Google just gave its old Pixel phones a huge boost in performance

Companies would love it if you would buy their latest smartphones instead of holding onto your old phone for a long period of time. However, Google might have given Pixel users more reason to hold onto their devices. According to reports, Android 16 is giving older Pixel phones a boost in performance in the GPU department.

According to a post on Reddit, it seems that users are reporting that Android 16 is giving Pixel phones a boost in performance. This prompted user Educational_Leg8005 to install the Android 16 beta on their Pixel 7a phone. After installing, they ran it through Geekbench and saw the Vulcan GPU scores nearly double. The update also boost OpenCL’s scores by more than 75%.

For context, this doesn’t exactly bring the phone on par with Google’s latest Pixel 9 phones. However, it does come pretty close. That being said, a boost in GPU performance doesn’t necessarily mean a boost overall. The benchmarks indicate that CPU performance more or less stayed the same.

However, this could be good news for gamers. A boost in GPU performance means that games should be able to run smoother than before, potentially unlocking higher settings. We should note that Android 16 is still in beta. Google is planning on releasing the update this June, so unless you don’t mind running beta software, we suggest you wait until the public release before installing it on your phone.

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