Pros
- New Material Design API rules should make for better, more consistent apps going forward
- Improved battery life and battery saver
- Smart rotation button is simple but ingenious
- Digital Wellbeing is the Alcoholics Anonymous for millions of smartphone addicts
- New look is easy on the eyes
- Editable screenshots
- Long list of new or improved features
Cons
- Recent Apps and other features (including Digital Wellbeing) not offered to third-party developers
- New gestures and navigation bar replacement are a bit much, confusing, but at least you can turn them off.
Bottom Line: Overall, Android 9 is an improvement over version 8, but Google is hoarding some of the more impressive features for its own phones; even so, the expanded AI and other improvements are well-implemented.