The new Android 16 beta has started to drain smartphones’ batteries even faster, although it was supposed to fix this

Google released a preview of Android 16 beta 2.1 on February 27, which was supposed to fix a battery draining bug in the previous build of the OS. Android 16 beta 2.1 is not a major update, but a rolling update that mostly fixes bugs. But it appears to have slipped in a bug that causes batteries to drain even faster.

Image source: android.com

Several volunteers who decided to test Android 16 beta 2.1 reported in the Reddit community that they encountered serious problems in this version – batteries began to discharge too quickly, and this affected all compatible Google Pixel smartphones. In some cases, the situation worsened to such an extent that the phones had to be charged twice a day. In one case, the battery on the phone discharged to 63% in less than a day with 1 hour and 32 minutes of screen time.

The irony is that the rapid battery drain was a problem introduced in Android 16 beta 2.0, and beta 2.1 was apparently intended to fix it. In some cases, it actually got worse. But not for everyone: Other users, on the contrary, confirmed that the rapid battery drain issue has finally disappeared. One lucky user noted that the battery showed 57% charge after the screen was on for more than five hours.

The public release of Android 16 is scheduled for June, a Google employee confirmed earlier. The company has switched to a new code development model that should now allow major platform updates to be released more quickly.