Nokia7 Plus Android update is sweet as pie

By Noel Campion

I’ve always been a sucker for installing the latest updates on my computers and phones and very often install beta software.

Right now I’m testing iOS 12 on my iPad and the beta version of Android 9.0 — newly revealed as Android Pie on the Nokia 7 Plus.

The release version of Pie is now available for Google Pixel devices, just don’t expect it anytime soon for your current Samsung, Sony, HTC, Huawei, etc.

Android Pie has a lot of great new features, so here are some of the best I’ve found so far while testing it on the Nokia 7 Plus.

Each Android revision promises improved battery performance. Pie continues this trend with a new Adaptive Battery feature, which uses Google machine learning to ascertain what apps to prioritise based on your typical usage.

Also, Battery Saver mode now features new options including disabling always-on displays on OLED screens as well as allowing you to restrict apps that use more than their fair share of battery capacity.

2018 has been all about screens with minimal bezels. This is why Apple had to develop new iOS gestures to navigate the OS, sans-home button on the iPhone X.

Android phones are going the same way and Pie has a new gestures option that takes into account phones that don’t have a home button.

This works a little like the iPhone X, so instead of the three navigation icons, you now get a pill-shaped symbol at the base of the screen and a tiny arrow symbol for back.

Tap the pill to go Home from anywhere, or hold it down for the Google Assistant.

You can also swipe up for the new overview screen, which brings up your active apps, lining them up horizontally so that you can just slide between them.

This works nicely on the Nokia 7 Plus, which doesn’t have any physical home button but on-screen icons instead.

By swiping up on the virtual Home Button, I was able to switch between open apps, swipe up again to see all apps and tap once to go home.

You switch between apps by swiping left or right and close them by swiping up.

Swiping all the way to the left reveals the option to clear all open apps. This isn’t revolutionary but feels intuitive and efficient.

Although a small tweak, the new auto-rotate feature is one of my favourites. You can still use the quick menu to lock the screen orientation or allow the system to auto-rotate based on your phones orientation.

Auto rotate is handy most of the time, but when you’re lying down, it’s a real pain when it auto switches to landscape when you want it to stay in portrait.

With Pie, you’ll see a new icon on the right side of the navigation bar when you rotate your phone to landscape with auto rotate off. Tap it to lock in landscape orientation, and it will stay even if you turn back to portrait.

Also new is that your apps drawer will rotate to landscape mode if auto rotate is enabled.

Notifications are essential, yet annoying at times and Pie has some minor tweaks that improve the Android experience.

Like the new Gmail, you get contextual “smart replies” that you can use right from the notifications screen to save time on those less than important messages.

A big bonus is that now those replies don’t disappear when you go to another app.

This means you can hop from one to another app and then come back and finish your reply when you’re finished. The ability to manage notifications has also been simplified making it easier to get control over what you see.

Also, very 2018 is the notch. Now Android Pie embraces the notch with native support — the Nokia 7 Plus doesn’t have a notch so I wasn’t able to see how effective it was, but if you have a phone with one then it’s something to look forward to.

Another welcome tweak is to the system volume, which now appears on the right side of the screen. By default, the media volume changes instead of the ringer when pressing the volume up and down buttons.

The Google Pixels phones are the only phones to get Android Pie right now.

However, a host of new devices are due out in the coming weeks that may come with it out of the box including the Huawei Mate 20 and Nokia 9.

Some manufacturers are slow to roll out new versions of Android, so you’d best check to see if and when your device will get the update.