If you like running Android on a laptop, this update will make the mobile OS run much better on Google’s Chromebook devices. Not only does it improve performance, but it comes with some new features that’ll give Android on Chromebook a fresh, more pleasant experience.
Android 11 Is Rolling Out for Chromebook Right Now
The biggest new feature coming to Android on Chromebook is a dark theme. It’s certainly not reinventing the wheel as far as dark themes go, but it does exactly what you want it to. Apps are darkened, and they match the Chrome OS dark theme perfectly. According to Android Police, who had a chance to test out Android 11 on Chrome OS, some Google Play apps don’t support the dark theme at this point.
The main thing holding Android on Chromebooks back from being fantastic was app scaling. Some apps just didn’t look great when stretched out on the larger laptop screen, but that’s changing. The Android 11 beta vastly improves the way apps scale. Google has spent lots of time working on uniform scaling in Chrome OS, and it appears to be making a comeback with Android 11 on the OS.
According to tests, Chrome OS’s uniform scaling does a great job of improving the layout, font, and interface, making everything more readable and less annoying to use. This means those Android apps will look much better and more like they’re designed to run on a larger screen.
Outside of these new features, the rest of the changes are under-the-hood, so you probably won’t notice them too much. However, if you’ve been relying on Android on Chrome OS for some time, you will see some noticeable performance improvements that’ll make running those mobile apps on the big screen more enjoyable. After all, who doesn’t like some nice performance improvements to their OS?
When Can You Download Android 11 on Chrome OS?
As of this writing, it appears that Chromebooks based on the Hatch baseboard are receiving the Android 11 update right now. We expect it to roll out to other baseboards in the near future, but you’ll have to be patient if you’re waiting for the mobile OS to receive new functionality on your laptop.
