Testing Project Volta: giving Android L in terms of power consumption? – 3DNews

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last update Android, Google introduces another Project, designed to improve a weak side of the platform. As we got Jelly Bean Project Butter – the company wanted to implement smooth animation Android interface with a frequency of 60 frames / s. In it was a KitKat Project Svelte – the goal was to make a passable OS run on devices equipped with only 512 MB of RAM. In the presented recently Android L was implemented a wide range of activities under the name Project Volta, whose main task – to extend battery life Android-devices.

Google as a result of internal tests found that if the average smartphone wake for a second, it will cost two minutes standby. Energy will select not only the inclusion of the screen, but also the transition to the active mode of the processor, check for updates, and so on. To reduce battery consumption in Android L, a new API JobScheduler, which allows the OS to integrate into packets without special importance requests applications such as database cleanup or sending a cloud of the event log. Developers can also defer non-urgent tasks to different the moment when the machine is not connected to the charger. In addition, the OS will not try to wake up the machine for network problems, if there is no network connection.

Google has also implemented an improved statistics on fuel battery Battery Historian. Tool adds a lot of opportunities to monitor energy consumption and visualizes all on a visual chart. Superior analysis gives Google a clearer understanding of the principles of energy consumption, so the company can optimize various tasks for improved OS works with battery.

Finally, the company switched from Dalvik virtual machine on ART – last compiles the application once, and not at every startup. ART also generally much faster and work more effective than Dalvik. In other words, the processor is activated less and, consequently, the battery consumes more carefully.

all sounds fine, but does Project Volta in practice? ArsTechnica staff decided to check it by testing battery consumption. Testing journalists tried to spend as honest: it was carried out on the same device to neutralize the influence of different batteries. Initially, the Nexus 5 was stitched to Android 4.4.4 KitKat, installed applications, thorough charging and testing; then performed the same procedure, only this time with a preliminary version Android L.

During testing, the screen was turned on, updated every 15 seconds a web page on Wi-Fi until the battery is fully discharged. In both cases, the brightness of the screen was displayed using a colorimeter to the level of 200 cd / m 2 . Finally, both the test was conducted twice and the results averaged. What are they?

36% more battery life when using a prerelease version of the new OS. Installing Android L 5 on the Nexus gave for two additional hours of battery life. The tests were conducted on the unit with a slightly worn battery, so the numbers may not fully reflect what what additional runtime Android L can give a new smartphone. But indicative of the difference with Android 4.4.4.

worth noting that there are still Android L battery save function, the activation of which decreases performance of the device, reducing the frequency of screen drawing, background tasks are cut and screen brightness level charge at least 15%. But when testing this feature has been disabled: the task was to understand the level of growth autonomy in full operation. Apparently, when a battery saving mode is activated, you can achieve even longer operating time on a single charge.

It is understood that this is only an early look at the work of Android L battery. The current assembly is preliminary and is intended for developers and enthusiasts, but now we can talk about a significant positive effect on the Android L aspect of this smartphone. Some of the new energy-saving features like Task Scheduler require support from the applications, so that improvements will surely be implemented not only in the operating system itself, but also, at least in the pre-installed applications Google. Anyway, but Android development in this direction is good.

An overview of the interface and other new features, including not completely unambiguous, pre-release Android L can be found in the review by Alexei Drozhzhina.

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