Everything seems to indicate that the latest trend among operating systems is trying to place an Android build on a desktop computer or a compatible laptop. With a million and a half applications at its disposal, the reasons for doing something like that are obvious, but current projects must work on details such as hardware support and interface optimizations. Phoenix OS is one of those projects, which many users already see as a direct alternative to Remix OS.
Operating systems must above all be inexhaustible sources of stability, compatibility and security, but at the same time they leave us ample room to experiment. With the arrival of virtualization it has become much easier to test beta versions and developments barely out of their digital oven, although there is also the possibility of running them directly from a USB stick with adequate capacity. The latest initiatives based on Android for x86 computers follow that path. Last week we took a close look at Remix OS, which although it carries many interesting ideas, needs to remove some very sharp edges. Today, it is the turn of Phoenix OS, a build from China.
Basically, Phoenix OS presents everything we expect from an Android version prepared for the desktop: a start menu, window management and multitasking support, a notification center very similar to the one we find in Windows 10 (everyone seems to imitate Microsoft at this point), a dock at the bottom, and an integrated file manager. Phoenix OS includes several preinstalled applications, including the WPS Office suite to start working immediately, but there is a small catch: it does not offer access to Google's Play Store. Instead, Phoenix OS developers provide a link to download new apps from a Chinese store (or we can sideload APKs through portals like APKMirror).
Phoenix OS is a variant of Android Lollipop 5.1, and despite what is published on its official site, requires a 64-bit processor and a USB stick of at least 8 GB. The download section provides a utility compatible with Windows that allows us to write the Phoenix OS image (370 MB) to the USB stick, and beyond the Chinese language, it is relatively easy to use. In several aspects, Phoenix OS is shaping up as a much more polished option than Remix OS, but the logical thing here is that each user judges for themselves.
