A few months ago, OnePlus revealed the OnePlus 8 Series. Later, they even revealed a mid-range device – OnePlus Nord. And now, the leaks suggest that the OnePlus 8T will be launching soon – probably without the OnePlus 8T Pro. As more and more devices are being included in the OnePlus line-up, the updates are getting worse for older devices.
As of now, we have a few OnePlus devices with us. The oldest one which is still supposed to be supported by OnePlus is the OnePlus 5. And well, we have that too. However, it doesn’t feel good when we see that the device is still on the April Security Patch – which is about 5 months old. And the last update that arrived on the device was in May 2020 – for Android 10.
As per OnePlus Software Maintenance Schedule – which was promised, the support for the OnePlus 5 Series hasn’t ended. They promised 2 years of “Regular Software Maintenance” updates – which included major Android Version Updates. In addition to that, they promised a total of 3 years of Android Security Patches – which according to their own words would be updated every 2 months. Now, one must note that this time frame is counted from the release date of the T-Series device.
OnePlus 5T – which is the T-Series device in the OnePlus 5 Series was launched on November 2017. So, according to that, OnePlus 5 as well as 5T should be receiving updates for almost 2 more months. And we are quite sure that OnePlus might just provide one more update to the OnePlus 5 Series users to “keep” that promise.
However, it seems like OnePlus forgot the time period in between those updates. Not providing regular security patches to the older devices means they are breaking their own promise. Also, when you aren’t updating the device for about 4-5 months, you aren’t really keeping the promise of providing “regular” updates and security patches. Instead of providing updates every 2 months for security patches, OnePlus hasn’t provided one even after 5 months.
Now, let’s compare it with another device which was launched in September 2017 – Mi A1. Currently, the Mi A1 is on August Security Patch – but on Android 9. That might not be the best thing. But when you consider that the Mi A1 was almost one-third of the price of OnePlus 5/5T on launch, this looks pretty great.
Yes, Mi A1 runs on Android One – which promises regular updates and security patches. But the difference is that while Xiaomi is keeping that promise with Mi A1, OnePlus isn’t.
UPDATE
OnePlus has just released a statement explaining why the update has been delayed. According to OnePlus, there was a serious bug found with the “communication” module and hence the next stable update was delayed for an “indefinite” period.
However, that still doesn’t explain why the updates for security patches are being delayed. And well, they could’ve just provided security patch as an updates if there’s some problem in implementing new features. As of now, there’s still no clear date on when OnePlus 5 Series will receive new update.
