ColorOS 12 vs ColorOS 11: What’s Different?

The newly announced ColorOS 12 by Oppo takes a refreshed combination of a sleeker design and a more user-friendly interface.

We’ve got the Find X3 Pro here to experience ColorOS 12, and its predecessor, ColorOS 11 on the Reno 6 Pro.

Let’s talk about the notable differences that we discovered in Oppo's new OS.

New UI

Starting with a new UI that takes the word "colour" into literal terms by adding more colours and rounded Icons, there's a much cleaner layout in Quick Settings and a new Media Output tab, to view all of your connected devices.

The personalisations page is more organised with tabs and separation of the User Interface settings, and the battery page now includes a real-time percentage status bar with battery performance information and a phone usage chart to monitor battery usage.

Alongside a more minimal approach with rounded icons and better text fonts, they’ve added new animations to the Camera UI when switching between modes or focal lengths. There's also a dedicated Resolution setting at the top for quick settings when in video mode.

The Volume rocker UI is now more rounded with smoother animations while some stock Android apps updated in ColorOS 12 such as File Manager come with nicer, more intuitive visual information, like how the calculator app feels cleaner without having too much information on one page.

Overall it’s a much more minimal design and refined experience with the new UI in comparison to the previous OS 11.

Android 12 Update

As ColorOS 12 is based on the new Android 12 update, we appreciate how the new stock Android features are translated here.

For example within the personalisations page, you could choose a few preset colours of your liking, or customize your own colour to match the icons of your stock Android apps.

A new Privacy feature has been added here as well, such as quick access to the Camera and Microphone privacy settings or to block or unblock all apps and services from using the camera and mic. It now has indicators when the camera and mics are turned on, and you’ll have eyes on all of them at once in one convenient place.

Flexible Windows

Floating Windows, also known as Flexible Windows, though already available in the previous version, now comes with some new gesture controls which you can access in a few ways: Via the Sidebar if you have it turned on, by a long tap on an app, a hold and swipe up from the bottom of the phone or by resizing the window itself by dragging the lower left or right corner.

You can also quickly hide a floating window by dragging it along the left side or right edge of the screen to hide it.

Photos App

The Photos app now comes with a cleaner and more organised look, allowing you to move the tabs from the top of the screen to the bottom, with some neat icons to go along with it.

They’ve enhanced privacy settings for sharing formats, which hides all of your personal information such as location, timing, phone model camera settings and more. In our connected age where privacy concerns are always a subtle undertone, this is appreciated.

Accessibility

Inclusivity seems to be a focal point for the ColorOS 12. The Accessibility page is now better structured in compartmentalising all of its feature settings and separating its (General, Vision, Hearing and Interaction) pages to give you easier access.

A very welcome feature, Color Vision Enhancement within the Vision page, is new in ColorOS 12. It aims to help users with colour blindness to have a more inclusive experience. You can access this by choosing Personalised, where it will bring you through a Color Vision test. Arrange the colours with the hues provided and will automatically adjust accordingly to your vision. Based on the test results, it applies suitable colours to the UI to fit your needs.

Oppo also believes they’ve made good progress with ColorOS 12 to decrease the expected system ageing rate, memory occupation and battery consumption - so that you’ll be able to use your phone optimally for a long time without slowing down.

ColorOS 12 is now available in the Find X3 Pro and will continue to be rolled out in other Oppo phones in the coming months.

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Content by Fitri Aiyub