Android 15 may add new settings to manage external display

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

In short

Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1 announces a new external display settings page.
On this page you can adjust the display resolution and rotation of external displays.
This page is not yet available in Beta 1, but we managed to manually activate it.

Ahead of the stable version of Android 15 arriving later this year, Google has just released the first beta of the first quarterly version of the Android 15 platform. Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1 is rolling out today for supported Google Pixel phones, and while it doesn’t bring a ton of user-visible changes, as usual, it does pack a few interesting tidbits. For example, we spotted evidence of a new page in the Settings app called External Display, which will let you configure some settings for your external display.

After decoding the Settings app in the new Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1 build, we noticed the following strings referring to the External Display page. These strings describe the settings you will be able to modify on this new page, which currently include display resolution and rotation.

Code

<string name="external_display_change_resolution_footer_title">Changing rotation or resolution may stop any apps that are currently running</string>
<string name="external_display_more_options_title">More options</string>
<string name="external_display_not_found">External display is disconnected</string>
<string name="external_display_not_found_footer_title">Your device must be connected to an external display to mirror your screen</string>
<string name="external_display_off">Off</string>
<string name="external_display_on">On</string>
<string name="external_display_resolution_settings_title">Display resolution</string>
<string name="external_display_rotation">Rotation</string>
<string name="external_display_rotation_180">180°</string>
<string name="external_display_rotation_270">270°</string>
<string name="external_display_rotation_90">90°</string>
<string name="external_display_settings_title">External Display</string>
<string name="external_display_standard_rotation">Standard</string>
<string name="external_display_use_title">Use external display</string>

Android warns that changing the rotation or resolution with an external display connected may cause currently running apps to stop.

After a bit of tinkering, we were able to fully enable the new external display settings page on the Pixel 8 Pro, as shown below. The page will appear under Settings > Connected Devices whenever an external display is connected. Use an external display switch allows you to stop or start copying without disconnecting the device from the external display, while Display resolution AND Rotation pages allow you to change the resolution and orientation.

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority

The addition of the External Display settings page makes a lot of sense in light of Google’s work on a better desktop mode in Android 15. As we reported earlier today, desktop mode is one step closer to being released in Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1 thanks to the addition of a new developer mode toggle, which unfortunately doesn’t work at the moment. Still, it’s clear that progress is being made in improving desktop mode on Android, and we hope we won’t have to wait too long for Google to implement it.

The new Google Pixel 9 series supports display output out of the box, but it’s not currently eligible for the Android 15 QPR1 beta program. Last year’s Google Pixel 8 series has also supported display output since the Pixel Feature Drop in June, and three phones in that series are eligible to install the QPR1 beta. If you own a Pixel 8 or Pixel 9, let us know in the comments what you plan to do about supporting an external display on your phone!

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