Google Pixel 2 has 25 Media Volume Steps for more Granular Volume Control

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Small software tweaks can sometimes make a huge difference in user experience. For years, one pain point on Android phones is the lack of granular volume control. By default, there are 15 volume steps for media, 7 for notifications, and 6 for the in-call voice. While the small number of volume steps allows one to go from minimum to maximum volume level very quickly, it also means that it’s difficult to find the perfect volume level in every situation. Fortunately, Google finally appears to be rectifying this problem with its latest Google Pixel 2 and Google Pixel 2 XL as these two smartphones now feature 25 media volume steps.

The change is so subtle that we didn’t notice it at first when testing the device in the Verizon store. It doesn’t look like anyone really noticed this change from what we can tell. We found out that the Pixel 2 has 25 media volume steps when we were looking into its build.prop file. In it, we found the following line:

ro.config.media_vol_steps=25

This line is the system property value for the number of media volume steps. It’s the same one that any rooted user can manually change as we described in a previous tutorial. For anyone whose device isn’t rooted, there’s an app called Precise Volume which can give you up to 100 volume steps, though it doesn’t integrate with the stock volume slider.

After seeing this line, we re-checked the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL at the Verizon store and confirmed that there is indeed 25 steps in the volume slider.It’s not a huge change by any means, but it’s something you’ll definitely appreciate when it comes time. It’s a change that I liked in the OnePlus 5 (though even the OnePlus 5’s 30 steps wasn’t enough for me, so I now stick to 50 volume steps using the GravityBox module for the Xposed Framework). Now you can listen to a short video clip at night without blowing out your eardrums or waking your partner.