Your Pixel 10 may feel smoother with the December update

The Pixel 10 series has been around for a few months now, and while the custom TSMC-made Tensor G5 chip is a fascinating slice of silicon, some users felt the graphics performance had a bit more room to stretch its legs.

If you’re one of those, you are going to want to grab the December update immediately.

Why your phone feels smoother after the latest patch

Google has just unleashed Android 16 QPR2, and early reports suggest it brings a boost to general system fluidity. Reddit, as reported by Android Police, is currently seeing multiple comments from owners claiming their devices feel faster.

Here is the weird part, though. If you dig into the settings, the version number for the PowerVR GPU driver hasn’t actually changed. It’s the same one as before, which means there’s no driver update at play here. So, how is this happening? The secret sauce appears to be something called the Generational Concurrent Mark-Compact (CMC) Garbage Collector.

A garbage collector is a background process that cleans up memory your phone isn’t using anymore to keep things running tight. This new system is much better at tidying up without hogging the CPU, which means fewer stutters and better battery life for you.

The numbers back up the feeling, too, as reported by users. While Vulkan scores remained steady, OpenCL performance was boosted significantly in benchmarks.

Speed isn’t the only thing on the menu. You can now access widgets on your lockscreen just by swiping left, which is super handy for checking the weather without unlocking. There is also a smart new notification organiser that bundles up low-priority stuff like “Promotions” at the bottom of your shade so they don’t clutter your day.

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The December update is waiting in your settings now, if you haven’t already done it.