Hello everyone and welcome to the channel. And today is a big day for Pixel users as Google released the stable version of Android 16 QPR2 along with December 2025 Pixel drop. But this video will be dedicated to the new features in QPR2. And here I have the 10 Pro XL to show you all the new changes and later I will make another video to talk about the new features in December 2025 Pixel drop. So without further ado, let's jump in. Let's start with the update size. As usual here on the 10 Pro XL, it's BP4A.251205.006, but I don't have the update size because Google didn't push it to any of my phones through the OTE update just yet. And now, let's talk about the new features. The first thing to talk about is the lock screen. On the left, I have November update. And on the right, I have December update. And the first thing I noticed is the new clock animation. when you tap on it along with a haptic feedback. Keep in mind that this new animation only works if you have the default clock style enabled.
Not only this, but if you have your phone unlocked like this without swiping up, when you tap on the wallpaper, you get the same animation with the same haptic feedback if you have the shapes effect enabled. But the most exciting change here is the lock screen widgets. All you need to do is to swipe to the left side from your lock screen and you will get access to the widgets. You can create multiple pages if you want and you will see that the lock screen will be blurred when you swipe to the left. And when you tap on any empty space like this, it will take you to the editing mode. From here, you can do multiple things like the ability to remove any of these widgets by tapping on them like this and then use the remove button at the top. You can resize the widget. You can only adjust the height, but the width will always remain edge to edge as you see here. And then you can also reorder the widgets by dragging them over as you normally would on the home screen.
And if you want to add any new widget, you can tap on the add widget button at the top left corner, which will show you the redesigned widgets picker, which I'm going to talk about later. You have here the featured widgets. And if you want to browse all of them, you can go to the next tab. And this is how it works. Once you are happy with the changes, you need to tap on the done button at the top right corner. There is also something called hub mode. Once you plug your phone to the charger while having the screen saver feature disabled, it will automatically show you the lock screen widgets like this. And if you want to get back to normal, just press on the power button once. But if you have the screen saver feature enabled, it will automatically override the hub mode and show the screen saver instead. In the beta versions of QPR2, we used to have the option to turn off the hub mode that automatically shows your lock screen widgets, which no longer exists, but you still can turn off the widgets on lock screen feature entirely by going to settings and then display and touch and then lock screen.
And here you will find a new menu item called widgets on lock screen that you can turn on or off. And when you go inside, you will see that this feature is currently in beta along with the same switch over here. Looking at the description, it says when you open an app using a widget, you will need to verify it's you, which is expected. Also, keep in mind that anyone can view them. So, try to avoid using this feature with widgets that will show sensitive information like the keep notes for example, as it might show some of your notes on the lock screen which anyone can see without the need to unlock the phone. and try to use it mainly with apps that show generic information. So that's it with the lock screen. Now let's talk about the home screen. And again on the left I have November update.
The first thing you will notice here is the more vibrant colors used in the search widget. I'm using the same exact wallpaper with the same color palette and you can see the difference in the background color. Plus the buttons are now bigger and they are using a black color instead of the color palette. only Google icon is adhering to the color palette but anything else is in black color. The second change is QPR2 now forces app icons to adhere to the themed design even if the developer doesn't support that feature. And here's the difference between the two. Moving to the app shortcuts, you will see multiple changes.
The first one is the new remove option added to the context menu that will allow you to quickly remove an app like this instead of using the drag and the drop gesture like before. The second change is the new plus button added to each shortcut. That will also make it easier for you to add it to your home screen. The third change is the app shortcuts on your home screen now support themed icons. And by this, Google refined the themed icons experience across the pixel launcher.
The third change, when you tap and hold on any app in the app drawer, you also get an option to add to home screen. And by the way, you still can use the drag and drop gesture on the newer version, but now you have two options. And the last change in this chapter is the ability to change the icons shape by going to the wallpaper and the style app. Scroll down and then go to icons. And here you will see five different shapes to choose from. And here is how they look.
So that's it with the home screen. Now let's talk about the recent apps screen which got two new changes in the split screen mode. The first one is the new haptic feedback you get when you change the size. You get a haptic feedback with every step like this. The second change is the new 90 to 10 ratio. And by this you will have more space for the main app and you can quickly switch to the other app like this which is a really nice feature. Now it's time to talk about the redesigned widgets picker. Again a sideby-side comparison with November update. So when I open it on both the first thing you will notice here is the suggested widgets at the top is now a whole new tab called featured with a star icon next to it. But for anything else, you need to go to the browse tab, and we got this new animation when you switch between them.
The second change is the smaller drop-down arrow with a fill color around it. Plus, when you tap on any of the categories, you will see a more refined animation. It's a lot smoother than the Jumpy animation that we used to have. Plus, when you tap on the search bar at the top, now we have a back button that takes you to the widgets picker and it hides anything on the screen when you tap on it. While previously tapping on it keeps everything in place, but now it takes you to a different page. And when you look closely, you will see that Google is now using a smaller font for the categories, which looks a lot better in my opinion. Also, we got a brand new widget called users that you can add to your home screen to switch between the installed ones.
It will first show you the current active user with the profile picture. You can switch between them by tapping on this button. You can add a new user from here or go to the users settings page by tapping on the gear icon. Last but not least, when it comes to scrolling, there are two new changes. As you see, when I start to scrolling on the newer version, the widgets header doesn't disappear like before. Plus, the scroll bar that we used to have here on the right is no longer available. So, that's it with the widgets picker. Now, let's compare the notifications shade and quick settings. The first thing you'll notice here, if you have multiple media players from two different apps, in this case, I have YouTube and YouTube Music. You will notice the two arrows that you will get on the left and right to switch between the players. Then instead of only using the swipe gesture like before, now you have a new way and the arrows will make everything in between smaller than the previous version.
The second the change when you tap and hold on any of the notifications now you'll see a new feedback button at the top right corner that used to be broken in the beta versions of QPR2, but now it works. When I tap on it, it says send feedback to Google about the notification organizer. And there is a check box here at the bottom says Google may use this feedback to improve these features subject to Google privacy policy. And you can view the data that will be shared with Google and you can check the box if you want.
So, it seems like this new feedback button is related to the notification organizer which is part of December 2025 pixel drop which I didn't get yet on any of my Pixel devices. The third change when you go to the notification history, you will see that each notification is now separated in its own container instead of having one container for everything like before. Moving to the quick settings, there are some tweaks. The first one is the bigger gap between the clock and the date. same as the network name and the status bar icons. Also, when you go to the home controls, you will see a bigger margin between the home bar and the controls container, which is hard to see on camera because this page is in dark theme. And when you compare the data saver icon, as you see, it got a new design with QPR2.
And also, when you go to the editing page and make any changes, you will see a redesigned undo button. Now let me show you some random tweaks here and there before talking about the new changes under settings. And the first one is related to quick share. Now you have the ability to bring the two phones together to start the sharing process. And when I talked about this feature in my QPR2 beta 3.2 video, I received a lot of comments saying that this is an old feature and it's not new. But let me prove to you that this is a new feature related to QPR2. Now I'm using the same exact phones I was using in my QPR2 beta 3.2 video. But the only difference that this phone is now running the stable version. So when I try to do the same exact gesture on the phones now the feature doesn't works. So let me bring the quick share over here.
And when I bring them together nothing happens. But when you take a look at this snippet from my previous video, you will see that the feature works only if you have the QPR2 build installed on your device. In the volume controls, you will see two new changes. The first one is the live captions button that appears under the volume slider.
Even though I have the live caption in volume control option activated on both, but only in QPR2, we have it over here. And when you expand the volume panel on both, you will see here that the curvature got updated and instead of being very uh rounded like before, now it matches the device curvature. Before jumping to the next chapter, let me show you the latest pack added to the wallpapers by in-depth take reviews app. I used most of them throughout the video to show you how they look in real life. And by the way, you can download any of these wallpapers locally on device, which will allow you to apply the Android 16 wallpaper effects on them. If you interested in my wallpapers, you will find the Google Play Store link in the description to download the app. And now, let's get back to the video. Now, it's time to talk about all the new changes under settings. And I will start with the network and security page. The first change you will notice is in the name. Google is now using the amber sand instead of the and word and you will see this in multiple places under settings like the hotspot and tethering as well.
But what's new here is the mobile network security menu that didn't exist before. When you go inside, you will see two toggles. The first one called network notifications. It says get notified when your device connects to an unencrypted network or when a network records your unique device or SIM ID. And the second one is for the 2G network protection which will block your phone from connecting to 2G networks which are less secure. This one is not new. We used to have it as well in November update but it was located under SIMs. And then you go inside your SIM card.
When you scroll all the way down, you will see the same toggle over here under connected devices. I see a new battery indicator for my Pixel Watch. I don't have a Pixel Watch connected to the other device to show you the difference, but this is how it looks. Now another small visual tweak is under the connection preferences and then NFC and we got this new graphical representation under the notifications menu. We also got two minor tweaks. The first one is the rename of the dismiss notifications across Pixel devices to notification dismissal sync and both work exactly the same. Also flash notifications got this new description that says get started with a camera or screen flash for notifications and alarms under sound and vibration. and then vibration and haptics. You will see a new description explaining what is it for. Plus, when you go inside, you will see these incremental volume sliders. It works exactly the same as before, but now you can immediately see how many steps you have, which didn't exist before. Under display and touch, we got a killer feature called enhanced HDR brightness.
When you go inside, you will be able to adjust how bright is the HDR content when compared to the SDR content. And here you have a sideby-side comparison with a slider to make the HDR content either dimmer or brighter. Or you can turn off the feature entirely and make the brightness even for everything. Under the lock screen menu, we have the widgets on lock screen toggle, which I already covered in the lock screen chapter. But we also got a brand new feature under the dark theme called expanded. And this one will force dark theme on apps that doesn't support it when you activate the toggle. So now you can choose between a standard or expanded which will force all apps to view content in dark theme. The display size and text menu now shows all the options listed underneath it on the front page.
And when you go inside and scroll all the way down, you will see a brand new send feedback button. Moving to the navigation mode, you will see a minor design tweak here. Google added an arrow next to the description to let you know that you have a page under this menu item. Under the screen saver page, we got multiple tweaks. The first one is the when to show menu is now located at the top instead of the bottom. And when you go inside, you will see more options like while upright and charging or you can restrict it to wireless charging. Plus, we got a brand new menu here called low light mode. And the description says low light clock will show when your environment is dark. And when you tap on it, you will see the toggle over here.
Moving to system and then date and time. Now we have a new toggle called time zone change. And this one will send you a notification when your time zone is automatically updated. Moving to the developer options. When you scroll down a bit, you will see that the boot with 16 KB page size option got removed. Moving to the security and the privacy. The first change is the material 3 expressive support. Secondly, when you go inside the app security, you will see a brand new option added here called live threat detection.
And the description says continuously scans your apps to detect suspicious behavior and alerts you if threats are detected. And here you will see more information about the feature. All sub menus under the security and the privacy page also got updated. Plus, when it requires entering your PIN code, you will see this redesigned page with the lock icon centered and the enter your device PIN text is in bold and different plus there is a border around the text box under privacy controls and then health connect. You will see a new option here called devices. And this one will allow you to use your phone as a step counter, not only the connected preference. And when it comes to the digital well-being and the parental controls menu, it's now separated into two separate items.
When you go to the digital well-being, it's exactly the same on both. But we no longer have the parental controls section that takes you to the family link app. when you tap on any of the items on the screen. But currently, when you go to the parental controls menu, you have access to everything from here without the need to go to the Family Link app like the daily limits, app limits, and so on and so forth.
But if you still want to access the Family Link app, you get a quick shortcut over here under accessibility and then color and motion, you will see a brand new toggle here called reduce blur effects. So, normally when you swipe up to open the app drawer or swipe down to open the notifications shade, you see a blur effect. But once you turn on this toggle, this blur effect is completely gone as you see here. Plus, all the menu items under this page got a description to make them easier to understand, which wasn't the case before. Now, let's talk about the performance and the stability of this build. Based on my experience while filming this video on the 10 Pro XL. From my experience, everything works as expected. No major bugs or issues that I came across and the app launching speed is as good as expected as well. When it comes to the Geekbenches score, I got 6,269 for the multi-core and 2313 for the single core, which is noticeably better than the previous beta versions. Now, let's end this video by talking about a couple of bugs I spotted while filming the video which are not major and both of them are related to the media controls.
The first one, when I tap on the media output switcher, you will see a big delay here in the animation. Plus, when I expand the quick settings, the media controls is not perfectly aligned. So, that's pretty much it for today. These are all the new features in Android 16 QPR2. Please let me know in the comments if I missed anything. I'll also create a follow-up video talking about the new features in December 2025 pixel drop right after this video. So, make sure to subscribe and hit the bell icon to get notified when it's ready. But for now, thanks so much for watching and see you in the next
