A small tune-up is on its way to your OnePlus 3 soon.
Now a couple of weeks removed from the launch of its latest phone, OnePlus is working to push out a maintenance update with a handful of tweaks to the — and while it doesn't bring any giant changes, there are a couple things of note. We've been testing the latest OTA in pre-release form for about a week, and while OnePlus won't commit to a date for releasing the new software to all customers we can expect this patch to roll out soon.
We'd say nothing was broken ... but OnePlus had to address complaints.
The headline change for this upcoming OTA is a handful of tweaks to the way the phone manages its RAM. Though the on board, a vocal group of early buyers (and prospective buyers) have voiced concern that the phone isn't properly allocating RAM and keeping apps in memory as long as they'd expect. Though we have personally seen no issues with RAM management, OnePlus has bent to some of the pressure in this update — how does that actually change the daily user experience of the OnePlus 3? Well, it doesn't, really.
The phone does indeed seem to make use of more RAM more of the time, at least according to the "memory" settings, where we've seen about 500 to 700MB more in use on average, but that hasn't really changed how we use the phone. We never noticed apps being unnecessarily killed off in the background, and if we couldn't see the RAM usage details in the settings we wouldn't have ever second-guessed it. But with this new change, you can know that the software is attempting to utilize more of that 6GB in the phone, while also keeping in mind that there's more to using a phone than just holding as many apps in memory as possible.
On an equally nerdy topic, the update also contains the option to switch the display into mode. You'll have to turn on the Developer options to get it, but if you're someone who wants it you've likely already turned those settings on. Don't know what sRGB color mode is? Don't worry. Most people will be happier with the standard color mode and color temperature slider found in the normal display settings — and even those who know about sRGB may find that it doesn't pair well with the AMOLED display on the OnePlus 3 either.
OnePlus says that there are further changes in store for when the update hits consumer devices, but these two solid features of fresh RAM management and an sRGB color mode are the ones folks can look forward to. We'll know more about the official update when it's finalized and sent to phones.