If you haven’t been paying attention to OnePlus, you should probably start. We’ve been calling the OnePlus 7 Pro the best Android phone you can buy for about the last six months. And now, in addition to the great hardware and software of that phone, you can add “pretty fast OS updates” to its list of positives. On Friday, OnePlus shipped the newly released Android 10 to the OnePlus 7 Pro and OnePlus 7, taking just 18 days after Android 10’s release to update the current company flagship phones.
This is not the fastest Android update speed in the industry for a third-party—the Essential Phone and the Xiaomi Redmi K20 both got day-one Android 10 updates—but OnePlus’ time is still pretty darn fast. OnePlus is one of the rare companies that seems to actually listen to the community, and it has been working to improve its update speed these last few years. 2017’s OnePlus 5T took a middling five months to update from Android 7.1 to 8.0, but OnePlus majorly improved in 2018 when the OnePlus 6 got an Android Pie upgrade in 45 days. This year’s 18-day update time is a new high mark for the company, and it’s not that surprising after seeing OnePlus’ increased investment in Android 10 preview releases this year. OnePlus released six Android 10 developer previews and two open betas for the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro.
Android 10 brings a ton of improvements to the OnePlus 7 Pro. There’s a better gesture navigation system with a more ergonomic back gesture, ecosystem-support for dark mode, a faster share menu, new emojis, a dual-boot option, and tons of security and privacy improvements.
The OnePlus 7 Pro is not a perfect phone, but OnePlus is offering the best all-around package you can get from an Android smartphone today. You get a cutting edge all-screen design with a pop-up camera, a silky smooth 90Hz OLED display, an in-screen fingerprint reader, and a software package that is pretty close to stock Android.
Six months ago we said the phone feels like it’s a generation ahead of most other phones on the market. And so far, no Android phone has come out yet that can rival the OnePlus 7 Pro—that is besides other OnePlus phones. It doesn’t look like there is much on the horizon, either. And we haven’t even mentioned the price yet: an amazing $670, meaning you’re getting a better display, design, software, and update speed than other flagships and you’re getting it at a lower price. Imagine spending $1,000 on a Samsung phone and waiting six months for an update.
Android 10 for the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro is rolling out now. If you don’t want to wait for the update to hit your device naturally, there is an unofficial sideloader app that will get the job done today.
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