As flagship phone prices have started to climb well over $1,000, mid-range phones are looking more attractive than ever. As the world’s economy starts to head in a downward trend, more affordable phones are taking center-stage. In 2020 budget-friendly phones were some of the most sold phones on the market. Consumers are watching their wallets and want to get the best phone they can at a reasonable price. Now with the release of Android 11, OPPO aims to make the most of mid-range hardware, with the ColorOS 11 update.
If you purchase a mid-range phone, you’ll usually be sacrificing the premium features like the higher refresh rates, latest camera sensors, better build materials, or features like fast charging. This doesn’t mean that you have to have a bad software experience. Well-designed OEM software can mean a world of difference when it comes to taking advantage of smaller amounts of RAM and mid-range chipsets.
As one of their more affordable phones in 2020, OPPO launched the OPPO F17 Pro. This phone ships with ColorOS 7.2 (Android 10) but will be one of the first OPPO devices available for the ColorOS 11 update in the future. For now, we are running the beta version of ColorOS 11 running on Android 11. In this article, we will take a look at this budget-friendly phone and see how ColorOS 11 makes this mid-range device both smooth and versatile.
|
OPPO F17 Pro |
Hardware Specifications |
|---|---|
|
Display |
6.43" 1080 x 2400 pixels |
|
Chipset |
Mediatek Helio P95 (12 nm) |
|
RAM |
8GB |
|
Storage |
128GB |
|
Main Camera |
48+8+2+2MP |
|
Selfie Camera |
16+2MP |
|
Battery |
4015mAh |
|
OS |
ColorOS 7.2 |
Improving Gameplay
When you’re working with a more moderate chipset like the Mediatek Helio P95, you want to make sure you are able to run your favorite games properly. In ColorOS 11 you can use the included Game Space feature to improve your gaming performance. The app is able to block notifications and reject calls to make sure your game goes uninterrupted. Furthermore, you’ll be able to monitor your CPU and GPU usage, as well as FPS rate. In PUBG, the live monitoring of this data will help you adjust your graphics settings to get the best performance possible.
Game Space comes with three different game modes. Low power mode will limit your phone performance in favor of battery life. Balanced mode is your standard options and Competition mode will max out your hardware for gaming priority. With these tools, even the phones with lower specs can adjust their settings for better gameplay.
The best way to play is with the new Immersive mode. This mode can be selected from the quick-access bubble for the game space. Blocking all notifications, calls, and alarms let me focus more on the game. The immersive mode can also lock navigation gestures and quick settings, preventing you from accidentally navigating away from your game.
Another fun feature that’s super helpful to the gamers is the Quick Return Bubble, which is a small floating bubble popping up on the screen. When you switch to other apps while gaming, the Quick Return Bubble displays key information (e.g. respawn count down or in-cabin time) as a floating bubble, and it allows you to switch back to gaming with one easy tap on the bubble.
Despite the fact that I’m running on mid-range hardware, I am able to have a smooth gaming experience on the OPPO F17 Pro. I was able to consistently get around 30FPS on many graphics-intensive games. This benefits from OPPO’s Hyper Boost technology, which pre-allocates more resources to the game when necessary. On average, this prevents game sluggishness and increases frame rate stability by 38%. Hyper Boost also tackled touch sensitivity, and came up with solutions for the fast power consumption and overheating during gaming.
UX Performance
When OPPO developed ColorOS 11, they made it a point to try to stick to a stock Android experience. Of course, you can find personalization settings throughout the system, but there are no heavy intrusive themes or bloatware slowing your phone down. Performance throughout the system is as good as you’d expect from a flagship ColorOS device.
System animations perform without issue on the OPPO F17 Pro - actually with the new OS, I feel F17 Pro is the smoothest mid-range device I’ve used in 2020. ColorOS 11 is optimized to run without lag on devices with fewer hardware resources. So even on the budget devices, ColorOS 11 will still perform well.
Battery Guard
When you’re buying a phone on a budget, the lifetime of the phone might be something very important to you. Smartphone batteries degrade over time and eventually, they are unable to hold a charge. One of the things that cause this is the overcharging of your phone. ColorOS 11 has a new feature called Battery Guard. This feature will let you toggle the “Optimized night charging” setting, which will make your phone begin to learn your daily routine. Your charging will then be optimized to charge slowly overnight and proceed to make sure you have a 100% charge by the time you wake up.
By using this feature, you’ll be protecting the health of your phone’s battery. Over time you’ll have a battery that degrades at a much slower rate. You’ll have a healthy and long-lasting battery with this improved charging method.
There’s a new Super Power Saving Mode on ColorOS 11, and once it’s turned on, the battery will begin to drain much slower. Even with this setting activated, you’ll still find yourself having a smooth performance.
Multitasking
When a phone has low-to-mid range specs, multitasking is an area that can suffer. So it’s up to OEMs to optimize their devices for proper RAM management. With the OPPO F17 Pro running ColorOS 11, I am able to leave the PUBG game menu frozen in the background, while I work on Google Docs, use Twitter, watch videos, and more. Afterward, I can go back to the game to find it’s still running and ready for a new match. Multitasking performance is done especially well for mid-range phones, and the credit should go to the operating system.
This is a great example of how an OEM can add useful features to their software without it coming in the form of bloated and intrusive apps. ColorOS 11 is currently going through beta testing on OPPO devices including the FindX2 Series, Reno3 Series, and more. For those early adopters, you can apply for the beta version. For those who are not so familiar with beta smartphone OS releases, I would suggest waiting until the stable version. From my point of view, the OPPO F17 Pro performs very well as a mid-range phone and takes full advantage of Android 11.
Read more about ColorOS 11:
ColorOS 11 Review – OPPO adds lots of customization over Android 11
Here’s when OPPO’s Android 11-based ColorOS 11 beta is coming for your smartphone
How OPPO‘s ColorOS 11 Pushes the Trend of Android Customization