After Xiaomi unveiled its much-awaited MIUI 11 custom software experience earlier last month, its Chinese counterpart has announced the debut of its ColorOS 7 software skin. Oppo has already confirmed that it will take the veil off its new ColorOS 7 software skin later this month on November 20, offering users a host of new and additional features.
Though Oppo has kept mum about these features, a new leak (from Weibo) gives us a closer look at what could be the new UI for ColorOS 7. It’s expected to come with new charging/ transition animations, improved gestures to fall in line with latest Android 10 guidelines, and superior notification management.
As you can see in the screenshots below, Oppo seems to have not changed a lot on the homescreen. You still have familiar-looking icons – especially the settings, messages or browser icon in ColorOS 7 but the most important (and welcome) change in the update could be the smaller quick settings toggles in the notification menu. ColorOS 6 includes massive toggles, which a lot of users seem to dislike.
This could mean the company isn’t planning a massive UI overhaul with ColorOS 7. The company could be following a strategy similar to MIUI – don’t fix what ain’t broken, but ColorOS has often been rebuked for being clunky and bloated. In the screenshots below, we can see that the power menu is getting app shortcuts, you are getting more floating apps, and the multi-tasking (recent apps) screen is getting a minor overhaul as well.
Oppo hasn’t revealed anything about what ColorOS 7 entails for the users. The leaks we see above seem to suggest a not-so-different user experience, which is disappointing for someone like me who likes to try out new features and customizations in custom ROMs.
While Oppo phone would get the new ColorOS 7 experience seen above, its sister brand, i.e. Realme is likely to bring a more stripped-down, stock-ish software experience to the table. Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth, in the most recent #AskMadhav interview, has confirmed that an OxygenOS-like close-to-stock Android experience should be expected from the company in the coming update.
