 |
| OriginOS 6 (S.I. Vivo) |
Vivo has recently unveiled OriginOS for the global market. And that release exploded the global smartphone community. The community exploded mainly because Vivo previously had the "boring" looking FuntouchOS as their default android skin for their global smartphone lineup. So after over a decade long journey of FuntouchOS, Vivo is finally putting an end on this old Android skin and introduced a new customizable, good-looking and and also a surprisingly snappy Android UI with the release of Android 16. So in this article. We'll explore the history and a real user experience of OriginOS.
The Origin of OriginOS
As anyone can guess from the name, OriginOS had 5 more major releases before it's global launch. And it all started from China. Vivo had an initial plan to release a UI specifically for the Chinese market. And at that time, Vivo had figured out that the consumers were looking for a feature rich, animated and highly customizable UI. And Vivo's older FuntouchOS couldn't keep up with the new needs. So, the solution of this problem was the release of the first OriginOS which was released back in November of 2020. Based on Android 11, this new skin had a new launcher, icon pack, and the most noticeable change was the control center that replaced the older and more "traditional" slide-bar.
 |
| Vivo OriginOS (S.I. Frankie Tech) |
The first OriginOS was revolutionary compared to the old and outdated FuntouchOS. It felt new, it meant a new life for the newer Vivo devices. But it was restricted to China only models when it first came out. But eventually, they improved upon this UI and made it a much better offering compared to the global FuntouchOS. In short, they made the already excellent UI better for 5 years before the global launch.
OriginOS was so good that there was a spark among the global smartphone community to make the UI global. And finally, Vivo gave the global market OriginOS 6, the latest and probably one of the most up-to-date and good looking UI in the market. And this launch marked the end of FuntouchOS.
FuntouchOS vs OriginOS: The definition of significant difference
OriginOS has introduced some significant difference compared to the outdated FuntouchOS when it first launched.
The first release of OriginOS, introduced stuff like the control center, a new clean launcher, mood cube, and a lot of other features that we are appreciating in the latest version of OriginOS. Meanwhile, FuntouchOS was basically unchanged for a very long time. Only the last version of the FuntouchOS (15) had borrowed some elements from its younger sibling. But fortunately, that was the last version of this outdated global UI.
Here are some notable differences of OriginOS compared to FuntouchOS:
Icons
 |
| OriginOS (4) icons |
Although recent FuntouchOS versions have borrowed a lot of the icons from OriginOS, almost anyone can still see a difference between the icon packs just by looking at them even without the other UI elements.
Control center:
 |
| OriginOS 6 control center (S.I. Vivo) |
OriginOS has a lot of game changing features, and one of them is the control center. Compared to the navigation bar of the old FuntouchOS, the control center is light years ahead in terms of looks and functionality. The most notable difference are the placement of the brightness and the volume bar, big transparent toggles/buttons. They are easy to reach and elegant to look. And the ring profiles (silent, vibration mode) are in a single bar and easy to enable/disable. And there are even useful widgets like the local music player controller. Also, last but not least, it's highly customizable. And it looks very similar to the navigation bar (or whatever it's called, I don't remember properly) of the iOS. Simply, it's one of the best UI designs for smartphone navigation.
Customization
OriginOS live customization
 |
| OriginOS live customization |
The customization is the part where OriginOS really shines above its predecessor. There are numerous kinds, levels, layers of customization in OriginOS. The best part about OriginOS is the on-the-fly customization and gesture apps/utilities baked into the UI. Customizing the UI elements and seeing the result live in the home screen is one of the most satisfying user experience anyone can have. The live customization can be done through the console (mainly for changing the power power profiles) and the mood cube (by pressing the home screen for a short time). The touch gestures can be configured from the interaction option by short pressing any empty space of the home screen.
And that's not all you can also Get a lot of other free and paid third-party themes featured in the themes app pre-installed in the UI. And not just themes, the app can also allow to change the stock icon pack, wallpapers, fonts, AOD and a lot more UI elements with a third-party free or paid one. So the customization of OriginOS has its own ecosystem.
And on the other hand, FuntouchOS just has some basic customization compared to its younger sibling. But to be fair, FuntouchOS 15 actually has some customization options but it's clearly nowhere near the level of in-depth customization that OriginOS offers. So OriginOS takes the next-gen cake easily from its older brother.
Wallpapers and widgets
Performance
 |
| Global intelligent scheduling of OriginOS 6 (S.I. Vivo) |
Performance difference between OriginOS and FuntouchOS is a little interesting. These two have different schedulers (or at least different scheduler names). The newer OriginOS features the global intelligent scheduling which boosts performance by a "noticeable-ish" according to Vivo. And from my experience, even the older OriginOS 4 feels very smooth even though OriginOS from the very first version, is a relatively animation-heavy UI.
It's safe to say that the developers of OriginOS did a solid job of optimizing the UI and making it's animations and overall every other UI components very smooth, fast and satisfying. And in addition to the smooth experience of the UI, Vivo also uses Memory Fusion to efficiently manage the precious memory of the phone.
And in the meantime, The older FuntouchOS also used its own performance boosting technologies for a smoother experience. But for me, as far as I've experienced, OriginOS takes the cake for handling those new heavy but also fluid animations with ease, no matter if it's a 350 buck old Z9 Turbo or a flagship-garde X300. OriginOS always seems to be decently optimized in therms of smoothness and app performance and one step ahead from FuntouchOS.
Conclusion
This is one the most easiest conclusions to pull off. OriginOS is basically a next gen refresh of the Vivo's old outdated and boring FuntouchOS. Lots of new customization options, new OS optimizations and memory management, new icon pack, new and quite well thought out animations, revamped and vastly improved gestures and a lot more improvements over its predecessors.
And according to the community, they are heading to the right direction by releasing OriginOS globally.