OPPO starts Color OS 12 global launch, reveals ho-hum update policy

Oppo’s Color OS has made steady improvements in recent times, bringing plenty of features and a ton of customizations compared to other Android skins. The company has been testing the Android 12-based Color OS 12 for a while now, but it’s finally ready to push out a stable update.

The company announced the first Color OS 12 launch today, but this isn’t exactly a widespread rollout. The so-called “pilot” update will be released for the OPPO Find X3 Pro in Indonesia and Malaysia from 6 PM GMT today (2 PM ET).

OPPO says it’ll show off the global version of Color OS 12 in full at an online launch event on October 11 at 9 AM GMT (5 AM ET). So you’ll be able to find out more about the new Android 12-based software then. We’re guessing the update will come to more countries thereafter.

Aside from Android 12-related features, the new Android skin offers new animations, a take on Apple’s animoji, a tweaked always-on display, and improved connectivity with Windows PCs. OPPO also says the skin can now run for up to 36 months without a noticeable performance drop.

The firm says it’s aiming to eventually bring the update to over 110 devices and 150 million global users. And to this end, it’s announced a tweaked update policy for its devices released from 2019 onwards.

Oppo’s new update policy

More specifically, it’s offering three “major” OS updates for Find X series flagships (excluding the Lite and Neo models). That means last year’s Find X2 series and the recent Find X3 series, as the company didn’t release Find X flagships in 2019.

It’s also announcing two Android updates for the Reno, F, K, and Find Lite/Neo series of phones, presumably dating back to 2019 as well. Going a step down, OPPO is only promising a single OS update for “some” of its A-series phones. The latter in particular sounds like some budget phones won’t get a single OS update at all. It definitely sounds like the likes of Samsung offer better OS update pledges for their budget phones.

OPPO told Android Authority that it was a challenge to bring Color OS 12 to some budget devices that had less than 3GB of RAM. The company added that it was working on a “lighter version of ColorOS” for budget phones in order to meet the demand for updates.

Thankfully, OPPO is offering better pledges for security patches too. It’s specifically offering four years of security updates for the Find X, Reno, F, and K series phones. Meanwhile, the budget A series is slated to receive three years of security patches.