The new OxygenOS 12 update for the OnePlus 9 series is just awful

The "stable" release that's anything but

OnePlus’s Android 12-based OxygenOS 12 update has finally reached "stable" status. That’s a label that means it shouldn’t be particularly buggy and that it’s rolling out — in this case, to the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro. But if you’ve been following customer impressions, the new release seems to be anything but stable, and the new software takes some noteworthy (and negative) departures from prior OxygenOS releases. More plainly: OxygenOS 12 is awful and feels like budget phone software on the thousand-dollar OnePlus 9 Pro.

I tried as long as I could to refrain from coming to such a harsh judgment. When the first OxygenOS 12 betas landed, and Karandeep Singh warned us that it was “ColorOS in all but name,” I had hoped (without any real evidence) that this was just a transitory step in the software merger. We all knew OPPO's divisive ColorOS was the base that both companies would be working from; they explicitly said as much. But I thought we might see OnePlus make its own changes on top to bring things back a little. After all, in the Android enthusiast community, the company was known and praised for its software for years. It’s not like OnePlus would just throw away years of branding, features, design, and recognition to entirely adopt someone else’s software at the drop of a hat, right? Guess again.

I should point out that the first time I tried the ColorOS 12 beta, I didn’t hate it. In fact, I actually liked a couple of specific software details for what they seemed to say about the company’s development strategy. Still, at the time I noted that ColorOS still felt “wrong” to me in a way many Chinese-market-first software skins do, with OnePlus’s OxygenOS standing out as an exception. With the software merger happening, I wanted to be optimistic, so I waited, hoping that the early beta impressions for OxygenOS 12 were based on incomplete data, that a stable release would land, and I’d see it all come together.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Welcome to ColorOS: OnePlus edition

Short of a detailed code-level software teardown, we can’t really be sure precisely how much of OxygenOS is actually just ColorOS, but even a cursory comparison shows that most of the individual bits and pieces are the same.

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Left: OxygenOS 12, Right: ColorOS 12

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To start, both OxygenOS and ColorOS now use nearly the same launcher, with almost identical feature sets and system-integrated launcher settings. The Shelf is still there on OxygenOS 12, but if you don’t know how to trigger it, you wouldn’t know. Its settings are no longer in the same place, making it feel bolted-on — which it probably is. OnePlus did change how the fonts show up in the app drawer (frankly, not a good effect with that weird blurry black shadow), but OxygenOS and ColorOS are clearly using identical launchers, and the similarities don’t end there.

Of course, many of the other default apps OxygenOS and ColorOS ship with are the same Google apps, which means nothing (if anything, that's a thing to like), but most of the other user-facing bits in places like Settings, for example, are essentially identical as well.

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OnePlus and Oppo have a few different graphical assets and some color tweaks, but these are just different shades of lipstick on the same pig — this is ColorOS. OnePlus has kept features like the Canvas AOD and Shelf, applied its branding for features like Edge Lighting, thrown in a few custom bitmaps and colors, and applied a skin to the notification shade (one of the few major differences, pictured below). But any customer switching from an Oppo phone to a OnePlus phone probably won't be able to tell the difference, while someone coming from an older OnePlus software build will be pretty damn confused.

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OxygenOS was also known for its customization options, and those are dwindling now: You can't change the battery icon style in the status bar, you can't set the time in the status bar to show seconds, you can't individually customize icons. OnePlus has even straight-up abandoned features it differentiated with, like quick reply in landscape, among others more niche features — likely including some we haven't spotted. However, we should point out, App Locker (which hides apps and their notifications behind a PIN-entry screen), and Parallel Apps (which installed multiple versions of the same app) are still both present, just under new names: App Locker's functionality has been merged with Hidden Space and Private Safe, Parallel Apps is called "App cloner" now. We had that wrong at first, but OnePlus pointed out to us that the two features are still there.

It just feels cheap

Sure, things like icons aren’t the same between ColorOS and OxygenOS (I can’t actually tell what OnePlus is using, the icon menu crashes every time I open it), but the Oppofication of OnePlus's once-good Android software is basically complete, and I am not a fan.

Most of our readers are in the US and haven't had a chance to play with too many Chinese phones, but there's a sort of "flavor" that most Asian-focused brands apply to their software which is quite different from what we're used to here in the States. It's tough to encapsulate as anything but an outright list of individual things I don't like, but there's a general feeling of busyness, dated aesthetics like gradients or bad transparencies, a lack of flow or uniformity across fonts and layouts, superfluously flashy animations, and 2010-era sound effects — just bad design, really. It's an imprecise metaphor, but the cumulative effect is like those old Web-1 Flash-based websites we all hated/loved: impressive at a casual glance, but shallow, lacking in taste, janky on the inside, and ignoring workflow or ease of use. In recent years, companies like Oppo have toned that effect down, but the legacy lingers there in bits and pieces, probably because their markets actually like it. But I do not.

OxygenOS used to be a notable exception: A Chinese-based company with a Chinese-made ROM that didn't feel like the others. For a long time, it looked pretty close to stock, and when OnePlus did start making changes to things, It was a step back in consistency and design (if not a partial rip of OneUI). Some of those changes grew on me, others didn't, but it still felt premium and held its own alongside Google's software on the Pixels and Samsung's One UI — even if I'd have put it at the very end of that list. But this new OxygenOS 12 is every bit as cheap and buggy as it looks, with an airdropped-from-AliExpress vibe that feels like no one at OnePlus even cares anymore.

The “stable” OxygenOS 12 update

This latest update is loaded with bugs. Even in just the last couple of days on my phone, I’ve had to toggle settings back and forth to get my 120Hz display functioning at its full refresh rate again, fix my display density and font size from being way too small, and certain menus straight-up crash. Others have reported that the Phone or Camera apps are disappearing; Wi-Fi MIMO is not working; mobile connectivity is broken, partly broken, or simply reports no signal when you actually have one; and apps in the recents menu can’t be bulk closed, among other issues.

Social media venues like Twitter and Reddit are universally abuzz with bug reports for the new software. Admittedly, Reddit is filled with antagonism, narcissistic rage, and vitriol on the very best days, but the residents of r/OnePlus are even asking themselves if there are any "good" things in OxygenOS 12 at all in the face of both lost features and jank.

Admittedly, everyone’s experience with OxygenOS 12 seems a little different, but the bugginess itself seems incontrovertible.

Importantly, OnePlus already has a reputation for buggy updates, but usually it's an issue that plagues older devices. Its most recent flagships typically get more attention and a bit more polish compared to older ones, and it's something we had hoped this merger with ColorOS would help fix. The beta testing period was also months long, and OnePlus had time to address issues or delay a release, if need be. A factory reset might also fix some of these problems, but customers shouldn't have to jump through those kinds of hoops. Software and settings are expected to carry over reliably and with a minimum of issues between release versions on Android, especially on thousand-dollar flagships like the OnePlus 9 Pro.

We've reached out to OnePlus asking about these missing features and if the company plans on pulling the update given the volume of bug reports and the significance of some of the issues, but the company had no information to share with us right now. In the meantime, there's still one good thing about OnePlus phones: They're easy to install third-party ROMs on. Willing customers can even install the latest Android 12 Paranoid Android alpha if they want to live dangerously. That would actually bring you full-circle, too: The Paranoid Android team was partly behind the original OxygenOS — you know, back when it was good.

About The Author

Ryne Hager (2860 Articles Published)

Ostensibly a senior editor, in reality just some verbose dude who digs on tech, loves Android, and hates anticompetitive practices. His only regret is that he didn't buy a Nokia N9 in 2012. Email tips or corrections to ryne at androidpolice dot com.

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