Vivo’s radical change to its Android-based operating system has been announced at its annual developer conference in China. The OriginOS brings a completely new design that puts more emphasis on widgets and sorting them in a tile-like layout. The widgets also come with so-called “Nano Alerts” that displays updated info and notification constantly much like Windows Live Tiles.
Vivo says that “The genesis of OriginOS centers around three frontiers based on smartphone consumer demands: design, smoothness, and convenience.”
The FuntouchOS had a major resemblance to iOS, including similar color palettes, notification design, and use of transparent icons and skins. While the new OriginOS’ tile-based widgets aren’t far away from what we saw on Apple’s new iOS 14, we can at least say that this looks good on paper, without any major trails to iOS. Vivo says the new skin was inspired by Huarong Dao, which is akin to the Chinese version of the Klotski sliding block puzzles.
The company is also putting a major focus on the real world for wallpapers and backgrounds in this new OS. For instance, you can choose a sky background that displays many weather effects including clouds and wind. Vivo says that they took samples of clouds from various regions and the wind will add dynamism to them.
As for wallpapers, it imitates the real world, including the time of day, brightest midday, and darkest night. Users will also be able to use live wallpapers with timelapse of flowers blooming, with them being able to control the animation speed as well.
Vivo claims that the new OriginOS is much less resource-intensive than FuntouchOS, with lower RAM requirements. Regardless, we can’t say anything about it now and we’ll have to test it before judging it. And it looks like we won’t have to wait long before the beta update arrives on its major phones.
Which Vivo phones will get OriginOS update beta and when?
Vivo is rolling out its OriginOS beta update in three tiers. The first rollout will start from the end of January 2021, and here are the phones that will get it first.
- Vivo Nex 3S
- Vivo X50 (including the Pro and Pro Plus variants)
- Vivo S7
- Iqoo 5 Pro
- Iqoo 5
- Iqoo 3
- Iqoo Pro
- Iqoo
- Iqoo Neo 3
The second rollout is happening in mid-February 2021. Here’s the list of smartphones.
- Vivo Nex 3 (including 5G variant)
- Vivo X30 (including Pro variant)
- Iqoo Neo series
And finally, the third and the last tier, phones on this tier will get the beta update by Q2 of 2021.
- Vivo X27 (including Pro variant)
- Vivo S6
- Vivo S5
- Vivo S1 Pro
- Vivo S1
- Vivo Z6
- Vivo Z5x
- Vivo Z5i
- Vivo Z5
- Iqoo Z1x
- Iqoo Z1
- Vivo Nex S
- Vivo Nex (dual-screen and in-display fingerprint sensor variants)