Google’s September Pixel Drop gave my Pixel 8 a sweet taste of Pixel 10, thanks to the rollout of Material 3 Expressive UI. The new look is really making the phone to feel brand new with smoother animations, blur effects in quick settings, new notification center, colorful settings, new sounds effects across the UI and not only.

Beyond the fresh visuals, the update improves usability and it’s easy to feel it. Quick settings are now more customizable, the Phone app offers new calling screen styles. The update is bundled with Android 16 QPR1, bringing the September 2025 security patch and a long list of fixes for camera stability, biometrics, Bluetooth, and battery performance. Power users finally can now widely try out new features like desktop mode for external displays and Live Updates.

In short, this update doesn’t just polish the Pixel 8, but it pushes it closer to the Pixel 10 experience, with more personality, smoother performance (which I confirm), and smarter features across devices. That really felt like a big update this time with 1GB of total size that I just received yesterday. Possibly the same update is now reaching more Pixel devices.