Skip to main content

Oppo recognizes the value of stock Android, offers a special version for the Find 7

Many Android smartphone manufacturers love adding their own UI over Google’s OS, but it’s not always welcomed by those who actually use the device. Oppo has realised this, and in a bid to win more fans in places where hardware like Google’s own Nexus range are freely available, it has announced Project Spectrum. It’s a fancy name for a close-to-stock Android ROM, and the new software is available for download right now, provided you own the company’s high-end Find 7 smartphone.

Oppo’s own Android UI, called ColorOS, does have a few additional features which augment what’s offered by Android, and the company has taken the sensible decision to leave those in, while removing all the garnish. What we’re left with is Android Lollipop, with the following features. The most obvious, and welcome, addition is Oppo’s own ColorOS camera app. It replaces the standard Google app, and has a manual Expert mode, HDR, various filters, and a GIF creator, plus a beautify and double exposure tool.

Recommended Videos

The MaxxAudio feature for tweaking the sound produced by the phone is activated as standard, and there are a few handy gesture controls added to the OS, including a double-tap to wake mode. Just because the OS is slightly different, Oppo has still included support for fast charging — a common feature on its phones. Rather than go crazy with customising Android, Oppo’s scaled back and included features we can actually expect to use.

Oppo has produced a short demo video showing how Project Spectrum looks, and there’s little to distinguish it from basic Android. It’s reminiscent of how OnePlus has approached its lightly tweaked OxygenOS platform.

Android has evolved to the point where it’s attractive and pleasurable to use, and many people don’t want a drastic custom user interfaces over the top. Project Spectrum is proof more manufacturers are accepting this, and it certainly has the potential to attract more people to try out Oppo’s phones. Now we must wait to see if it comes to more Oppo devices.

Andy Boxall
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
Oppo’s Find N is great, but I still like the Galaxy Z Fold 3
Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Oppo Find N open from the back.

Samsung largely pioneered the foldable smartphone segment with the launch of the first Galaxy Fold device in 2019. While it wasn't the best in terms of usability, it was certainly one of a kind, and with the latest Galaxy Z Fold 3, subsequent refinements have almost perfected the device. Fast-forward to 2022, and we have clamshell foldables and smartphone-tablet hybrids, as well as up to 17-inch laptops displays that can bend in half and were showcased during CES 2022.

However, that concept of having a tablet in your pocket folded into a smartphone size has much or less remained the same. That is, until the Oppo Find N debuted earlier this year, and we got our hands on it. I have used the Oppo foldable for about a week alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 3, mostly for web and media consumption.

Read more
Oppo’s Android 12-based ColorOS 12 is coming to the Find X3 Pro in December
oppo find x3 pro review back hand

ColorOS 12, Oppo’s smartphone operating system based on Google’s Android 12, will be coming to the Oppo Find X3 Pro in December, with other models in the company’s range to follow over the coming year. Oppo says the new version is cleaner, smoother, and more inclusive than before, but if you’re waiting to hear a mass of new features, you may be disappointed.

Inclusivity is one of the key aspects of ColorOS 12, and is important to the continued growth of ColorOS around the world. New Omoji animated emoji characters have a wide range of customizations to ensure they appeal to everyone, for example, but it’s in the software itself that a lot of work has taken place to make it more inclusive. This includes formatting and appearance changes for text in languages other than Chinese and English, new translations for specific languages including Danish, where Oppo understood it was lacking, and even alterations to the camera app algorithm in the beautification feature to make it more suitable for more people.

Read more
Oppo brings Android 11 goodness to its latest version of ColorOS

Oppo has announced ColorOS 11, the newest version of its own user interface installed in its smartphones, and one of the first to be built over Google’s Android 11. Anyone familiar with ColorOS may be wondering what happened to ColorOS 8, 9, and 10, as the last version to be released was ColorOS 7. The reason, according to Oppo, for skipping these is to make it less confusing to people about which version of Android the UI is built around, and clarifies the stock Android features that can be found inside.

ColorOS 11's new Always-on screen, and other customizations Image used with permission by copyright holder

Read more