OnePlus OxygenOS Isn't Going Away Despite OPPO Merger

This week might have been one emotional roller coaster ride for OnePlus fans. The company debuted the OnePlus Nord CE 5G as expected but made a blunder in asking OnePlus 7 owners about their experiences with a non-existent feature. It then surprisingly announced the OnePlus Nord N200 5G before it announced a sort of merger with sibling and rival OPPO. The latter event may have generated a lot of concern and questions among OnePlus fans, but the company is putting at least one doubt to rest, reassuring international OnePlus users that it will be sticking to OxygenOS, at least for the foreseeable future.

Portents of OnePlus and OPPO eventually merging were already present when OnePlus CEO Pete Lau, a former OPPO engineer, took on some responsibilities over at OPPO. The links between OPPO, OnePlus, and even Vivo were already well-known in the industry despite the companies' denials. It wasn't exactly surprising, then, that OPPO and OnePlus would strike a closer partnership that could eventually see the two merging in some aspects.

Last March, OnePlus announced that it was retiring its own Hydrogen OS and adopting OPPO's ColorOS for phones sold in China. OPPO was already shipping a version of Android that didn't have Google Play services and apps installed, the same as OPPO's ColorOS version for China. OnePlus justified the switch as something beneficial for its Chinese users since ColorOS has had more time serving that market.

Given the announcement of some OnePlus and OPPO teams merging even further, there were understandably some concerns that OnePlus would do the same with OxygenOS. Responding to MySmartPrice's questions, the company assures that nothing changes about the Android experience it offers to markets outside of China. In other words, nothing will change about the use of OxygenOS on OnePlus phones sold in global markets.

This position pretty much reiterates Lau's assurances that nothing really changes as far as the OnePlus brand is concerned. Whether that remains the same in the long run, only time will tell. Many OnePlus users, however, have been vocally dissatisfied with how the company handled the OxygenOS 11 update, but it isn't clear whether a switch to OPPO's ColorOS would have made things better or worse for them.