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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus’ Buds Z2 are now available for $149

OnePlus has released an updated pair of earbuds in its ‘Z’ line called the OnePlus Buds Z2 that promise more battery life and active noise cancellation.

I’ve been testing the earbuds for the past few days and will have a full review in the coming weeks. But for now, I’ll say that they sound good, the noise cancellation seems average, and they feel very similar to the OnePlus Buds Z from last year. So far, I have no major complaints, but I’ve yet to compare them to the previous model and key competitors. That said, for the low price of $150, the value the Z2s offer is difficult to beat.

There’s a decent amount to get excited about on the spec sheet, including standard OnePlus fast charging. This time the company says that a 10-minute charge (on a certified charger) offers five hours of listening time. However, that’s not even the most impressive battery stat because with the case, you can use the buds for 38 hours, according to the company. This is incredibly long and might make these the perfect earbuds for people that are away from power for a long time.

They’re also been equipped with Bluetooth 5.2 and can use Google Fast Pair, so the initial connection to most Android phones is fairly seamless. If you’re a OnePlus user, you also get a few additional perks, including the ability to customize the touch controls and noise cancellation levels without downloading the third-party HeyMelody app.

Image credit: OnePlus

OnePlus also promises better call quality and reduced audio latency down to 94ms. The Z2s are also certified to support Dolby Atmos, but with Apple Music, the effect isn’t as noticeable as Apple’s AirPods with head tracking. It’s still nice, though, and I’ll have more TV show and movie impressions in the full review.

OnePlus says that its noise cancellation can block sounds up to 40dB and in my testing, I can’t hear my fingers on my Macbook keyboard or other ambient sounds. The Buds Z2 are decent at lowering the volume on human voices too, but as with most earbuds, the noise cancellation isn’t groundbreaking.

Other specs include IP55 water/dust-proofing to help the earbuds withstand rain. The case also offers an IPX4 rating, allowing it to handle minimal splashing as well.

So far, OnePlus’ new Z2s sound pretty good, right? Well, there’s a catch — at least for now. Alongside the new earbuds, OnePlus has brought its Red Cable Club to North America. Anyone can sign up for free, but you need to join to buy the earbuds since OnePlus has decided to make them Red Cable Club exclusive.

Everyone starts as a Red Cable Club Explorer, but you can rank up to Elite status by performing a few annoying tasks like subscribing to OnePlus’ newsletters and registering your account. The main way to gain points is to buy OnePlus products. It appears that $1 equals one point. You need over 3,500 points to hit elite status, which only nets you $40 off purchases over $300. Overall, this is a pretty paltry rewards program, but since I assume most OnePlus phone users probably already have a OnePlus account, this isn’t that significant of an issue.

If you want to pick up a pair of the Buds Z2, OnePlus is selling them for $149 to Red Cable Club members only. The company also says that there is a limited quantity of 1,000. If these earbuds sell out, I expect OnePlus to drop more. The company appears to be adopting a similar strategy to ‘Nothing’s’ by releasing with significant hype and exclusivity behind them.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

OnePlus’ Buds Z2 are now available for $149

OnePlus has released an updated pair of earbuds in its ‘Z’ line called the OnePlus Buds Z2 that promise more battery life and active noise cancellation.

I’ve been testing the earbuds for the past few days and will have a full review in the coming weeks. But for now, I’ll say that they sound good, the noise cancellation seems average, and they feel very similar to the OnePlus Buds Z from last year. So far, I have no major complaints, but I’ve yet to compare them to the previous model and key competitors. That said, for the low price of $150, the value the Z2s offer is difficult to beat.

There’s a decent amount to get excited about on the spec sheet, including standard OnePlus fast charging. This time the company says that a 10-minute charge (on a certified charger) offers five hours of listening time. However, that’s not even the most impressive battery stat because with the case, you can use the buds for 38 hours, according to the company. This is incredibly long and might make these the perfect earbuds for people that are away from power for a long time.

They’re also been equipped with Bluetooth 5.2 and can use Google Fast Pair, so the initial connection to most Android phones is fairly seamless. If you’re a OnePlus user, you also get a few additional perks, including the ability to customize the touch controls and noise cancellation levels without downloading the third-party HeyMelody app.

Image credit: OnePlus

OnePlus also promises better call quality and reduced audio latency down to 94ms. The Z2s are also certified to support Dolby Atmos, but with Apple Music, the effect isn’t as noticeable as Apple’s AirPods with head tracking. It’s still nice, though, and I’ll have more TV show and movie impressions in the full review.

OnePlus says that its noise cancellation can block sounds up to 40dB and in my testing, I can’t hear my fingers on my Macbook keyboard or other ambient sounds. The Buds Z2 are decent at lowering the volume on human voices too, but as with most earbuds, the noise cancellation isn’t groundbreaking.

Other specs include IP55 water/dust-proofing to help the earbuds withstand rain. The case also offers an IPX4 rating, allowing it to handle minimal splashing as well.

So far, OnePlus’ new Z2s sound pretty good, right? Well, there’s a catch — at least for now. Alongside the new earbuds, OnePlus has brought its Red Cable Club to North America. Anyone can sign up for free, but you need to join to buy the earbuds since OnePlus has decided to make them Red Cable Club exclusive.

Everyone starts as a Red Cable Club Explorer, but you can rank up to Elite status by performing a few annoying tasks like subscribing to OnePlus’ newsletters and registering your account. The main way to gain points is to buy OnePlus products. It appears that $1 equals one point. You need over 3,500 points to hit elite status, which only nets you $40 off purchases over $300. Overall, this is a pretty paltry rewards program, but since I assume most OnePlus phone users probably already have a OnePlus account, this isn’t that significant of an issue.

If you want to pick up a pair of the Buds Z2, OnePlus is selling them for $149 to Red Cable Club members only. The company also says that there is a limited quantity of 1,000. If these earbuds sell out, I expect OnePlus to drop more. The company appears to be adopting a similar strategy to ‘Nothing’s’ by releasing with significant hype and exclusivity behind them.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

OnePlus’ Buds Z2 are now available for $149

OnePlus has released an updated pair of earbuds in its ‘Z’ line called the OnePlus Buds Z2 that promise more battery life and active noise cancellation.

I’ve been testing the earbuds for the past few days and will have a full review in the coming weeks. But for now, I’ll say that they sound good, the noise cancellation seems average, and they feel very similar to the OnePlus Buds Z from last year. So far, I have no major complaints, but I’ve yet to compare them to the previous model and key competitors. That said, for the low price of $150, the value the Z2s offer is difficult to beat.

There’s a decent amount to get excited about on the spec sheet, including standard OnePlus fast charging. This time the company says that a 10-minute charge (on a certified charger) offers five hours of listening time. However, that’s not even the most impressive battery stat because with the case, you can use the buds for 38 hours, according to the company. This is incredibly long and might make these the perfect earbuds for people that are away from power for a long time.

They’re also been equipped with Bluetooth 5.2 and can use Google Fast Pair, so the initial connection to most Android phones is fairly seamless. If you’re a OnePlus user, you also get a few additional perks, including the ability to customize the touch controls and noise cancellation levels without downloading the third-party HeyMelody app.

Image credit: OnePlus

OnePlus also promises better call quality and reduced audio latency down to 94ms. The Z2s are also certified to support Dolby Atmos, but with Apple Music, the effect isn’t as noticeable as Apple’s AirPods with head tracking. It’s still nice, though, and I’ll have more TV show and movie impressions in the full review.

OnePlus says that its noise cancellation can block sounds up to 40dB and in my testing, I can’t hear my fingers on my Macbook keyboard or other ambient sounds. The Buds Z2 are decent at lowering the volume on human voices too, but as with most earbuds, the noise cancellation isn’t groundbreaking.

Other specs include IP55 water/dust-proofing to help the earbuds withstand rain. The case also offers an IPX4 rating, allowing it to handle minimal splashing as well.

So far, OnePlus’ new Z2s sound pretty good, right? Well, there’s a catch — at least for now. Alongside the new earbuds, OnePlus has brought its Red Cable Club to North America. Anyone can sign up for free, but you need to join to buy the earbuds since OnePlus has decided to make them Red Cable Club exclusive.

Everyone starts as a Red Cable Club Explorer, but you can rank up to Elite status by performing a few annoying tasks like subscribing to OnePlus’ newsletters and registering your account. The main way to gain points is to buy OnePlus products. It appears that $1 equals one point. You need over 3,500 points to hit elite status, which only nets you $40 off purchases over $300. Overall, this is a pretty paltry rewards program, but since I assume most OnePlus phone users probably already have a OnePlus account, this isn’t that significant of an issue.

If you want to pick up a pair of the Buds Z2, OnePlus is selling them for $149 to Red Cable Club members only. The company also says that there is a limited quantity of 1,000. If these earbuds sell out, I expect OnePlus to drop more. The company appears to be adopting a similar strategy to ‘Nothing’s’ by releasing with significant hype and exclusivity behind them.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Surprising pretty much no one, OnePlus pulls its OxygenOS 12 update

It’s become too common for OnePlus’ public updates to feel like betas, and unsurprisingly, the company has once again been forced to suspend its OxygenOS 12 update’s release until it can fix several issues.

At this point, it feels like every second beta and a few stable releases a year, are pulled back within the first week — even after that, I still find OnePlus to be exceptionally buggy compared to Google Pixel devices and especially Apple’s iPhone. The situation has gotten so bad that I struggle to find a reason to recommend OnePlus’ smartphones to anyone because I’m concerned the person in question will encounter a frustrating bug.

Overall, the move to Android 12 and from OnePlus’ software to ColorOS has proved too much for the company. In the form of posts on OnePlus’ official forums regarding the update, people are outraged over the new look and feel of the OS and the sheer amount of bugs within it. While I have yet to swap back over to the OnePlus 9 Pro as a daily driver, I managed to download the update and I’ve been running the beta since it launched.

Though I have yet to encounter significant bugs, I’m disappointed with the weird implementation of ColorOS. It feels like a reskinned update stuck between ColorOS 11 and 12. It also steps back some aspects of OnePlus’ design that it released last summer, which I find a little disappointing since, at that time, I thought OnePlus was in a good place to step up as a significant player in the smartphone space.

Since then, the company has rolled back some of my favourite parts of the update on its own, but the ColorOS rebuild is even worse. At this point, if OnePlus and Oppo are going to run the same version of Android, why try to rebrand it as OxygenOS at all? When the two companies publically announced that they planned to merge, one of the key goals was to provide OnePlus users with faster and more stable updates. So far, the opposite has occurred, and I’m hesitant to believe that OnePlus running its own tweaked version of ColorOS is the right move.

I still really like the OnePlus 9 Pro, and in particular, its camera systems and hardware quality, but my trust in the brand has been beaten down over the years as its software never appears to get better — just buggier in different ways.

Via: Android Police 

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Mobile Syrup

OxygenOS 12 rolling out for the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro

OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro owners can finally update to OxygenOS 12 this week, but it might not be for everyone just yet.

OnePlus says that the update is rolling out slowly over the next few days and that it includes a few new features. However, this update is a slight departure from the OxygenOS users are comfortable with and is a clone of Oppo’s ColorOS. It’s not terrible, but in my experience so far, a few issues still need to be ironed out.

Some of the hot new features include the Android 12 privacy features, new work/life balance modes and more. Sadly, Google’s Material You colour matching tech is missing from this version of Android 12, so your widgets won’t match your background. If you want to read more of my thoughts on the OS update, you can check out my impressions here. To sum it up, I’m a little annoyed that OnePlus put so much effort into creating a distinct software design and brand identity last year, only to replace most of it with ColorOS now.

I guess it’s futile to resist the update if you’re a OnePlus 9 owner, but hopefully, over the next 12-months the company is able to smooth out this operating system transition. If you have a OnePlus 8 series or older device I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope for this update coming to your phone any time soon. OnePlus has been very slow to update older phones lately and this Oppo transition won’t help matters.

If you want to read more about OxygenOS 12 or see what bugs users are reporting, OnePlus has also posted an FAQ page on the new update.

The full list of new features from OnePlus is below:

System

    • Optimized desktop icons with improved textures by using a design inspired by brand-new materials and uniting lights and layers

Dark mode

    • Dark mode now supports three adjustable levels, bringing a more personalized and comfortable user experience

Shelf

    • New additional style options for Cards, making data contents more visual and easier to read
    • Newly added Earphone Control Card with Bluetooth earphone one-click adjustment
    • Newly added access to OnePlus Scout in Shelf, allowing you to search multiple contents on your phone, including Apps, Settings, Media Data, etc
    • Newly added OnePlus Watch Card in Shelf, to easily glance at your health stats

Work-Life Balance

    • Work-Life Balance feature is now available to all users, allowing you to effortlessly switch between Work and Life mode via quick settings
    • WLB 2.0 now supports automatic Work/Life mode switching, based on specific locations, Wi-Fi network, and time, also bringing customized App notification profiles according to the personalization

Gallery

    • Gallery now allows you to switch between different layouts with a two-finger pinch gesture, intelligently recognizing the best-quality pictures, and cropping the thumbnail based on the content, making the gallery layout more pleasing

Canvas AOD

    • Canvas AOD brings you new diverse styles of lines and colors, for a more personalized lock screen experience with inspiring visuals
    • Newly added multiple brushes and strokes and support for color adjustment
    • Optimized software algorithm and improved face recognition to better identify the features and skin color of different figures

Source: OnePlus

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus 8T drops to $600 for Black Friday

There are currently quite a few deals on OnePlus smartphones and wireless earbuds for ‘Black Friday,’ but the best offer is easily on the OnePlus 8T.

The phone first released in late 2020 and is still one of the faster devices on the market today. You can check out my review of the OnePlus 8T here. The OnePlus 8T is currently on sale for $599, down from its regular price of 1,099. 

If you’re more interested in the OnePlus 9 series, I’ve reviewed that more recent device as well. They’re also great smartphones, but aren’t that much better than the 8T, especially considering its steep discount right now.

The N200 5G is on sale for $270. This is a decent budget phone, but be aware that it’s not nearly as powerful as OnePlus’ flagship devices. You can find my review of the N200 5G here.

Beyond these smartphones, several other devices are also on sale, including the OnePlus Buds Pro.

You can check out all OnePlus’ deals here.

Source: OnePlus 

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Mobile Syrup

New OnePlus 10 leak suggest a global launch in April

A new leak has surfaced courtesy of Steve Hemmerstoffer that details the launch windows and other specs related to OnePlus’ upcoming OnePlus 10 Pro smartphone.

Like the OnePlus 9 Pro, the device will feature a 120Hz 6.7-inch display. However, the rumoured smartphone is also tipped to feature a 5,000 mAh battery and a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-series chipset.

Depending on the model, users can expect 8-12GB of RAM and 128-256GB of storage. The phone, like most modern flagships, will also sport an IP68 water/dust-proof rating, according to the leak.

The leak also suggests that the OnePlus 10 will feature a 32-megapixel selfie camera on the front tucked into the top right corner of the device. This should help the device snap crisp images, but it’s nothing compared to the 48-megapixel primary camera or the 50-megapixel ultrawide on the rear. There’s also a smaller 8-megapixel zoom camera. This new leak also lines up with yesterday’s report regarding the OnePlus 10 offering 3.3x zoom.

The weirdest aspect of this leak is that it indicates OnePlus might start releasing its smartphones in China first, followed by Europe and North America.

Source: @OnLeaks

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Mobile Syrup

Leaks suggest OnePlus 10 Pro will feature 3.3x telephoto zoom

As we approach 2022 and the rumoured launch window for the next OnePlus flagship smartphone, more specs regarding the device are beginning to leak regarding the upcoming smartphone.

The latest leak, courtesy of ‘Digital Chat Station,’ suggests that the camera won’t feature a very far-reaching telephoto and will instead aim for a 3.3x zoom lens. This will result in a 30x digital zoom, but there’s no word on any hybrid zoom capabilities.

Leaked renders also show off two other cameras, which are expected to be ultra-wide and standard focal length lens equivalents. These cameras also use Hasselblad’s colour science, but it’s still unknown if the partnership between the two brands will extend to hardware.

Another leak that was turned into a render shows off the phone in pine green colour that looks similar to the shade Apple used on the iPhone 11 Pro series.

In 2020 OnePlus skipped its usual ‘T’ series phone, so there could be a chance that the OnePlus 10 and OnePlus 10 Pro may launch a little earlier than normal. However, the company traditionally releases its flagships in the spring and the OnePlus 9 series launched near the end of March.

Since then, OnePlus has undertaken a software overhaul, so it will be interesting to see how well Android 12 runs on the new devices.

Source: Digital Chat Station, Android Authority

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Mobile Syrup

Code suggests several Android brands will support Android 12 dynamic colours

One of the highlights of Android 12 is the new Material You dynamic theme engine, which can pull colours from users’ wallpaper and implement them into system and app UI elements.

Dubbed ‘Monet,’ the system currently works on Pixel phones. That could change in the future, however — several Android phone manufacturers now appear in Google’s Material Components library.

Mishaal Rahman, former editor-in-chief at XDA Developers and now the senior technical editor at Esper, spotted the list and posted the information on Twitter. In short, code included in the Material Components library lists manufacturers that support dynamic colour. You can read the full list below:

  • Oppo
  • Realme
  • OnePlus
  • Vivo
  • Xiaomi
  • Motorola
  • Itel
  • Tecno Mobile
  • Infinix
  • HMD Global (Nokia)
  • Sharp
  • Sony
  • TCL
  • Lenovo
  • Google
  • Roboelectric

It’s also worth noting, as Android Police points out, that the core software behind extracting colour from the wallpaper and the appearance model are already part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), while the colour palette generation algorithm is Pixel exclusive. That’s set to change with Android 12L, since Google is expected to push that code to AOSP.

Unfortunately, it’s possible the above manufacturers could implement their own versions of dynamic theming, particularly the palette generation portion, designed specifically for their Android skins. Android Police notes that Samsung likely already went this route. The company supports dynamic colour theming in the One UI 4 beta, but it’s probably a proprietary solution since the company doesn’t appear in the above list. Likewise, Oppo has its own dynamic colour implementation in ColorOS 12.

Hopefully these brand-specific takes on dynamic colour theming properly leverage the Material Components library since third-party apps reply on it for the colour extraction. If not, colour theming could be limited to the system UI of each manufacturer’s skin if app developers don’t manually add support for each one.

Source: Mishaal Rahman (Twitter), Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

The OnePlus 10 might borrow all the wrong design elements from Samsung

The first leak of the OnePlus 10 Pro shows off an absolutely enormous camera module.

The new camera array looks to borrow the wrap-around design Samsung utilized with the Galaxy S21 series but implemented it in a way that stretches horizontally rather than vertically.

The leak comes from the reputable onleaks, but it’s only a render, so the final product might look quite a bit different. The new camera looks to keep the three-sensor design of most flagship smartphones, so I’d expect there to be a zoom lens, a normal lens and an ultrawide included in the array.

Notably, this render is missing Hasselblad branding, but the final version will likely include the logo since OnePlus paid so much to partner with the legacy camera manufacturer.

If you don’t feel like waiting for the new OnePlus phone, you can pick up a new OnePlus 9 Pro/9 Pro on sale this month.

Source: @onleaks