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OnePlus will bring Android P to the OnePlus 3 and 3T, skipping Android 8.1 Oreo
- The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T will get an Android P update at some point in the future.
- This means that the two devices will not ever receive an official update to Android 8.1 Oreo.
- We don’t know when the OnePlus 3/3T will get Android P, but it could be by the end of the year.
A post on the OnePlus forum today from OxygenOS operations manager Gary C. confirmed that the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 3T will get Android P at some point after its stable release.
This joins previous confirmations that the OnePlus 6, OnePlus 5, and OnePlus 5T, would also receive Android P upgrades.
However, those three devices are all already on Android 8.1 Oreo, while the OnePlus 3/3T is still on Android 8.0 Oreo. This means that OnePlus is skipping an Android 8.1 Oreo release for the 3/3T, jumping straight to Android 9.0.
Gary C. also clarified that the OnePlus Android P rollout will go in descending order, so the first device will be the OnePlus 6 (which already has access to the beta versions of Android P), then the OnePlus 5/5T, and finally the OnePlus 3/3T.
The decision to skip Android 8.1 Oreo for the OnePlus 3/3T came about after “internal discussions and evaluation.” Gary C. said that “[focusing] our development resources on the Android P project instead of upgrading the device to Android 8.1 [enables us to] offer more exciting features and improvements for our OnePlus 3 and 3T users.”
While the release date of a stable version of Android P is currently unknown, it’s likely that we’ll see a launch in either late August or September. Therefore, it is feasible that OnePlus 3/3T owners could see an Android P upgrade before the end of 2018, although a safer bet is early 2019.
It is refreshing to see OnePlus support older devices in this fashion, considering the OnePlus 3 is over two years old at this point, which is the industry-standard cutoff for device support. It’s also interesting considering that no one has been able to buy a OnePlus 3 device direct from the company since the end of 2016 when the OnePlus 3T was announced. That device was only sold for about eight months before the OnePlus 5 launched in the summer of 2017.
NEXT: How to install Android P on your phone: A step-by-step guide