New Google Pixel update provides big performance boost, improved camera quality and enhanced graphics

Google has released an April update for its smartphones, with the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4A receiving considerable camera and gaming graphics upgrades.

The new update, which began rolling out to devices earlier this week, includes camera quality improvements for “certain” third-party apps, while gamers should also experience “performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps”.

• Google Pixel smartphones compared: What’s the difference?

As noted by some users on Twitter, seen below, post-update benchmark tests also show that the Pixel 5’s overall performance has improved by around  30-50%, which represents a very big jump. 

Turns out the Pixel 5 is now getting way better results in 3DMark. Like in 30-50 percent better compared to a P5 w March patch level. Even the results in general benchmarks like PCMark Work are a bit better (even though in this case really only just a bit). 2/ pic.twitter.com/58Ze5qFE6d

— Andreas Proschofsky (@suka_hiroaki) April 5, 2021

As ever, an array of bug squashes and performance tweaks are also present in the latest update. 

For these two handsets, users should no longer experience freezing on the Google logo during startup. 

And the improvements aren’t exclusive to newer handsets, either. For each phone from Pixel 3 to the Pixel 5, including the ‘A’ equivalents, a connectivity fix should solve the issue whereby VPN users were registering as offline. For this same set of devices, minus the Pixel 5, the occurrence of missing home screen grid options should now be resolved, too. 

All in all, considering the overall performance upgrade seen in some tests, this would appear to be a sneaky-big update. It also follows the big March Pixel update, which featured Smart Compose debuting on messages, underwater photography via Kraken and shareable recordings.