Ok, now that I’ve had the new Android 4.2.2 System Update for a week on my Nexus 7, I’ve had a chance to try it out for size and find out what’s new.
Not much major changes, I’m afraid to report. No earthshaking new stuff. But there are some great improvements and bug fixes under the hood, some of which people have been waiting a long time for.
One nice fix is the one for stuttering Bluetooth audio, which I hear, apparently, has finally been fixed. I say ‘apparently’ because I, for one, haven’t had this problem with my gadget, so I can’t really say either way. Some folk have long reported that connecting devices to Bluetooth-enabled headphones or speakers have resulted in occasionally stuttering audio, and now the update has finally resolved this problem.
An improvement they also added is better, enhanced control for a few settings under the Notification Bar. Now you can long-press some settings like Wifi, Airplane mode and Bluetooth and you can activate or deactivate them directly. No need to wade through the settings.
Another improvement is the addition of more information in the install window when you’re adding apps. It used to be that they just showed a progress bar, but now it shows the time remaining to completion and a percentage counter as well. Cool.
One of the better improvements for me is the upping of battery life for the Nexus 7 (and I assume for other gadgets as well), from an expected seven to eight hours to a wonderful nine to 10 hours of power. My Nexus has been squeezing an average of eight hours of charge prior to the 4.2.2 update, but now I’m observing better battery life. Lately, I’ve been getting a little over 11 hours as a matter of fact, even slightly better than the listed estimates. How they did this is a mystery, but I assume they turned off some processes and economized on others to trim down on power consumption.
There are probably a few other bug fixes and improvements, but as of now, this is what I’ve found so far. I’ll be on the lookout for more, and if I find something else I’ll holler.
Android 4.2.2 is an incremental update and doesn’t have a lot of exciting new things, but adds a lot of great system changes, bug fixes and improvements to an already great, dependable operating system.
