Android 5.0 Lollipop in Nexus 4 Hands on Review – It’s awesome

Hello everyone!! 

I hope you have read my recent articles - Google Inbox Hands on & Useful android Apps . Now its time for Android Lollipop !!

Like other Android fans, I was also waiting for the update after Google IO and the wait is over; Google has released the official factory images. I did not wait for OTA since it used to take weeks to months and updated manually.

I felt my Nexus 4 is reborn after the upgrade. I was scared to update initially after reading some posts about WIFI connectivity issue and battery issues. I am running from yesterday and did not find any lag or issues.

Checking Lollipop version - also you can play game using this 

I am breaking down the review to 3 pages since they are plenty of features.

Here are the features / changes in lollipop

1) Faster

I felt significant improvement in the performance compared to 4.4. Apps are starting faster. Lollipop is running in ART (Android run time) instead of Dalvik and may be one of the reasons for performance

2) Fresh

There are animations everywhere and it is done beautifully. Let it be alarm, tool tips, Google now – all these apps are using the power of animation and material design. The color and font is mild and pleasing.

3) Lock Screen

Lock screen is looking great with new gestures and notifications. It will show estimated time to fully charge. I was using dynamic notifications in 4.4 for notification summary and it is not required in 5.0.

Charging indicator in lock screen

Notifications in lock screen

4) Pull down notification panel

This is one of the best features. More options are available in notification panel to enable wifi, mobile data, flash light etc.

Pull down notification; last set of ugly icons are coming from Notification toggle app

Notification from whatsapp

5) Battery Saver mode

This mode will stop most of the background running apps to improve the battery. Apps like WhatsApp, Facebook won’t notify me for every update and it will be refreshed only after opening them. Also most of the animations will be automatically disabled

Enabling battery saver mode

Orange shade for status bar

Battery saver mode indicator in Lock Screen

I felt 15-20% improvement while running in this mode. Your notification and action panel will appear in orange in this mode. It is similar to using apps like Greenify to hibernate resource hungry apps

But.. full charge takes a lot of time.. minimum 1-2 hours to charge from 60 to 100%

In Page 2, you can find details about Recent tabs, multi-user support, screen pinning, dialer and chrome tabs