Matisyahu's Blog

Rather than waiting for it to eventually arrive in my country I decided to download and manually install the upgrade to Nothing OS 2.5.2 by using the direct download link (link) (I’ll do a factory reset later on so that I can clear off all the old cruft and set it up like a new phone. I do a factory install after a big upgrade because it removes the possibility of any lingering issues impacting the reliability).

Here are the ‘About Phone’ -> ‘Android Version’ before and after screenshot – both the kernel and baseband version have been updated as well along with the Android security update being bumped up to January 2024.

So far things have been very stable, no apps are broken, all the functionality of Android is working, no decline in battery life and the performance is ever so slightly better than 2.0.5 (based on Android 13). As for my Android journey going forward, I think I’m going to wait until the Pixel 9 Pro comes out towards the end of this year which will hopefully have Android 15 but at this stage of development I don’t see anything radical happening Android space other than improving its adaptability to different form factors (see Android on tablets). This makes sense as the wider market of phones and tablets operating systems are maturing to the point that the major leaps in the past have been eclipsed by incremental quality of life improvements rather than radical changes and upheavals.