‘OxygenOS name persists, separate from ColorOS’

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau spoke about his company in a roundtable discussion with international press. The future of OxygenOS, the launch of the OnePlus 10 Pro and the painful bend test video where the OnePlus 10 Pro broke in two: everything was covered.

OnePlus 10 Pro Launch

On January 11, the OnePlus 10 Pro, the last flagship of the brand, appeared in China. Two things are special about this: firstly, that the phone appeared so early in January and secondly, that it is available exclusively in China for the time being.

Pete Lau makes it clear that OnePlus invested little in the Chinese market in the past, but that that is now changing somewhat. Competitor Xiaomi presented the Xiaomi 12 in its home country in December 2021, which is why OnePlus followed shortly afterwards with the OnePlus 10 Pro launch. The OnePlus 10 Pro will appear in the Netherlands at the end of March.

In times of Zoom meetings and online launch events, Pete Lau also takes to addressing international press in a video meeting. Androidworld was able to follow a round table discussion with the CEO of OnePlus last Friday and after a presentation there was a short time for questions.

Relationship with OPPO

The statement from the OnePlus CEO makes a number of things clear. Although we do not know whether the deeper integration with OPPO played a role in that decision, OPPO has always focused on its home market and only later started to focus on the international markets.

Pete Lau also answered questions from the press regarding that close collaboration with OPPO. He denies that OnePlus phones lose their individuality in design and features. He does think that the two companies complement each other well. OnePlus says it has a lot of insights into the international markets and user preferences, while OPPO is strong in technological innovations, he says.

OxygenOS will survive

The CEO of OnePlus assured the press that the name OxygenOS will continue to exist and that the software will still have its own design compared to OxygenOS. Pete Lau previously announced that OnePlus and OPPO are working together on a new software shell and that is still the case, but based on user feedback, it has emerged that fans of the smartphone brands would not want the software to be one-on-one.

It has also recently been leaked that the roll-out of the new software shells from OnePlus and OPPO has been postponed and the OnePlus 10 Pro therefore still works on OxygenOS 12.1, the version that was previously made available via an update on the OnePlus 9 series.

Focus on four aspects

According to the CEO of OnePlus, OxygenOS will remain an important focus in 2022. OnePlus also wants to focus its phones on strong performance, an improved camera experience and fast charging. About the latter, the company announces that it is currently working on a 150W fast charging technology. It is a SuperVOOC charger developed by OPPO.

On Monday, specifications were also announced from Chinese rumors about an upcoming OnePlus phone with a 150W fast charger. It may be the regular OnePlus 10, but Pete Lau was unable to reveal anything about that last Friday.

Collaboration with Google

Another striking point that the CEO of OnePlus discussed was the collaboration with Google. OnePlus is collaborating with Google on software and several projects are underway. Work is being done on, among other things: Android, software optimizations for foldable phones and wearables. Still, OnePlus doesn’t have a foldable phone on the market right now, and the OnePlus Watch doesn’t work on WearOS either.

A week ago at the launch of the OPPO Find X5 series, it was also noticed that a representative of Google’s Android team came to speak and that is certainly not OPPO’s habit. Presumably it is also a result of the close collaboration with OnePlus.

OnePlus 10 Pro broke in two

During the Q&A session, the Androidworld editors also couldn’t contain themselves and we asked Pete Lau for a response to an apparent problem with the build quality of the OnePlus 10 Pro. The phone recently broke in two during a bend test in a video by well-known Youtuber JerryRigEverything.

Pete Lau told us that he had also seen the video in question and that he has passed the information on to his teams. He confirms that OnePlus phones are subjected to a series of tests with regard to durability and the OnePlus CEO says that we don’t have to worry about the sturdiness of the upcoming top device. Pete Lau says that OnePlus has also proven in the past that it releases quality devices. The CEO did not comment on whether OnePlus makes changes to the design of the phone before it appears on the market with us.

Red Cable Club

Finally, Pete Lau underlined that OnePlus aims to gain more members in its Red Cable Club. The OnePlus loyalty program was rolled out in the Netherlands, among other places, last year and members can receive a discount on the purchase of OnePlus products. Currently, the Red Cable Club has 20 million members worldwide, but the CEO hopes to reach 30 million by the end of the year. There will also be new actions and ways to collect points.

What do you think of Pete Lau’s statements? Do you agree with OnePlus’ vision for 2022 and are you looking forward to the launch of the OnePlus 10 Pro in March? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this article.

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Image: “Pete Lau” by keso, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0