Android L offers remarkable battery life, but it’s no faster than KitKat

Android L is Google’s biggest update to its mobile OS yet, and it’s claimed to offer a host of new features and performance enhancements that we just couldn’t wait to get our hands on. So obviously we installed the Android L developer preview on our Nexus 5. Also see: Android L release date and new featuresBut does it really offer those claimed performance enhancements? Project Volta and the new ART runtime built into Android L does indeed make for an impressive boost to battery life – for example, Ars Technica measured an increase from 345- to 471 minutes for the Nexus 5. That’s amazing. How else does Android L differ from KitKat? Check out our Android L vs KitKat video preview

But what about other aspects of performance, and is it worth upgrading your phone or tablet to a potentially buggy beta OS to benefit from those enhancements now? From our own experience of Android L, we’d say probably not. Particularly given that some popular third-party apps, for instance Dropbox, just don’t play nicely with the OS right now (understandably, of course). Also see: First Android L screenshots