Android Pie hasn’t even made a dent in Android’s distribution numbers despite Google, Essential, and OnePlus being the first manufacturers to offer it. Google and Essential rolled out very close-to-stock versions of Android Pie, but OnePlus changed a bit of the UI and added some of their own additional features. Did OnePlus make this release of Pie better than Google? Or did they eat our Pie just as they had eaten our Oreo? Let’s find out.

To make this comparison, we’ve put the Pixel 2 XL running the November security patch and the OnePlus 6 running OxygenOS Open Beta 6 side-by-side. Without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Lock screen

Google removed quick actions from the lock screen in Android Pie. OnePlus, on the other hand, kept them. They aren’t customizable like they were in Oreo, but they’re still there, with one for launching the Google Assistant and one for launching the camera. The fingerprint icon is slightly larger on stock Android while on OxygenOS it’s smaller and matches the size of the quick actions. Another point to note is that the weather is not displayed on OxygenOS.

The launcher

After unlocking the phone, you get to the launcher. The stock launcher has a Google search bar below all the apps, whereas OxygenOS doesn’t. OxygenOS adds a space between the last and second-last row of apps that contains a slide-up icon. The stock launcher skips it for its gestures which we’re coming to in a bit.

When you long press an icon, you get notifications and app shortcuts on both. OxygenOS keeps options like remove, uninstall, edit, and app info followed by the notifications and then the app shortcuts (if there’s any room left). The stock launcher gives you the notifications and the app shortcuts, above which you can tap a button to get the app info. To remove, uninstall, or get to the app info, you have to drag the app icon to the top of the screen where their respective options are.

The stock launcher, however, provides little customizability compared to the OxygenOS launcher. Sure, you can always get another launcher, but we’re talking about the out-of-the-box experience here. The OxygenOS launcher lets you change app labels, icon packs, icon sizes, the number of columns, etc.

If you swipe to the right on the stock launcher, you’ll get to Google Feed, and if you swipe to the right on the OxygenOS launcher, you’ll get to OnePlus’ shelf: an area where you can put widgets, take memos, find recently used apps and contacts, etc. OxygenOS does, however, restrict you to having shelf either enabled or disabled: there’s no option for Google Feed.

Notifications

Pulling down the notification tray once reveals an almost similar, well, notification tray. Android Pie removed the settings shortcut, but OnePlus decided to keep it, along with the name of your carrier. OxygenOS also moved the “manage notifications” option to the right and replaced the “clear all” option with a floating button that’s on the bottom.

Did you notice that the blue colors, icons, and fonts are different? OxygenOS allows you to customize the theme—colorful, light, and dark—and the accent colors. They have a few selected colors to pick from or you can pick your own using a color picker or hex code. Changing the theme changes the theme of all of OnePlus’ stock apps too. Stock Android, on the other hand, has only a light and dark theme that shows up only in the notification tray and launcher.

With Google’s next iteration of Material Design, Google made the icons hollow. OxygenOS decided to skip these icons and stayed with the older ones. Also, Android Pie adopted Google’s Sans font, but OxygenOS skipped that too and lets you pick between the older Roboto and OnePlus’ own font, OnePlus Slate.

Pull the notification shade down once again to see the expanded quick settings and you’ll see that OxygenOS moved the brightness slider below all the quick settings for easy reachability. It even adds a toggle for auto-brightness. Stock Android puts three icons in a column whereas OxygenOS puts four. The behavior of the quick settings remains same, unfortunately.

Settings

When you get to the settings menu, you’ll find them different too. With OxygenOS Oreo, OnePlus had oddly kept Nougat’s settings menu. Here, depending on your chosen theme and accent color, the icons are completely different from stock. The title and description of some submenus are different. Also, OxygenOS adds a few more submenus and changes their order.

Gestures

This is the one place where OxygenOS, hands down, beats stock. They completely put Google to shame and make us question whether Google’s implementation can even be called gestures. Sure, they are pretty similar to iOS’, but they’re easy to use, intuitive, and just way better. Plus, if you don’t like them, OxygenOS lets you chose whether you want a simple three button navbar or the stock gestures instead.

The navigation on OxygenOS is simple: swipe up from the middle to go home, swipe up from either the left or right to go back, swipe up and hold to get to the overview screen, and swipe slightly up and then right to get to your last used app. On stock, going back and home require tapping the buttons, and the only “gestures” are a long swipe up to get to the app drawer, swipe up to get to the overview screen, and swipe right to get to your last used app.

Overview screen

When you get to the overview screen, you’ll see that OxygenOS has done a much better job. On stock Android, a row of apps that Google thinks you’re most likely to use appear with the previews of the recently opened apps on top of it. OxygenOS skips it, but what’s its need anyway? Stock Android has the app’s icon on the top of the preview, but OxygenOS has the icon as well as the app’s name. OxygenOS does, however, round the corners a bit too much.

How do you get to split screen? You tap the app icon to get the option for split screen on stock Android. OxygenOS did a better job at making it intuitive and you have to tap a three dots options menu to get to it. How is someone supposed to figure out that the app icon isn’t just a label?

To get to the clear all button on stock Android, you have to swipe across all the apps. On OxygenOS, it’s a simple floating button that’s always there on the bottom. Way easier, although you shouldn’t actually be using it often.

Additional features on OxygenOS

Hiding the notch

If you hide the notch on OxygenOS, your status bar background turns black with all the icons still there. It’s a clever way of utilizing the extra screen, and if you use the Pixel 3 XL, Google just shifts the status bar all the way down, leaving the notch area blacked out and unutilized.

Reading mode

While it doesn’t do much and isn’t actually all that useful, OxygenOS has a reading mode that turns the screen grayscale and optimizes the color temperature based on the ambient light conditions. It can automatically turn on for your reading apps, while even blocking peeking notifications.

Gaming mode

OxygenOS also has gaming mode that can automatically turn on for apps. It can limit other apps’ network usage, disable automatic brightness, show notifications differently, and more. For notifications, it can either block them, show them heads up, or be text only. It can even route all incoming calls to speakers.

Parallel apps

OxygenOS lets you run two versions of the same app that are signed into different accounts. For example, you can configure Twitter to work with two separate Twitter accounts, each having a separate app icon in the launcher.

App locker

OxygenOS has a built-in app locker. It makes your selected apps require your fingerprint or password to open the app, and can even hide notification contents from that app.

Scheduled power on/off

While you probably won’t ever use it, OxygenOS lets you schedule your phone to automatically power on and off at different times.

Conclusion

OxygenOS does many things way better than stock Android does. While they have improved stock Android a lot, I think there are a few things they can still improve to make the experience even better. They could make split-screen easier to use, for example. Personally, I’m also not a fan of the UI changes like using the older icons and font. I really wish they change it: it’s the only thing that makes me dislike OxygenOS.

Don’t get me wrong: OxygenOS is really good, and I’d prefer it over stock Android anytime. However, in my opinion, they have the potential to make the experience even better than what it is currently. Isn’t their mantra “Never Settle” anyway?

OxygenOS makes a strong argument over stock Android and is, if not the best, one of the best Android skins on the market. OxygenOS beats stock Android in functionality, intuitiveness, and customizability while stock Android only gets an upper-edge in design. If they make the UI similar to stock Android, there’s no reason to consider stock Android over OxygenOS.

Featured-Image: Tom’s Guide