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- Android 17 QPR1 beta 4 is now available
- This includes the Screen Reactions feature that Google recently announced
- Beyond that, it mostly contains bug fixes
Android 17 QPR1 beta 4 has started rolling out, and while this isn’t as feature-packed as the previous beta, it does include one major addition, along with numerous bug fixes.
The feature in question is Screen Reactions, a new tool that was unveiled at the Android Show, and which allows you to take recordings of both yourself and the screen of your phone at the same time.
It will turn on your selfie camera and record you in a movable and resizable window on top of whatever’s on your display, so it’s a really convenient way to record reaction videos without having to manually combine two pieces of footage.
Beating the bugs
But even if reaction videos aren’t your thing, this beta could still be worth grabbing, as it also fixes various bugs, such as one that would cause the mouse pointer to become invisible on external displays, one that causes the settings app to crash, one that causes recording with the 5x camera to exhibit frame jumps and jitter, and one that causes “severe 3D performance drops”, among others.
Of course, these are fixes for issues in the previous beta, so if you’re not already running an Android 17 beta, you might just be introducing more bugs by downloading this, rather than fixing any — but you will gain new features too, like the one above.
If you do want to grab this beta, you’ll need a Google Pixel 6a or newer — with the standard Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro not currently being eligible for it, even though they can get previous Android 17 betas.
But unless you have a spare phone to install it on, we’d recommend waiting for the finished release, which is sure to be more stable and is likely to land very soon — perhaps even this month.
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