OPPO unveils ColorOS 17 with AI agents, smoother animations and call-fraud detection

OPPO has unveiled ColorOS 17, its new operating system. The company says it is the best OS it has made so far, with a smoother, smarter and more secure experience. It will first be available on the new Find X10 series and will then reach other OPPO phones as an update.

OPPO has long worked on the smoothness of its OS, and ColorOS 15 and 16 also focused on animations. ColorOS 17 introduces a new design called Living Flow Design, which is meant to make everything feel soft and natural to the touch. It has three main elements.

The first is Luminous Effect, which gives the screen a slightly glossy, slightly transparent look that is pleasing and easy on the eyes. The second is Fluid Motion, which removes stuttering or jerks when moving between apps or opening and closing something, so that everything flows like water. The third is Flexible Feedback, in which a button visibly presses in and returns when tapped, like a real button.

The company has changed the engine from the inside and named it Unified Rendering Architecture. This is expected to reduce the load on the phone considerably. Compared with the older version, rendering work is down 30% and RAM usage appears to be 25% lower. The company claims that, as a result, the phone will not heat up or hang even when a heavy game is played.

The Laminar Flow Engine speeds things up further. App launches are 55% more stable, and photos appear 50% faster when the gallery is opened for the first time. Users can keep 25% more apps running in the background, so the phone will not slow down even with WhatsApp, Instagram and YouTube all running. OPPO also ran a test: after six years of use and with memory 90% full, smoothness remains at 90%. This means users need not worry about the phone slowing down after two or three years.

The biggest change this time is in AI. AI Mind Pilot now has an Agent Mode, which will find and organise the phone's photos and files on its own. If trip photos are scattered around, it will put them in one album, name it by date, and create a trip plan or web page from those photos. It can also create a vlog cover from a single photo.

For photo editing, there is an AI Photo Agent. If a user wants colours like those of another photo, they can show that photo and the AI will apply the same colours. Users can simply type "blur the background" and it will do so. It will also suggest on its own what would suit a photo.

AI Mind Space has become smarter. Users can save PDFs, documents or YouTube video links in it, and it will read and understand them and find them when needed. If places to visit have been saved, it can also build a map of the whole trip.

AI Mind Suggest will work like a personal assistant. It will give the day's update on waking up, show flight details if there is a flight, and suggest playing songs as soon as headphones are plugged in. There is also a special feature called OSee: when the camera is pointed at an object, it will identify it. What the object is, information about it, how many calories it has, and scanning or translating can all be done in one click.

There is a fear of data theft while using AI. For this, OPPO has provided Private Computing Cloud, which keeps data end-to-end encrypted. Post-quantum security has now been added, so that even future hackers cannot steal the data. A new Transparency Report will also arrive, showing which AI feature was used and when.

Most important is AI Call Guard. Fraud calls using AI voices are now common. While a call is in progress, this guard will detect whether the voice is real or AI-generated and alert the user immediately. Overall, ColorOS 17 is not just an update but is set to change the entire experience of using a phone.