Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Makes Your Old Galaxy Nexus Feel Like New Again [VIDEO]
Wondering what your Galaxy Nexus will look like once it’s gotten Jelly Bean 4.1? Chris and the gang have pulled the upgrade down to their Google I/O-provided handsets to take a look at how this operating system performs on phones. Chris focuses on Project Butter’s ability to make the Galaxy Nexus’ dated (but still not bad) processor look like it’s a quad-core beast.
He also gives us a look at the new camera preview features and shows us an option to boot into safe mode. Of course, if you want to try any of these features out yourself on your Galaxy Nexus there’s no need to use the shoddy Android emulator: find more details about how you can install it on your own Galaxy Nexus right here. Here’s what Chris had to say about the update:
If there was one feature I was most excited about it in the new Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update, it was Project Butter. This was something I even passed along to Matias Duarte in my chat with him, right before he told me that I was his favorite part of Android 4.1, kissed me on the forehead and exploded into a pile of jelly beans (that last part may, or may have not actually happened).
When Android 4.0 first came onto the scene, it was supposed to address some of the stutters and choppiness that have long been associated with older versions of the Android UI, and although it did make things smoother in some areas, it was inconsistent. For instance, app drawer was smooth (although some stutters on the Galaxy Nexus), but the homescreen remained choppy as all heck. Of course, I shrugged this off thinking this meant nothing more than I needed to get myself a new phone with a more powerful processor.
We’ve seen Jelly Bean running on the Nexus 7, and it was pretty much a no brainer as to why it was so smooth — it’s powered by a freakin’ Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, with 12-core GPU, for goodness sakes. Butter or not, the UI on Ice Cream Sandwich with a Tegra is smooth as silk (but still not butter). What I really wanted to know was, how well this “butter” would translate to the aging Galaxy Nexus and it’s fairly weak dual-core processor (complimented by an even weaker GPU).
Late last night, the Galaxy Nexus (the one we got from Google I/O) received its Jelly Bean OTA update and I wanted to show you guys the new user experience on the phone, and see if Project Butter would live up to the hype. Did it fall short? Is Project Butter on the Galaxy Nexus nothing more than “Project Stutter?” Watch the video and find out.
