ company is still working with Hasselblad, and it’s written “P2D 50T on the flash. Input Mag editor Ray Wong says that OnePlus told him the ‘P’ stands for Phone. The ‘2D’ stands for second-gen Hasselblad camera on mobile and the ’50T’ denotes that the three cameras are 50-megapixels.

This whole new camera setup is also housed in a ceramic bump on the phone’s rear that looks like a wider version of a Samsung Galaxy S21 series device. OnePlus says that the ceramic bump is 13x stronger than glass, so hopefully, this hints at the 10 Pro being the most durable phone from the company yet.

The company has also shared the phone in Emerald Forest (green) and Volcanic Ash (black) colorways. These are reminiscent of the hues OnePlus has been using since the 8T, but it appears there is no silver option this year.

Beyond that, all we can gain from the images is that the phone uses USB-C to charge and still has the classic OnePlus alert slider on the side to quickly silence the phone.

For the first time, OnePlus plans to launch in China first, and the rest of the world will get the phone later. This is a new release strategy for OnePlus, but since it works so closely with Oppo now it makes sense that it will start favouring its home country.

This is an exciting phone, especially in the camera department, but if OnePlus can’t start ironing out its device updates soon, I’m not sure if all the good hardware in the world can save it.

Via: Raymond Wong 

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus says it’s not easy bringing Android 12 to older phones

A new message from OnePlus CEO Pete Lau doesn’t bode well for OnePlus owners with older devices.

The CEO said on Chinese social media Weibo that the company was finding it challenging to update older devices to OxygenOS 12/Android 12.

It’s been a tough year for OnePlus fans as the company fumbles transition after transition as it shifts to become a more recognized Oppo sub-brand. The company has brought Android 12 to the OnePlus 12, but that update was plagued with bugs and rollbacks. Even now, as the update is supposedly stable, it still feels very much like a beta to me.

Lau claiming that the company is struggling to bring the update to older phones doesn’t surprise me now. What would be surprising would be for the OnePlus 10 to launch without any software bugs. We’re expecting to know soon enough as well since Lau has hinted the phone will be released in January 2022.

Source: Android Headlines