Why it matters: OnePlus phones are among the cream of the crop when it comes to Android. Despite increasing prices each generation, these still deliver a bang for buck experience that's on par or even better than some $1,000 flagships. No wonder that over the years, OnePlus has got itself a passionate community of users who'd be delighted with the ever-increasing pace at which the company pushes out the latest Android updates.
What normally takes Android OEMs a few months took OnePlus just 18 days. The company recently pushed out its Android 10 update for the latest OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro flagships just over two weeks after Google officially released the OS.
Breathing new life into its phones, OxygenOS 10.0 brings plenty of goodies on-board including a new UI design, privacy and connectivity improvements, gaming features, added customization and gesture controls, intelligent ambient display and better spam blocking.
Notable for its snappy performance, OnePlus keeps its Android mostly stock and makes useful additions and tweaks based on community feedback rather than bloating its features. To that end, the company released six Android 10 developer previews and two open betas for its OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro this year, hinting at its increased focus on providing better software at a quick pace.
The effort has paid off as the latest flagship received the OS update 27 days quicker than last year's Android 9.0 Pie update, which in itself was a huge improvement over the five months it took for the Android 8.0 Oreo update to reach OnePlus customers.
If OnePlus can manage to further improve and push updates this quickly for all of its current phones, it'll be among the very few capable of doing so. Apart from Google Pixel phones, only the Essential Phone and the Xiaomi Redmi K20 were third-party options to get a day-one Android 10 update, whereas other OEMs including Samsung, LG, Asus, Motorola, Sony and Huawei take their sweet time of a few months (or more), which is usually when the next iteration of Android is in the news or in beta.
Previous OnePlus phones, including a few 7 Pro variants, have yet to receive the Android 10 update. The company has requested users of the OnePlus 5/5T, 6/6T and carrier-locked 7 Pro variants (T-Mobile, 5G EE and 5G Sprint) stay tuned for OS update news that it plans to reveal at its OnePlus 7T launch event in London on October 10.