With Google ramping up Android updates and in the race to push Android 15, OnePlus was one of the first few to launch its stable OxygenOS 15 update based on Android 15, and it, too, follows the AI features trend. OnePlus has made some interesting design choices in OxygenOS 15, and the overall OS, on paper, feels like a considerable update over OxygenOS 14, but is that really the case? I’ve been using OxygenOS 15 on my OnePlus 12R, and here’s my review.
OxygenOS 15: What I Like About It
There’s a lot to like about OxygenOS 15 from the improved UI to new features. Here’s everything I like so far from the latest OnePlus update:
The Art of Motion in the New Animations
Besides Android customization, I’m a huge UI and design buff. So I was incredibly excited to try out the new animations and changes. And boy, did I find them indulging! Sure there are things that I wish OnePlus did better which we’ll talk about later. But overall, the Oxygen OS 15 brings absolute eye-candy animations and transitions to savor. The best part of all is with the new customization options. You get to experience the new changes right from the moment you pick the phone up.
The transition from the lockscreen text style to the wallpaper and then to the home screen feels seamless with extremely detailed animations. From the little bouncing animations on icons when you unlock the phone, move and place the icons around, to the little pullback from the Quick Settings menu and opening/closing fluid cloud, it all feels intricate, delicate, and in all honesty, addictive.
OnePlus emphasized Parallel Processing during the launch keynote and it works. Although, I’ve never understood the hype behind trying to open and close their apps rapidly. Hence, the feature feels more like a gimmick than an actually useful thing. I could see myself appreciating it if I opened the wrong app and quickly exited it to switch to another app. But it’s nothing super important to write home about.
A Refined Quick Settings
Speaking of Quick Settings, most UIs have revamped theirs in Android 15 and OnePlus has as well. I like the layout. It’s clean, a tad bubbly, and much, much better than OxygenOS 14’s Quick Settings panel. The brightness and sound level sliders are great to interact with. Also, the overall menu is weaved together very well, with every bit of space well utilized in the split Quick Settings mode.
I do wish OnePlus took a page out of Samsung’s One UI 7 notebook and added a translucent background rather than a more contrasty gray, but that is what it is. I’m not a fan of the split Notification and Quick Setting panels. It takes time to get used to, which I did. But there was still one thing that made me switch back to the traditional menu.
I like the concept of having notifications and Quick Settings tiles separated. But the more I used it, the more I felt that was purely due to nostalgia of the Android 4.4 days. What I don’t like in this implementation is how you cannot go back to Quick Settings after swiping right from Notifications unless you clear all the notifications. Perhaps OnePlus could add a small arrow button to take you back to tiles or add endless scrolling to both panels when you swipe right.
The point of separating them is so that users can see more notifications or tiles at the same time. But for someone like me who uses a handful of Quick Settings tiles, I don’t need them separated. Accessing notifications and tiles with just one swipe is more convenient.
Open Canvas and App Bubbles
Coming to a feature that I didn’t think I’d like but now use all the time is Open Canvas and another new feature that no one’s talking about (more on that later). When the OnePlus Open came out, I wondered what was the big deal about Open Canvas. I didn’t realize how useful it was until I genuinely gave it a try.
It feels like an extension of the split-screen feature and works brilliantly well. Of course, I could only have two apps running at the same time. But it gave me a sneak peek of how good the multi-tasking must feel on the OnePlus Open. Now I’m tempted to get one.
This brings me to another feature that I used in tandem with Open Canvas and is something Google will soon add to Pixels. Has it existed on OxygenOS since version 14? I don’t recall. Probably not.
App bubbles is yet another great multi-tasking feature that I can’t live without now that I’ve used it. You activate it by switching an app window to floating mode and drag-swiping it to the edges to automatically make a bubble. You can have at most two app bubbles at the same time.
Making OxygenOS Your Own with Customizations
I’m a sucker for customization and the OxygenOS 15 feels pretty good in this department. Most of the lock screen customizations are from ColorOS 15. But it would’ve been nice if OnePlus included more besides the “Never Settle” one.
The depth effects are great but like many have already said, there should’ve been an option to add your own text. I like the seamless unlock animation where it transitions from a frame to a full picture. Just something that I wouldn’t use more often, though, but others might.
You can customize the time digits, enlarge or shrink them, add steps or weather information, make the digits bold, as well as change the color of both the digits and date individually. This should give you a lot of combinations to work with, especially if you switch wallpapers frequently and want to match the aesthetics. Here’s one I made and I think it looks fantastic.
OxygenOS 15: Things I Dislike
While the update brings many cool features and improvements, it misses out on a few fundamental things. It still has some inconsistencies from OxygenOS 14 that should’ve been fixed by now, and a few other things that could’ve been done better.
A Slow Rollout with No AI Features Yet
In the launch keynote back in October, OnePlus promised OxygenOS 15 Beta would hit OnePlus 12 and 12R users on October 30 without the AI features, and another update with the AI features would hit the devices by the end of November.
Those who’ve used OnePlus devices before may know that OnePlus does a staged rollout. That’s fine if the updates take a week or two to roll out. But OxygenOS 15 Beta didn’t roll out to my unit until the start of December, which is a month late. Many still complain about not receiving OxygenOS 15. That’s incredibly sloppy, OnePlus.
Rocking the OnePlus 12R Genshin Impact Edition didn’t help my case. I couldn’t manually flash using the Oxygen Updater because the firmware versions of the normal 12R and this edition are different (EX01 and EX01Moo1). That said, I waited for the AI features and then lost patience due to the delay. Hence, no AI features overview in this review.
Some UI Inconsistencies
I raised this point in my Android 15 review and I feel the same with OxygenOS 15. There are inconsistencies in the UI, starting with the icons which you may have anticipated. I love Material You but it puzzles me how brands have still not figured out how to deal with icons that don’t adapt it. Google’s force adapt solution is nowhere to be found and the same goes for most OEMs except Nothing’s monochrome icons.
Next is the Suggested apps feature. There’s something really wrong with the algorithm of the feature in the OnePlus launcher because it shows the same set of apps over and over again. In my case, Gmail, Chrome, WhatsApp, and Play Store have been stuck there for ages, and it doesn’t suggest apps based on time or recently used apps.
As much as I like using Global Search, I fail to understand why OnePlus hasn’t integrated it into the launcher. It’s a separate app that doesn’t adapt to the device theme and feels like an extension (which it is) rather than being a part of the OS. As someone who’s recently started daily driving an iPhone 14 Plus for a change, I could see myself using the swipe-down gesture on the home screen to bring up Global Search but the experience feels off.
I’m Convinced OnePlus Hates Media Players
Seeing Samsung whip out an excellent-looking media player on One UI 7 Beta makes me despise OnePlus’ lock screen media player. There’s no seek bar, the next back and play buttons are extremely hard to hit right, and it’s just not a good experience overall.
An improved media player is one of the most requested features since OxygenOS 14. So, it’s disappointing to see that OnePlus hasn’t listened to the feedback in this version.
Fluid Cloud Is a Potential Untapped
I want to like the Fluid Cloud feature. It tackles the inconvenience of opening Quick Settings to skip tracks or check notifications involving time-related activities like Swiggy or Zomato. It was introduced in OxygenOS 14 and my grip with it is that it still doesn’t have many features. Music Playback pill shows up only with Spotify, there’s one for personal hotspots, screen recording, and timer, and that’s about it. Right now, Fluid Cloud is very limited.
Third-party app support is lacking and I don’t completely blame OnePlus. Support for ongoing activities is absent from Android as a whole but the good news is, that Google is developing a rich ongoing notification API in Android 16 which should help get app developers on board to support Fluid Cloud-like features. This way, we could see more third-party apps like Google Maps, YouTube Music, Calendar, and other time-sensitive app notifications use the Fluid Cloud to its fullest.
Some Minor Gripes
This could be considered a nitpick but one of the first problems I had with the new customization options is with the depth effect. It’s limited in the sense that you need to find the right wallpaper with the character’s head starting from the middle of the screen for the effect to work. And it’s not supported on live wallpapers which is a bummer.
Also, I wish there were an option that allowed notifications on the lockscreen to stay minimized as bubbles. This would clean up the pending notifications and the new customizations with the depth effect would always be visible. Sort of like how Moto does it. Google could bring this to Pixels in Android 16.
OxygenOS 15 Review: Promising Update that Needs Cohesion
The OxygenOS 15 brings loads of great changes, additions, and UI improvements that make it worthy of being called a major Android update. The new animations add a much-needed bling and the customization options enable endless ways to make the device your own.
However, the lack of updates way past the promised date killed my excitement for the AI features. The inconsistencies in the UI haven’t been ironed out which makes the user experience feel unpolished. Regardless, OnePlus has done a great job with OxygenOS 15, and while it’s too soon to say if it’s one of the better third-party UI updates of this year, it’s definitely one of the best OnePlus updates users could’ve asked for.