Android 7.0 Nougat review: an Android version for Android fans

Android Nougat is here and it’s a thing of beauty. It may not have the same dramatic visual overhaul we were first treated to in Android Lollipop two versions ago, but Nougat provides a lot of major improvements and refinements over Marshmallow, along with quite a few nice new usability changes. With that in mind, join us as we run through all the major Android 7.0 features – both user-facing and behind-the-scenes – in our full Android 7.0 Nougat review

A note on the Android 7.0 review

Android 7.0 will be very familiar to anyone that has seen the latest Android N developer preview

Anyone that saw the Android N developer previews will no doubt see a lot of familiar Android Nougat features here. The builds are so similar that if you were running Android N dev preview 5, the official OTA for the Android 7.0 update was a tiny 49.5 MB, compared to 1.1 GB if you updated from Marshmallow

While some of us may have seen large parts of Nougat already, we’ll be approaching this Android 7.0 review from the perspective of a new user – someone who hasn’t “seen it all before”. We want to provide a sweeping overview of Android 7.0 features, but we’ll also draw comparisons to Marshmallow where relevant and provide context with discussion of features that appeared in the pre-release versions of Android N but that didn’t quite make it to the final version

Nougat in a nutshell

If I had to sum Android Nougat up in a nutshell, I’d say that it’s Android putting its roots down. The general feel of Android has become increasingly stable since Lollipop, with less feature flip flopping, fewer performance issues and a greater focus on polish. Nougat is all about extending functionality, improving pre-existing features and further expanding what’s possible in stock Android

As you know, Marshmallow largely maintained the overall look of Lollipop but baked in some big new features like Doze Mode, the fingerprint API and granular permissions. One year on and Nougat follows suit, maintaining the home screen and app drawer design of Marshmallow, but digging even deeper, laying the fundamental groundwork for what is yet to come

There's way more exciting background stuff going on in Nougat than you see on the surface.

There are some new visual features to be sure, with a redesigned Settings menu and notifications area. But there’s also a lot more enhanced functionality and exciting background stuff going on in Nougat than you see on the surface

HARDER

This section will be devoted almost entirely to Nougat’s multi-tasking and split screen functionality. These are arguably the biggest ticket items in Nougat and the ones that will rightfully garner the most attention – and likely cause the most confusion. That’s because as good as Google’s implementation of multi-window mode and other multi-tasking features in Nougat are, they are a little complicated and bound to leave more than a few people behind

Quick switching apps is the best

The quick app switching action is possibly my favorite Nougat feature of all.

Quick switching is basically just shuffling between the two most recently used apps. It works system-wide, so you can quick switch whenever you’re in a full-screen app and you can also use it in the secondary window of split-screen mode

Simply double tap the app overview button and you’ll switch between your two most recent apps in your secondary window. (The same gesture flips )between full-screen apps when not in split-screen mode

The presence of the quick switching action – possibly my favorite Nougat feature of all – thus means you can triple task in multi-window mode. For example, you can be watching a YouTube video in the top window and quick switch between two social feeds in the bottom. Or you can be composing an email in the top pane while simultaneously switching between a note app and a web page in the bottom window. It’s actually pretty awesome