OnePlus 6 and 6T Android 11 upgrade arrives after a very short beta

By JC Torres/Aug. 11, 2021 10:04 pm EST

OnePlus' rollout of OxygenOS 11 with Android 11 hasn't exactly been uneventful. OnePlus 7 and 7T owners got hit hard the hardest with numerous bugs and a promised feature that was inexplicably removed at the last minute. The company also started the beta for the OnePlus 6 and 6T series just last month, suggesting it would be months before a stable release would be available. Beating those expectations, OnePlus surprisingly just announced OxygenOS 11 for the two phones, hopefully in a very polished and bug-free state.

Truth be told, Android 11 is actually an unexpected gift from OnePlus. Both launched in 2018, the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T would have already reached their end of life last year, at least as far as major Android upgrades are concerned. OnePlus started the beta testing period last month, earlier than what it had first scheduled, and is now pushing the stable release far sooner than anyone might have expected.

OxygenOS 11 brings big changes to the user experience on top of the already big changes that Android 11 makes under the hood. The styling and user interfaces have been significantly altered to the point that some have derisively compared it to Samsung's One UI. There are also upgrades to all of OnePlus' custom apps, of course, like a new Camera UI and a toolbox for Game Space.

Noticeably missing is the same Always-on Display feature yanked from the OnePlus 7 OxygenOS 11 release. This shouldn't be a huge surprise since the OnePlus 6 actually came with its own AOD implementation when it launched, and that, too, got removed due to battery concerns. OxygenOS does have an almost equivalent Ambient Display mode that makes up for its absence.

The OxygenOS 11 with Android 11 update should start rolling out to the OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T phones in waves. It will be a large update, of course, so the usual precautions apply when upgrading. The considerably short beta testing period is a bit concerning, but hopefully, OnePlus has already ironed out the kinks by now.