OnePlus Nord receives second Open Beta, with critical fixes in tow

While manufacturers like Samsung continue to dominate the field with their Android 11 upgrade rollout months ahead of schedule, OnePlus is still plodding along with its beta testing for its upper mid-range Nord, with the company releasing the second OxygenOS 11 beta on Monday.

The update brings in a large number of fixes, and arrives nearly a month after OnePlus began rolling out the first OxygenOS beta based on Android 11 at the end of December. The most important fix in the changelog is the note “Fixed the small probability issue that alarm clocks can not be set”.

Similarly, it seems like OnePlus is still struggling with its background app management, with the latest Open Beta promising better optimisation “to receive more timely messages.” In addition, the update also includes non critical visual fixes to the lockscreen, calculator, camera histogram display, battery icons and Messenger bubbles.

Also read: OnePlus 8T review: Good device, but doesn't steal the show

The update weighs in at 205 MB and is titled “Nord_R_OBT_O2_210114”. Users who have switched to the Open Beta update ring can simply use the OTA updater to install the second OxygenOS 11 Open Beta on top of the first one. However, if you want to come back to the stable Android 10 version if you encounter any bugs, you will need to back up your data and perform a factory reset. XDA also reports that the update brings the January security patches for the device.

It’s surprising to see OnePlus still working on the OxygenOS 11 update for the Nord when only last week, Samsung began rolling out the OneUI3.0 update for the budget Galaxy M31 based on Android 11. Considering that Samsung is supposed to have a much “heavier” software layer (or skin) compared to OnePlus which was once considered “close to Google stock software” - OnePlus is clearly playing catch-up here.