Software

The weakest function to the Oppo F1 is the software parcel. The device comes loaded with the at present-outdated Android five.ane.1 out of the box, which is disappointing considering Android vi.0 was released several months earlier this handset hit the market. The F1 besides gets Oppo's ColorOS 2.one, which is a rather ambitious skin that changes many aspects of Android for the worse.

The ColorOS launcher is one that removes the app drawer entirely in favor of cluttering upwardly your homescreens with every app you've downloaded. I'g not a fan of this pattern equally I'd rather relegate my least used apps, forth with any bloatware, to the app drawer, only at least y'all can create folders to dump numerous unnecessary apps that Oppo pre-loads on this handset.

The notification panel has been completely redesigned to include an expandable department of quick toggles for basically everything you could want to adapt on the fly. I don't mind this alter, but the bodily notification section is much harder to read due to weird dissimilarity issues in some apps. Oppo has also decided to modify the condition bar to imitate iOS, which doesn't work well every bit notification icons quickly get cut off due to a lack of space (you can thank the completely unnecessary carrier text for that).

The visual style to ColorOS looks very dated and doesn't fit in well with the modernistic design cues of Google'due south Material Design. Oppo has also loaded the F1 with disruptive duplicate apps. Trying to open a photograph? Well you'll be prompted to choose between the Google Photos app and Oppo'southward own Photos app. It's a similar matter for the spider web browser and videos app, while the Email app is completely redundant now that Gmail supports other email accounts. Duplicate apps actually hurt the user experience, and basically no OEM should carp developing their own alternatives equally Google'south apps e'er finish up existence better anyway.

To the left of the homescreens Oppo has included what they telephone call 'spaces'. This characteristic too appeared on the Oppo R5 that I reviewed concluding twelvemonth, and similar on that phone, I really never used them. In fact spaces are even more limited on the F1 equally you can but choose ane: a total page music widget that gives you quick and user-friendly music controls. Of course you could just use the quick music controls that typically appear in the notification panel, simply the widget is there if y'all want it.

There really aren't any exciting new functions to be found in the settings menu. At that place's a drove of pretty typical extras, such equally ultra battery savers, basic gesture functionality, and a "Dirac" audio manager. The one affair that could come in handy is the notification manager, which allows you lot to disable notifications for whatever apps you want. I used it to disable annoying and unwanted push button notifications from games.

Of the ton of included apps, the vast majority I never needed to apply. There are a few backup services and a few security services, which are pretty much unnecessary on this device. The Security Center app in particular seems to be just filled with placebo rubbish like something that "cleans up and accelerates" and some other feature that tells me at that place is a security risk while giving me some random score. Theming functionality is also included for users that don't similar the standard blueprint. Unfortunately, there's no theme that replaces ColorOS with stock Android.

The fact that the Oppo F1 is pre-loaded with Android 5.ane, and not Android half-dozen.0, gives me no promise that Oppo will support this device through software updates. Android 'Marshmallow' was released six months ago, and in that time Oppo hasn't managed to get the Bone running on this device. Forget Android security updates too, because it seems like y'all're not going to get them on the F1.