With Android 15 now rolling out to the Pixel 6, 7, 8, and 9 series, we’re wondering if you area seeing smoother performance after updating.
The latest stable release of an Android update always has some caveats. For whatever reason, some people are not seeing all of the features touted in this latest update on their phones, tablets, and foldables. It’s not clear if this is due to device limitations, but a couple of things were removed with the stable release, including Device Diagnostics, Adaptive Timeout, and Cellular Network Security settings.
From a user-facing perspective, Android 15 isn’t the biggest update we’ve had from Google. It includes lots of little under-the-hood tuning and tweaks, but the feature set is more refined than ever before. Since Android 12, Google has continued to build on the huge Material You overhaul. If you were expecting huge, sweeping changes, then rightly or wrongly, this isn’t the update you were waiting for. If you want to learn more about the core system changes, then Google’s developer-focused documentation can be found here.
Some of the highlights include the brand new Private Space, volume panel redesign, better controls for display and vibration-based feedback, plus even more privacy-focused controls to protect you while using a Pixel. Lots of the functionality is merely just refinements for existing things in Android 14. Visually, you might not even notice a difference as the “core” of Android 15 remains unchanged from a user perspective, but it’s designed to be smoother and easier to access specific controls.
While the Pixel series is known for smooth performance, Android 15 could help substantially with the recently released 9 series. For the first time, Google launched a smartphone without the most-up-to-date operating system. As a result, we’ve been highly anticipating the release.
If you have installed that latest OTA, are you seeing any performance-related improvements? Is your device running smoother with Android 15? For what it’s worth, several of the team here at 9to5Google agree that the general experience feels snappier and smoother since downloading or sideloading the full Android 15 OTA.
Let us know if you are seeing improvements to your phone using the survey below – or leave a comment with your initial thoughts.
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