Don't like Google's quick settings menu? It's not just (Material) you

Google introduced the Material You design language with 2021’s Android 12 update, offering theme colors based on your wallpaper and an emphasis on widgets.

Nevertheless, ASUS Zenfone 9 user data gathered by the company and shared with Android Authority ahead of the Zenfone 10 launch suggests not every change brought with Material You is a slam-dunk. The data also gives us some interesting insight into user habits in general.

The old quick settings menu is wildly popular

Perhaps the most polarizing change with recent Android versions is the revised quick settings menu, featuring larger bubble-like icons instead of the smaller icons of yore. This change also means you’ve got far fewer quick settings icons on the screen.

Fortunately, ASUS lets users change to the old quick settings layout, and it turns out that a massive 71% use the old UI versus 29% that use the newer panel. This is particularly interesting as the new quick settings panel style is the default option, meaning seven out of 10 Zenfone 9 owners are annoyed enough to change things.

Other UI habits detailed

It also turns out that almost 20% of Zenfone 9 owners (18.5% to be exact) change the animation scale from 1x to 0.5x. This change effectively speeds up system animations to give the impression of a more responsive experience.

It’s especially interesting to see almost one in five Zenfone 9 users making this change given the fact that it requires you to activate developer options. This is obviously the domain of a more enthusiast-like audience but also suggests Google might want to lift this feature out of developer options and bring it to the standard settings menu in a future Android version.

The decision by some ASUS users to speed up system animations also comes despite improved animations (so-called Material Motion) being part of Material You in the first place.

Wallpapers are another important part of modern Android versions, and it turns out that 43% of Zenfone 9 owners use one of the preloaded wallpapers for their home screen. Meanwhile, 47% use a preloaded lock screen wallpaper.

The ASUS data also shows that almost a fifth of Zenfone 9 users (17.4%) have enabled their always-on display (AOD). The feature has been available on smartphones for over a decade, but Apple’s decision to embrace it has resulted in other OEMs bringing improvements.

Finally, the Taiwanese company also revealed that 50% of Zenfone 9 users choose to always have dark mode enabled. So we’re curious to see how ASUS improves on dark mode in the Zenfone 10. Nevertheless, some of these insights show that Zenfone 9 owners are enthusiasts.

This isn’t the only ASUS Zenfone 9 user data that the company shared with us, as it also dished out some interesting and surprising insights into headphone jack usage and charging habits.