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OPPO has added everything they’ve been waiting for. ColorOS 12 firmware review based on Android 12

The beauty of Android lies in its customization capabilities and open source code. As a result, over the years, we’ve seen many of our own casings from brands. There’s MIUI from Xiaomi, OneUI from Samsung, OxygenOS from OnePlus, ColorOS from OPPO, and so on. With each new version of Android, OEMs also update their skin, filling it with changes made by Google, as well as some additional features.

Since Android 12 officially came out recently, brands are working on updating their skins using the latest Android as a base. Earlier this week, we saw OnePlus launch the OxygenOS 12 beta for OnePlus 9, Samsung rolled out OneUI 4 for the Galaxy S21 series smartphones, and now the first build of OPPO ColorOS 12 for the Find X3 Pro has arrived.

ColorOS is one of the most updated skins in recent memory. OPPO takes user feedback seriously over the years and fixes every shortcoming that has ever existed. Now that the OxygenOS codebase is merged with ColorOS for ColorOS 12, it is more important than ever to show yourself well from every angle, given how loved OxygenOS has been.

We spent some time pre-assembling the ColorOS 12 on the OPPO Find X3 Pro. After using it for the past week or so, we have some thoughts on this, including what has changed and what has not.

UI design and widgets

Android 12 radically refreshes the design with Material You and Dynamic Colors, but it looks like, unfortunately, this innovation is limited to the Pixel series only. ColorOS 12 contains minor design and user interface changes that aren’t very obvious. Text in some applications, such as Contacts, is now bold with improved structure, resulting in sharper readability.

The interface remains more or less similar to that of ColorOS 11. The settings menu has changed slightly and looks more modern. It is now easier to find and navigate the various options in the settings.

One of the significant changes in the interface is the ability to choose from three types of dark mode parameters – Enhanced, Medium and Gentle. Enhanced gives you a completely dark background perfect for OLED displays, while the Medium and Gentle modes have a slightly gray background.

The system theme adjusts colors to match the wallpaper

As mentioned earlier, one of the key features of Android 12 is the Material You theme, which changes system colors based on your wallpaper. OPPO introduced a similar feature in ColorOS 12, where you can choose a theme based on the dominant colors in the wallpaper. While it doesn’t work as smoothly as the default implementation in Android 12, it’s certainly nice to have a feature like this. However, it doesn’t work with Google apps.

Wallpaper outline for Always On Display

We first saw this feature in OxygenOS for OnePlus devices, and now it has appeared in ColorOS 12 on OPPO smartphones. The so called Canvas AOD, the portrait silhouette feature basically outlines the main subject in the portrait image and creates a sketch effect that can then be used as an image for the Always-on Display. This is a pretty cool way to customize the look of your device when the display is off.

Easter egg Android 12

Going to Settings> About Phone> Android Version and tapping on it a few times, you will see the Android 12 Easter egg with a new clock widget. When you set the hands of the clock to 12 o’clock, it brings up the Android 12 logo.

Screen translator

ColorOS has had a sidebar extending from the edge of the display for quite some time now. It is used to display frequently used applications and shortcuts. Now in ColorOS 12, this panel has a new feature – “Screen Translator” or “Screen Translate”.

As the name suggests, Screen Translate is a one-click solution to translate the entire content of the page you are on. Open any page you want to translate into another language, and then click this button to translate the entire page. This feature works with Google Lens and is a convenient way to translate text.

Background audio stream

Here’s another new feature added to the sidebar. “Background Audio Stream” or “Background Stream” includes a feature on your smartphone that allows you to keep playing something in the background even when you’re not in the app itself. Let’s say you want to listen to a song on YouTube but don’t want the track to pause when you exit the app or turn off the screen? Ideally, you’ll need a YouTube Premium subscription to do this, but Background Stream can do that for you with a click of a button on ColorOS 12.

Updated security manager

The Phone Manager app in ColorOS 12 is used to clean up your phone’s memory, remove unwanted apps and files, manage app permissions, and so on.

Privacy panel

This is one of the main features of Android 12, and thankfully OPPO decided to include it in ColorOS 12. The privacy panel displays all the permissions the apps use on your smartphone, as well as when they were last used. If you don’t want certain apps to access your location, camera, microphone, or any other resolution, you can manage them from here.

  • To this topic: It will be more difficult to spy on Android 12 users. How the “Privacy Panel” works

Inaccurate location

Another important privacy-related feature in Android 12, and now in ColorOS 12, is the substitution of the actual location for the approximate one. Every time an app asks you to share your location, you can either share the exact data or approximate if you think the app isn’t trustworthy, or you just don’t want to share your exact location with an app that doesn’t seem to need it. know.

Microphone and camera switches and indicators

You can now add a switch to quick settings to enable or disable camera and microphone access in ColorOS 12. Disabling the spot will prevent apps on your smartphone from accessing the camera or microphone, which can be important for many people.

Apart from toggles, users can now also notice a small indicator in the upper right corner of the screen every time the app requests access to a camera or microphone. Camera access will be indicated by a green dot and microphone access by an orange one.

Recent chats widget

Android 12 introduces a new widget that allows you to post your most recent chats directly to your desktop for easy and quick access to them. This widget is also available in ColorOS 12. When you have this widget, you can click on it and you will be redirected directly to the chat.

Omoji: Memoji version from OPPO

Omoji is the OPPO adaptation of the Memoji feature introduced by Apple. You can create your own Omoji to suit your style, and these Omoji react in real time to changes in your facial expression. The implementation is not as perfect as Apple’s as it only uses the front-facing camera and not the IR emitters like on the iPhone. But it’s still a fun feature coming to OPPO smartphones with ColorOS 12.1.

General changes and improvements

ColorOS 12 introduces several under-the-hood changes that improve the overall skin experience. Animations are smoother when launching, exiting and scrolling applications thanks to the new Quantum Animation Engine 3.0.

A certain AI-based algorithm has appeared that optimizes device performance depending on your use cases. OPPO claims this feature reduces memory usage by up to 30% and background battery consumption by up to 20%, resulting in a 12% increase in battery life.

OPPO also claims that some language translations for the shell have been improved. Icons in ColorOS 12 also look slightly better thanks to tweaked shadows. Other Android 12 features such as chat bubbles and notification response options are also present in ColorOS 12.

This is almost all that has changed in ColorOS 12. If you look at the shell in a complex way, it turns out that there are not many significant changes. Apart from bumping the Android version to 12, most of the shell is similar to the previous ColorOS 11.

Attention! This is a translation of an article from xda-developers.

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