OnePlus tries to show OxygenOS 16 is snappier than One UI, but something’s fishy

OnePlus’s latest OxygenOS 16 update is set to begin rolling out broadly next month. The update will bring a bunch of new features, including, OnePlus says, enhancements to its Parallel Processing, which is meant to make opening and switching apps feel faster. In a video showcasing the new update, OnePlus compared the app switching experience in OxygenOS to Samsung’s One UI — but the demo seemed intentionally dishonest.

As flagged by uyagoda_ on Threads, a split-screen pitting OxygenOS 16 against Samsung One UI (labeled “Other Flagship UI”) appears to show a Samsung phone hanging as a game loads while the OnePlus phone next to it continued to fly through cycling in and out of various apps. At a glance, it looks bad for Samsung, but on closer inspection, the One UI hiccup was pretty clearly user error.

The head-to-head comparison comes after a few seconds of a demonstrator opening and closing apps in OxygenOS 16 on its own. “As you can see,” OnePlus’s Arthur Lam says as the Samsung phone appears on screen next to OnePlus’s, “others just cannot keep up.” You can see it at the 19:27 mark in the video below.

Watching the segment closely, it’s obvious that the reason One UI wasn’t able to “keep up” is that the presenter was operating the Samsung phone incorrectly, at one point opening a game, then repeatedly tapping where the home button would be if the game weren’t in full screen. (To access the navigation keys in this situation, you’d have to first swipe up from the bottom of the screen.)

It doesn’t seem like there was any camera or software trickery involved here, and as demonstrated, OxygenOS 16 does indeed look very snappy — but the side-by-side with One UI was hardly in good faith. Text in the corner of the screen during the demo advises viewers not to “attempt to replicate any actions or tests demonstrated in this video,” but I have a feeling that’s a warning Samsung fans won’t heed.