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Android 11 may be slowing down some smartphones like the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4 XL

The Pixel 4a may run faster on Android 10 than Android 11. (Image source: Google)
The Pixel 4a may run faster on Android 10 than Android 11. (Image source: Google)
Android 11 may be slowing down smartphones like the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4 XL, HotHardware has discovered. The two Google smartphones perform demonstrably worse in benchmarks running Android 11 than they do on Android 10; the website is not the only one to be complaining of slowdowns on Android 11, either.

HotHardware has published some disturbing benchmarks comparing the performance of Android 10 and Android 11 on Pixel smartphones. Only a few devices have received Android 11 so far apart from Pixels, such as the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro. Others, like the Pixel 5, are launching on Android 11, making comparisons hard.

Nonetheless, HotHardware has demonstrated in multiple benchmarks that the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4 XL perform better on Android 10 than they do on Android 11. The Pixel 4a fared slightly better the photo editing portion of Futuremark PCMark on Android 11 than on Android 10, but this is as good as it gets for the two Pixel devices. HotHardware recorded performance drops varying between 3% and 33% depending on the benchmark.

HotHardware stresses that it reproduced these results after factory resetting both devices. Additionally, the website claims to have performed all benchmarks with the latest app, OS and security updates installed. There have been similar complaints on Google support forums, Reddit and within the comments section of HotHardware's article too.

There is a chance that these complaints of slowdowns are all isolated cases, of course. However, the fact that HotHardware has been able to reproduce these performance differences suggests that something more is at play than rogue software.

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(Image source: HotHardware)
(Image source: HotHardware)
(Image source: HotHardware)
(Image source: HotHardware)
(Image source: HotHardware)

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2020 10 > Android 11 may be slowing down some smartphones like the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4 XL
Alex Alderson, 2020-10-14 (Update: 2020-10-16)