How do you feel if you can run OnePlus’ OxygenOS on your Samsung phone? Or replace the EMUI on Huawei devices with stock Android? While the latter is possible in some cases, porting manufacturer specific skins to other phones is a quite a hectic job.

galaxy_s3_lineageos_16_about_device
LineageOS 16.0 (based on Android Pie) running on 2012’s Samsung Galaxy S3

That does not mean that you can’t find them on non first party phones. For example, Honor phones are powered by Magic UI, which is a direct fork of EMUI designed by Huawei, i.e. Honor’s parent company. Poco F1, marketed by Pocophone, also runs a slightly tweaked version of MIUI from Xiaomi.

ColorOS from OPPO, on the other hand, can be found on Realme phones and all the way to the initial Chinese edition of OnePlus One! Realme did start working on their own skin for quite a long time, but they are taking all the bits and pieces from none but ColorOS in this regard.

oppo_color_os_homescreen
ColorOS homescreen

Giving timely updates – both monthly security patches and major version upgrades – is not the forte of OPPO. The Chinese OEM is trying hard to publish Android Pie based ColorOS 6 OTA for the eligible devices since March, and the first baby step towards that is a bunch of soak testing.

Early adoption, controlled beta testing or ‘trial version’ is OPPO’s terminology – the OEM in fact kickstarted the initiative in multiple regions. While Chinese users usually get the first chance to taste the sweet taste of Pie, Indian OPPO owners are not exactly left behind.

coloros_6_game_space
Game Space: A unique feature in ColorOS 6

Starting with OPPO F9/F9 Pro, a number of phones from the Chinese OEM recently got the Android Pie update in the form of trial version. The list includes OPPO F7, OPPO R17 Pro, OPPO R15 Pro as well as the mighty flagship, i.e. OPPO Find X.

Young padawans, more to come! OPPO India published a complete roadmap of ColorOS 6 distribution in their forum, which includes a precise timeline till October.

  • July: F9, F9 Pro
  • August: Find X, F7
  • September: R17 Pro, F7 Youth, K1, R15, R15 Pro
  • October: RX17 Pro, RX17 Neo, R17

coloros_6_trial_version_plan_august_2019

However, there are some discrepancies in the projected timeline. Both R15 Pro and R17 Pro already got the introductory trial build in India, which were available for a limited number of volunteers. Probably they are going to expand the target user base by next month.

oppo_r17_pro_front_back
OPPO R17 Pro

The aforementioned phones are currently running ColorOS 5.2, with the underlying layer of Android Oreo. As a thumb rule, you need to have latest build running to apply for the soak test, so don’t forget to install all those little OTAs beforehand. For more details, see here.

PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.

Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

Next article View Article

[Updated] Instagram crashing on all Android phones, but there are workarounds

Here's the crux of the article in video form: New updates are being added at the bottom of this story……. Original story from (June 5, 2018) follows: We're...
Jul 10, 2023 6 Min Read