Last week we published a first impression article saying that the “OPPO R11 Displays Notifications Much Better Than R9s“. We were wrong.
After using the phone for a few more days we realised that the R11 doesn’t display any notifications in the top left of the status bar besides the signal strength and mobile carrier name/speed.
Thinking that this must be a bug by mistake we asked OPPO Australia to comment.
Imagine our dismay when an OPPO spokeperson told Ausdroid that:
“With the status bar, the notifications are no longer displayed there to give the phone a clean look and feel”.
Discussing this unexpected news on Whirlpool forums, “Mobile carriers” Section Moderator Yianni commented that:
This is no doubt a removal of a feature for many of us who have used Android for many years. Taking a quick peek in the status bar gives you a good indication of what needs to be attended to on the phone, rather than looking all around the home screens for badge notifications or having to pull down to view your notifications. Sadly, I have a feeling this ColorOS 3.1 update is what will make its way to my R9s Plus…
Here at Ausdroid we have reviewed quite a few OPPO phones. To summarise we’ve basically said that the hardware is great value for money but we really wish the Android user interface wasn’t so heavily modified into OPPO Color OS which closely resembles Apple iPhone iOS.
Puzzlingly OPPO hasn’t been at all consistent with how notifications have worked in the last 3 phones it has released in Australia. This is confusing for first time OPPO buyers as well as those fans of the brand who upgrade from a previous phone.
| R9s | R9s Plus | R11 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Color OS 3.0.0i based on Android 6.0.1 | Color OS 3.0.0i based on Android 6.0.1 | Color OS 3.1 based on Android 7.1.1 |
| Notifications in Status Bar | YES | YES | NO |
| Display List of Notifications | Swipe Down from Top of Screen, then Swipe Right | Swipe Down from Top of Screen | Swipe Down from Top of Screen |
| Display Quick Settings | Swipe Down from Top of Screen | Swipe Down from Top of Screen, then Swipe Left | Swipe Up from Bottom of Screen |
We hope that OPPO listens to it’s customers and changes Color OS 3.1 to re-enable notifications in the status bar.
There is some hope this might occur based on two recent OPPO actions:
Firstly they responded to buyer feedback from R9s Plus owners a few days ago with a patch that changed the Swipe down from top action to display a list of queued Notifications, rather than Quick Settings.
Secondly OPPO Australia said earlier this year that:
“Security is our top priority. We will continue to provide regular security patch integration to related products including R9s and R9s Plus”.
Since then they have updated Android Security Patch Levels (at time of writing) on the R9s (21 May 2017), R9s Plus (1 July 2017) and R11 (5 May 2017).
If you’re unhappy with OPPO’s move to remove Status Bar Notifications in Color OS 3.1 , email them (politely) at [email protected] and ask them to re-enable this feature ASAP.
It’s clear that their main focus is on winning over Apple users and it works. Keeping it simple for the average user. Enthusiasts will most likely stay clear from this brand or flash a custom ROM which is pretty easy to do on these..
probably but just wait for the review. The software may look at lot like iOS but its functionality is far from it. I suspect they may get a lot of very frustrated users with many of their decisions.
How easy is it? I want to do it my R9s but haven’t found anything.
What about a custom Launcher? (such as Nova)
Launcher doesnt replace notifications unfortunately
How to alienate devoted Android users 101.
I would never buy a phone without the ability to see notifications at the top of my phone (fine with it being disabled by default but not removing the much needed feature altogether).
great point, just introduce a toggle that has them *off* by default but which gives you a disclaimer or info box when the phone is first powered up out of the box or the update in question comes to an existing handset. this is a moronic move without a simple toggle
This is a good example of why I want a near stock Android experience