Google unveiled the successor to Android 4.4 KitKat at its I/O last week, and apart from the major UI changes, said it had made several tweaks to improve a device's battery life. 'Project Volta' as it has been christened includes a new API that schedules minor tasks better and ART, which is a much more efficient app runtime.
Now that the Android L developer preview has been out for some time, ARS Technica has really put Google's latest software through its paces, and done tests to see if all those battery saving claims are actually true. The verdict? Running a device on Android L saw a 36% improvement in battery life when compared to KitKat.
Those results are pretty similar to what many XDA users found, while there were also the odd cases where battery life was significantly reduced. Those hiccups were most likely beta stage bugs, as some users reported WhatsApp contributing to 15% of their battery use.
While nothing is a 100 per cent certain at this stage and there are a lot of bugs that need to be ironed out on Android L, we're certainly excited to see the improvements Google's all-new mobile OS brings us.
