OnePlus One was released in 2014 and going by current industry ‘standards’, the device is not really expected to be among the recipients of the latest Android Nougat OS.
However, a new Geekbench report begs to disagree with this belief as the flagship seems to be undergoing tests with the new Android Nougat on board. There is no doubt that this news will evoke huge excitements among current owners of this OnePlus One handset, but it is also possible that the leaked tests could be for a custom ROM based on the said Android Nougat OS.
Other than the fact that OnePlus One is more than two years old, the device is powered by a Snapdragon 801 SoC. If your memory serves you right, you should be familiar with this Qualcomm processor as far as Android Nougat is concerned. Initially, Sony Xperia Z3, which is powered by the same processor, was part of the Nougat beta testing team. However, things changed when the fifth and final developer preview version of the OS was released, where the device was no longer supported. This even prompted a petition to force Qualcomm into releasing drivers for this chipset so as to allow Android Nougat to run, but this has not yielded results up to now.
What this means is that the likes of OnePlus X, LG G3, HTC One M8, and Samsung Galaxy S5 will not be considered for the new Android Nougat update. Another conclusion that we can draw from this report is that the Geekbench report could be showing off a Nougat custom ROM for this OnePlus One phone, but there probably won’t be any OTA update.
On the same Android Nougat and OnePlus lane, the company has confirmed that OnePlus 3 users will be able to get the OTA update of the new OS. Well, this is expected given that the phone is just a few months old. If all is well, OnePlus 3 users should start receiving Android Nougat before the end of December. As for OnePlus 2, the OS should also come, but this could happen at some point in 2017.