Android 11 was launched in early September last year. This was Google’s latest mobile operating system. Smartphone manufacturers soon began announcing their Android 11-powered user interfaces.
OPPO launched ColorOS 11 a few days later.
OPPO ColorOS 11 succeeds OPPO ColorOS 7.2 which was based off of Android 10. OPPO skipped other ColorOS versions and went straight to ColorOS 11 to be inline with Android 11 and ease off the confusion.
I’ve been using OPPO’s new UI for a while now since the update started tolling out in Kenya early this year – from the OPPO A93, OPPO Reno3 and OPPO Reno4.
OPPO Reno5 F and OPPO Reno5, OPPO’s new midrange smartphones launched with Android 11 and ColorOS 11 straight out of the box.
We’ve already reviewed the devices above and the focus of this article is on what you are getting with OPPO ColorOS 11.
With ColorOS 11, OPPO went as stock Android as it can be but still included a ton of customization features to cater for those of us who are crazy obsessed with personalizing their Android smartphones.
These two options are the most requested features of any UI and OPPO’s ColorOS 11 delivers on that.
Theming
OPPO ColorOS 11 offers a ton of theming options.
ColorOS 11 comes with a new personalization tab under settings with a lot of features to play around with including customizing the Always on Display, Home screen icon style, Fingerprint icon animation, Accent color, Font & display size, Notification drawer icon shape, Edge lighting, Dark mode, Wallpaper and ringtone creation.
for the first time in years, I didn’t need to download a third-party launcher and icon pack
Customizable Dark Mode
Dark Mode was first introduced with Android 10 and now it’s available on Android 11 too.
With ColorOS 11, you get the option to adjust the contrast levels in the dark mode settings. You have three new choices including Enhanced, Medium and Gentle and to ensure a consistent comfortable experience, you can also adjust wallpapers and icons to dark mode.
You can also schedule when your Android smartphone automatically switches between dark and light mode.
Flexdrop
ColorOS 11 brings with it new productivity features including FlexDrop.
FlexDrop is one of the most exciting features and I have been using it a lot of time.
With a simple swipe up, you can choose to resize any app into a small floating window or even a smaller mini-window.
Now you can be on your phone for longer. I’ve been blowing off my screen time balancing binge-watching TikTok videos, and either scrolling Twitter or browsing the web – all without switching between apps.
Battery Guard and Super Power Saving Mode
ColorOS 11 introduces new features to ensure your phone stays on for longer and when you need to juice it up.
Battery Guard
Overcharging your phone can harm your battery especially its ability to hold a charge.
Battery Guard is a feature that prolongs the battery life of your phone. When you plug in your phone at night, the battery is charged to 80% and then the rest of the 20% is charged slowly just before you wake up.
ColorOS 11 does this by learning your daily routine which helps to maintain your battery’s health.
We also have sleep standby optimization where ColorOS creates a sleeping profile that optimizes the phone’s battery consumption while you’re asleep. With this mode, OPPO Reno5 F’s battery life only decreases as little as 2% so you can rest easy and wake up without the anxiety of a dead battery the next morning.
This feature can be enabled by toggling on the optimized night charging option and the sleep standby optimization in the battery settings.
Super Power Saving Mode
Another handy feature especially if running low on battery and you’re unable to juice up, then turn on Super Power Saving mode.
With this mode, your battery drains slowly without affecting performance as you are given the option to pick six apps you can use.
casual phone use isn’t affected in this mode as only unused features are shut down to prolong your phone’s battery.
The phone can be on standby for 12 hours with Super power saving mode and 5% of battery charge is enough to support WhatsApp video chat for 90 minutes or a phone call for more than 1 hour.
Game Space
Mobile gamers will love ColorOS 11 gaming features including Game Focus mode modeand gaming shortcut mode that let users enjoy full immersive gaming experience. Gaming Assistant blocks and disables all distractions including notification bars, incoming calls, navigation gestures, alarms and even on-screen volume prompts.
Gaming shortcut mode drastically reduces the load time by reserving virtual memory for frequently played games. This keeps the game running in the background even after exiting, but also automatically skips splash-screen logos and game intros and tips.
Other gaming features include game floating window and bullet screen messages.
Game Space also lets you monitor your CPU, GPU usage and FPS rate while playing games like PUBG which is quite handy in helping you adjust the graphic settings for best performance during gameplay.
There are three options to choose from including Competition mode which maxes out the phone’s hardware, Balanced mode which is the standard mode and Low power mode that restricts performance over battery life.
There’s also a Quick Return Bubble that PUBG Mobile gamers will appreciate. This is a small bubble that hovers around overlaying other apps when you’re not gaming.
The bubble displays key gaming information especially for PUBG Mobile such as in-cabin time or respawn count down and you can quickly go back to your session by tapping the bubble once.
ColorOS 11 also features Hyper Boost technology. This technology pre-allocates more resources to the game when necessary. This means that games are less sluggish and you get a more stable and increased frame rate during gameplay.
Hyper Boost also comes in handy during gaming as it monitors heat from gameplay and will balance your gaming performance to make your phone cooler.
OPPO Relax 2.0
ColorOS 11 brings with it an improved OPPO Relax 2.0. This feature lets create your own white noise mix by customizing you own relaxing journey especially during this anxiety and stress inducing pandemic by letting you mix ambient music such as rain sounds.
There are three options include listen, unwind or explore.
You can pick to listen to ambient sounds(immersive nature sounds), music(melodies that touch the soul), coloured noise(digital world of sounds) and a tale of two oranges.
My favorite is summer seashore sound which I listen to for half an hour before I sleep.
You can choose to unwind with fun little stress-relief games. My favoirite is the busting bubbles while quite music plays in the background.
You can explore the Sound of the Cities collections which brings ambient sounds from Beijing, Shenzen, Bangkok, Tokyo and Reykjavik(my favourite at the moment).
Three-Finger Translate
This new feature OPPO and Google worked on to bring with ColorOS 11. This feature is powered by Google Lens and lets users capture and translate text by simply taking a screenshot with a three-finger gesture.
Other nice to have features ColorOS 11 offers include smart-always on display, smart spying prevention, smart rotation, smart air control that lets you control the phone using gesture such as scrolling up and down on Instagram, Facebook or answering a phone call with a swiping motion with your hand.
Private System
ColorOS 11 also comes with privacy features embedded such as App lock, ability to hide apps, private safe and kids space.
App lock now has a new shortcut that lets users lock apps with a fingerprint, face unlock and a password. It comes in handy when you hand over your phone to someone and you don’t want them snooping around where they shouldn’t be.
Verdict
Navigating ColorOS 11 has been delightful thanks to the new and rich visual tweaks, customization, greater efficiency, unparalleled smoothness, and strengthened privacy sought by OPPO users.
You cam watch all the ColorOS 11 features in action in our reviews below:
We’ll be seeing new OPPO smartphones launching with ColorOS 11 in the coming months while the company is already rolling updates to OPPO’s current lineup.
All these features make navigating ColorOS 11 a pleasant experience.
As stated above you can experience ColorOS 11 on the OPPO Reno5 F, OPPO Reno5, OPPO Reno4, OPPO Reno3 and OPPO A93. These smartphones are already available in the country.
