Android 10 Q beta review

The release is not without its bugs

It's a beta, so unsurprisingly things aren't well polished at this point, especially since with its release schedule Google still has plenty of time to iron out the kinks. Expect a few more betas, and then a final release at some point in August, if Google reprises its timeline from the past couple of years.

We haven't found any show-stopping bugs on a Pixel 3 we've been using for this beta release review, but the same can't be said about other devices.

The beta is pretty much unusable on an original Pixel XL in this state, with the Play Store continuously crashing and sometimes taking the whole UI with it. And overall, Android Q on the OG Pixel is much slower than Pie, which is saying something - and not something good for how Google's handled keeping its old handsets up and running.

Multiple seconds can sometimes pass between an action being initiated and it actually happening, and a bunch of Settings persistently refused to be changed. So we stuck with only the Pixel 3 for this review, as well as a couple of wildcards - the Realme 3 Pro and the OnePlus 6T. We had these two lying around, and since the beta program for Q has expanded to more third-party phones than ever, we thought we'd give it a spin on those handsets as well, to see how the experience of using a Q beta compares to a Pixel - more on that in the next section on this page.

Going back to bugs on the Pixel 3, the one we've encountered the most is certain settings being changed and then not showing that - despite the intended behavior having actually changed. Conversely, some settings were wrongly labelled in their top-level menu by default. For example, going to Settings > Apps & Notifications > Notifications > Advanced > Swipe actions showed these being "left to dismiss, right to show menu" but the behavior at the time was the opposite. Tapping on "Swipe actions" brings up a pop-up selection tool in which the appropriate choice was actually selected.

Additionally, animations feel quite janky when using the new full screen gesture system (that isn't actually truly full screen because Google hates to accurately and consistently name things). This is true no matter which swipe action you perform, but it's especially bad when you swipe up from the bottom when you're on a home screen - at first the app drawer comes up, but if you pause your swipe then the multitasking menu takes over in a very weird UI move. When using the gesture to go back to your home screen, a lot of times there's lag involved.

These are all things Google can fix by the time Q hits the streets, and the beta can probably be used by a lot of people without any huge issues. That said, things may still break at any time, so it's definitely not recommended to install this on your daily driver unless you're 100% okay with that.

What's different on the other phones

Realme is a very young brand but it's already got one handset in the Android Q beta, and that is the 3 Pro. We've tested how this handles the beta compared to the Pixel 3, and in one word the answer is: worse. Some important things don't work, so while it's nice that you get to test a stock Android beta on more smartphones than ever before, be warned that on anything but a Pixel it performs more like an early alpha version than a reasonably polished beta.

That wouldn't be an issue in and of itself, but it's weird to see the same beta 3 acting so different on another phone. This probably goes to show how much effort Google puts into optimizing its new OS releases for its Pixels - or at least its latest-gen Pixels.

OK, so the Realme 3 Pro's Android Q beta theoretically has the same features as the Pixel 3's Android Q beta, in practice though some things are missing - for example from the Gestures menu in Settings > System. On the Realme, this houses just three options: Jump to camera (by double tapping the power button), System navigation (where you choose whether to use the new "Fully gestural" navigation, the old 2-button navigation, or the even older three-button system), and Prevent ringing (when you press power and volume up together).

Sparse Gestures menu in Settings

On the other hand, on the Pixel 3 the same menu also has a Swipe fingerprint for notifications option, as well as Flip camera (to switch to selfie by double-twisting your phone), Double-tap to check phone, Lift to check phone, and Flip to Shhh (all of these are self-explanatory). Of course Google also adds a toggle for Active Edge, but that's a hardware feature that's missing from the Realme 3 Pro so we weren't expecting to see it anyway. This very detailed list is meant to show that all Android Q beta 3 builds aren't identical, and by using one on a phone that isn't made by Google you are not guaranteed to get the exact same experience as you do on a Pixel.

We observed the same on the OnePlus 6T, only this time around even more features were missing. It seems OnePlus has tried to create an Oxygen OS flavor of the Q beta, and OnePlus' dashboard replaces the Google Discover feed. None of the gesture navigation systems was available on the phone - not even the basic Pixel ones or OnePlus' custom ones.

And then we have the bugs - which abound from the moment you first set up both non-Pixel phones. Random things like security unlock setting resetting all the time, the vibration turning constantly on, some system hints being always visible without an option to dismiss them, or the multi-tasking menu refusing to appear from the lockscreen. So yes, trying the beta on these two third-party phones has not been smooth sailing and that's understandable.