For a long time now, I have loved the Oppo smartphones. Since the release of the Oppo Find 5, I fell in-love with the design and simplicity of the phone. Running on Android Jelly Bean, the Find 5 performs so well even though the hardware is lacking the latest “engine”, so to speak. But the Snapdragon chipset quad core 1.5GHz inside the Find 5 still made it very competitive.
Now comes the Oppo N1. Although the N1 is not using the latest Snapdragon 800, which is the highest spec for a smartphone chipset to-date, the Snapdragon 600 inside the N1 is very snappy. Just like its Snapdragon 600 device competitors, the N1 stands out in terms of functionality. You cannot touch the back of any other smartphones as how you touch the N1. The O-Touch panel at the back of the phone is revolutionary where users can simply rub the phone the right way in order for it to do certain functions. But what I’m going to bring forward today is the Android OS inside it.
The N1’s ColorOS has a very simple user interface with functions that are easy to use and understand. But, there are still some bloat-wares installed. Many other smartphone makers have customized “launchers” for their smartphones as a their brand. Like Samsung with their TouchWiz interface and HTC with their Sense 5. Oppo N1 has what they called, ColorOS. But what Oppo did with their Find 5 and N1 is very smart. They tied up their OS development with CyanogenMod, a third party Android “modifiers” team who over the years developed a much more reliable and light weight Android operating system without the bloat-wares.
CyanogenMod ROMs are very popular among those who seeks an alternative Android system other than their standard out-of-the-box OS. I am one of those people. I have been modding my phone since I was using the first Galaxy phone series, the Samsung Galaxy. Yes, just Galaxy, without any other nicknames that comes after the word Galaxy. When I got the phone, the Android version was Android 1.5 Cupcake, which then I received an update to Android 1.6 Donut. Still, the performance was VERY sluggish and I wanted to remove all the bloat-wares in order to make it go faster. Lucky for me, I found CyanogenMod. Back then it was CyanogenMod 6 (CM6) and it worked wonders. After every bloat-wares were thrown out, the phone managed to perform well enough for daily usage.
Back to N1, Oppo did very well in marketing their flagship smartphones. The Find 5 was marketed beautifully and the N1 was marketed with innovation in mind. Other that the famous camera function that can rotate 206 degrees, they now have a fully functional CyanogenMod ROM being sold as a special edition device. How awesome is that?
Those who have used CyanogenMod, will definitely get the Oppo N1 CM version without hesitation. I would buy it too if I have the money. But for now I can only watch and read about it from the web.
Another surprise release from Oppo that I read today is that they officially released the CyanogenMod 10.2 for all Oppo N1 smartphones. Which means those who bought the standard version of the N1, can now download the CM10.2 for their N1 for absolutely free! This is exactly why I love Oppo. Not only they produce an awesome smartphone, but they are making sure that their customers get the best of both worlds. In this case, hardware and software. Why do users like me love CyanogenMod? Because it is bloat-ware free and better performing than the normal one.
I don’t know if anyone in Malaysia are using the N1 or not but I do know that it is quite rare to see an Oppo device over here. But if any of you do have the N1, here is where you can go and find out how you can install the CM10.2 to your phone and download -> Oppo Forums
To end my post, all I can say is that I love what Oppo is doing and their after sales services are awesome.
