Android 5.1 Lollipop Said to Boost Google Nexus 6 Performance, Battery Life

A developer has tipped changes in Android 5.1 that are responsible for the perceived boost in the performance of the Nexus 6.

While a number of changes have been observed beyond the official changelog of Android 5.1 Lollipop, which started rolling out earlier this month, a few new changes have been reported by a developer that optimise the performance and battery life of the Google Nexus 6.

According to Francisco Franco, a developer, Google has made some changes in Android 5.1 Lollipop for the Nexus 6 smartphone which makes it faster. The developer states that after the update, all the four cores in Snapdragon 805 run all the time. Previously some cores were left idle based on the performance load, and the change apart from boosting performance while all cores are in use is said to save time by not activating cores based on need.

Of course, the reason for not running all cores at the same time was to conserve battery life. With all cores running simultaneously, an obvious drop in battery life is to be expected, rather than a boost. However, Google appears to have made adjustments to ensure battery life is boosted instead of adversely affected.

Franco in his Google+ account added that Android 5.1 Lollipop also disables the built-in thread migration boost routines. For those unaware, this Qualcomm feature boosted the clock speed of core A when it was handed a thread from core B to reduce perceived lag. The disabling of this feature has reportedly also resulted in a battery life boost. "So these two changes balance themselves out, and I can imagine that 100 percent stock users will be pleasantly surprised by the improved battery life," he added.

The developer also points to improvements in Android Runtime (ART) and framework optimisations for the performance boosts. He adds, "I don't know what other improvements they did on the Kernel, the source is not up yet, this is all I know for now."

Officially, Android 5.1 Lollipop brings support for multiple SIM cards, Device Protection and HD voice on compatible devices. Apart from this, Android 5.1 Lollipop is said to have brought several changes under settings section, fixes for crashing of apps and numerous notification improvements, the details of which can be seen in our previous reports.

Last week, Google acknowledged a memory leak issue in Android 5.1, and said it had created a fix internally but did not provide a time-frame for release. The fix is expected to make its way to users with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The firm might also be planning its own VPN service for Android users, if recently reported details about changes in Android 5.1 Lollipop are to be believed.