Android is slowly, but steadily narrowing the precious gulf between phones and PCs. After all, seamless device pairing across iPhones and Macs has been a strong selling point for Apple. Remember the Phone Link system that lets an Android phone offer the same kind of cross-device benefits for an Android-Windows pair as the Apple ecosystem does? Well, OnePlus (and Oppo) are embracing it.
OnePlus has already started rolling out the Android 14-based OxygenOS 14 update, and among all the new features, it will also offer a native Microsoft Phone Link setup. The setup process will be seamless, as Windows 11 PCs now also come preinstalled with the pairing app. All you need is a one-time scan, and you’re good to go.
In fact, Phone Link pairing for Android-Windows offers a far more rewarding experience than what you would get between an iPhone and a Mac. For example, once pairing is done, you can mirror your phone’s UI on a PC. Media assets stored on an Android phone are also accessible on a Windows PC, complete with drag-and-drop support, without any wired connections at all.
Of course, your app notifications, calls, and messages also appear neatly in a cluster on the paired Windows machine. And yes, you can make and receive calls as well. “You can see and interact with your mobile apps on your PC, and the multiple apps feature allows you to open apps side by side,” says OnePlus.
And just like Apple’s Universal Clipboard system, you can copy and paste content between your OnePlus phone and a Windows PC. Aside from OnePlus, Oppo phones sold in Asia and a select few Western countries will also offer the same set of conveniences.
So far, I’ve loved this convenience on Samsung phones because the Korean smartphone maker was the first to enable this deep integration with Windows machines. It’s great to see Android smartphone makers bridging the gap and not only catching up with Apple but also surpassing it in meaningful ways.
