so the oneplus 8t is the first oneplus smartphone to come with full fat oxygen os 11. not to mention the fresh android 11 os straight out of the box and one of the first things you’ll notice when you have a play around with oxygen os 11 is just how different everything looks from the very smart looking settings menu to the updated oneplus apps these all new aesthetics are proper lush and now most of the actual functionality on each screen has actually been shunted down towards the bottom so it’s all much easier to reach with one hand i mean it’s not a replacement for an actual one-handed mode is it one plus but it is very much appreciated still when you’re for instance desperately trying to check the train times while also simultaneously stopping your sprog from leaping out into traffic but oxygen os 11 is not just a mere paint job you also get a few excellent new features and a few updated features chucked in there too and here’s a closer look at some of the best bits you’ll find stuffed inside of oxygen os 11 old and you whether you treat yourself to a new oneplus 8t or of course it will also be rolling out to existing oneplus smartphones shortly and for more on the latest greats tech please do poke subscribe and ding that notifications bell cheers so let’s start up with one of the features that has had a major overhaul for oxygen os 11 namely the lock screen in order to customize the lock screen what you want to do is head to settings and then go to customization and you’ll find it in there now as usual from here you can quickly customize your wallpapers on both your lock screen and your home screen you’ve got the choice of all of those live wallpapers which were introduced in the previous oxygen os 10.
and you can also play around with the fingerprint animation get a few different selections on the go but the bit that we’re interested in is the clock style now the first thing you’ll probably notice is that the default clock style has changed up quite considerably and it’s actually a lot more attractive these days you’ve still got that typical oneplus style but it just looks a lot neater and let’s face it it needed freshening up a bit because it’s been the same for bloody ages but even better depending on your personal taste of course is the fresh new insight clock style insight is a digital well-being effort that tells you how many times you’ve unlocked your smartphone so far today while any screen on time throughout the day will cover slice out of that rainbow colored central bar so if come the end of the day that central bar has all but disappeared and the unlocked figure is high into triple figures then you know you’ve probably spent too much time on your phone but of course if you don’t like being nannied by your personal devices then it can just do one and a couple more clock styles will be coming to oxygen os 11 imminently as well including a canvas effort which can actually generate a black and white outline of your current desktop wallpaper and also oneplus has partnered up with snapchat to create a bit more g effort and if you actually want that ambient display to show all of the time then that’s quick and easy too all you got to do is dive into those settings go to display and then scroll down to ambient display and in here
you’ll find the options to turn it on or off you can have it appear every time you pick up your phone for instance pull it out of your bag or your pocket you can have it to activate whenever you tap the screen which is quite handy if you have the phone on the desk next to you or you can have it simply activated all day long or schedule it between two set hours which is quite handy if you don’t want to have it on all night long now let’s have a squint at another oxygen os feature that’s completely changed up in oxygen os 11 namely the power menu so now if you press and hold down the power button on the oneplus 8t or any other oneplus phone with oxygenos 11 you’ll be confronted with a very different beast as usual of course you’ve got your emergency functionality you can simply switch off or restart the oneplus smartphone if you like and of course you can take a screenshot too but on top of that you’ll notice that you’ve now got google peer functionality built in there just like you do on the pixel smartphones so if you’re out and about you want to use a bit of google pay don’t worry about loading up the app or anything like that literally pull out the the phone unlock it hold down that power button and then you go to tap and go you can also just set up via the google pay app as usual and if you’ve got multiple cards set up in google play noise just tap those three dots and then tap view all to see all the other cards you can use and then last up down near the bottom of the new power menu screen you’ll see you’ve got fast access to some of your google home smart devices this is very very handy indeed again just for fast access to some of your lights your cameras and you can even access your heating see exactly what temperature is in your house all that good stuff now one feature that hasn’t really changed up
much at all for oxygen os 11 but it is a little bit prettier and it’s still a pretty damn good feature is the shelf and by default this can be accessed at any time simply by dragging your thumb down the screen from anywhere on those desktops you’ve got usual widgets on here including of course good old step counter so you can see how inactive you’ve been throughout the course of the day your recent app shortcuts and that nifty park and location service as well which is very helpful if you find yourself driving to random new places all the time and then forgetting where the bloody hell you’ve parked now if you actually pinch on your desktops you’ll find this little menu pops up down below you can then go to home settings and then if you go to swipe down to access that’s where you choose whether you want the shelf or your notifications tab now as much as i love the shelf i do find it much more useful to actually have that notifications bar dragged down from anywhere on screen because otherwise you’re reaching all the way up to the very top to pull it in the view which frankly one-handed good freaking luck you’d probably enjoy greater success convincing a t-rex to turn vegetarian while we’re on the subject of that home screen settings menu you’ve actually got some very useful stuff buried away in there so for instance you can kill a google discover feed if you’re not really a fan you
can also murder the app straw as well if you’re an absolute masochist you can change up the look of your app icons and you’ve also got the home screen layout section where you can basically change the uh grids on your desktops so if you’re like me you’ll probably want to try and cram as many app icons onto one desktop as possible you can also change up the icon sizes and you also get rid of the names as well if you just want the icons now another feature that’s been improved for oxygen os 11 is the notes app by default of course you’ll find this buried away in the apps tree along with all of the other oneplus apps then all you’ve got to do is set up a new note or go into an all note and start editing and you’ll notice you’ve got this little microphone icon over here at the top right hand corner of the keyboard just give that a little tap and then everything that you say will be transcribed directly and inputted as text and rather hilariously if you do swear say something like or uh then well i will actually be censored uh by the app apart from apparently uh which is not only not censored but also spelled incorrectly now unfortunately for this transcription feature to work your oneplus smartphone does have to be online with a connection to the internet it can’t work offline unlike the google pixel transcribe feature and as you can see from my example as well as absolutely bugger all in the way
of punctuation so we’ll require a bit of tidying up if you’re actually going to present it as a formal document or something but it’s at the very least a very quick and efficient way just getting your thoughts down onto not paper but you know in text format now if your idea of a good time is chin in complete strangers online well great news oxygen os once again has you completely covered with the nifty game space feature you can call this up at any point by tapping the app shortcut you’ll find it scrolled away of course in the apps draw and this just gives you fast access to all of your games as you see i’ve only got one on there at the moment but it is a bloody good one now before you actually dive face-first into a game you can actually shame yourself into seeing exactly how much of your life you have wasted uh on mobile games in the past a week or so otherwise once you’re actually in a game you can pull out the game tab with a quick swipe from the top left or the top right corner and this offers up a small but decent selection of gaming features so for instance very handy you can quickly check the time and the remaining battery life on your oneplus smartphone if you tend to let time sort of get away from you a bit you can even check on the internal temperature of your oneplus smartphone as well in case your merry murder session is basically wreaking havoc on your phone’s internals you’ve got the likes of the screen recorder function if you want to save your frag sessions
for posterity you can quickly call up a whatsapp window so you can have a chat with your mates during the game and by default you’ll still be alerted to any notifications that pop in but you can just completely block that if you want and as usual you got fast access to that fanatic mode as well which just channels all of your oneplus phones resources into your gaming session so there’s no uh cheeky little background tasks sneakily nabbing a bit of memory or anything like that although as most of the oneplus smartphones in recent times come with eight or 12 gigs of friggin ram not really sure while it’s even necessary and another golden oldie that makes a welcome return to oxygenos 11 is the hidden space feature which can be accessed in a couple of ways first that you can drag right in your app straw otherwise you can also access it by pinching out vertically here on your desktops and hidden space basically just allows you to quickly and easily hide away any little apps that you don’t really want unsure for other people to see stuff where might be a little bit embarrassing if people actually spot them right there in your apps tray and one last feature that i would love to just briefly mention as well it’s another old feature that makes a return to oxygen os 11 but it is a fantastic one and that’s the optimized charging feature this can be found hidden away inside of the battery settings within the oneplus
settings menu if you’re gonna be charging up your oneplus smartphone overnight definitely make sure that the optimized charging feature is active and what this does is it learns your charging habits so say for instance you get about 6 30 am every morning it’ll learn that and then it’ll make sure it just trickle charges your battery until around the sort of six am mark and then it’ll make sure it’s fully charged just in time for you to jump out of bed all ready to conquer the day or whatever the hell it is you do in the morning and naturally you’ll find loads of other great features squirreled away in there including quick gesture support the likes of your digital well-being and parental controls and of course good old zenboard if you want to take an enforced break from the world in general and just chill out with some family friends pets or just a good old-fashioned bottle of whiskey so anyway there you go that is my tips and tricks guide for oxygen os 11 just showcasing some of the new bits that you’ll find stuffed in there and some of the old classic features that have been slightly updated or just well worth a mention again because they’re so bloody great and if it’s actually the oneplus 8t that you’re interested in then definitely go check out my full unboxing and in-depth tour right now which will take you through all the hardware the specs and everything else you need to know my full review of that will hopefully be coming soon so let me know your own favorite bits about oxygen os are you intrigued by oxygenos 11 disappointed what are your emotions what are you feeling in your guts right now be great to hear that down in the comments below please do put subscribe do that notifications bell and have yourselves a lovely rest of the week cheers everyone love you
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