Google Pixel phones have been running early versions of the latest Android 14 software since February. But only in the past couple of months have other phone makers started publicly testing their versions of Android 14. Now OnePlus has shared what they’ve been working on, called Oxygen OS 14.
OnePlus says Oxygen OS 14 will make your phone even faster and smoother. They added something called the Trinity Engine, which includes six new tools. But it’s hard to know for sure how much these tools really help or if it’s just marketing talk.
The tools have names like CPU Vitalization and RAM Vitalization, but we can’t see or control them. OnePlus claims they can extend your battery by 20 minutes or save 20GB of space. But since we can’t measure these tools, we must trust OnePlus that they work.
In any case, Oxygen OS 14 feels super smooth and fast, even though it’s still in beta testing. So whatever OnePlus is doing seems to be working!
OnePlus also adopted an anamorphic design that was introduced on OPPO’s Color OS last year. This is supposed to make your phone’s colors and animations look more natural. But most of these effects were missing from my test phone.
I did get to try out the new fluid ringtones and lock screen sounds, which were quite pleasant. There’s also a new “Go Green” screen that tracks your steps and carbon footprint.
Oxygen OS 14 adds some promising security features too. But I wasn’t able to properly test them since they require special chips not in my OnePlus 11 test phone.
A few pre-installed apps got updates, including Notes and Photos. My favorite is a new File Dock tool to easily move files between apps.
Unfortunately, about half of what OnePlus outlined was either missing or broken during my test. Hopefully, future updates will deliver on what was promised. Overall, Oxygen OS 14 looks to further optimize performance if OnePlus can smooth over the bugs.
