Wow, Lollipop 5.1/5.0 has been the worst experience by FAR.

[gar655]

Just switched from iOS to android with a 2015 MotoG- pretty low end spec phone. Lollipop works great, just as good as iOS on my iPhone 5 was.

 

[s44]

5.1.1 is fine... Until one of the remaining memory leaks or the mobile radio active bug screws you.

This has been a terrible year for Android in every way except one: multiple manufacturers have released devices with really good cameras.

 

[magomago]

yup FBB. The amazingly powerful S5 runs like shite. I saw the same thing and went for a custom 4.4.4 rom.
My friends with Note3s and Note4s are complaining of the same thing regarding updates. Made their phone slower and battery is terrible.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Vistapop

 

[poofyhairguy]

This has been a terrible year for Android in every way except one: multiple manufacturers have released devices with really good cameras.

I would also give props to the fact that this year was the year of good midrange phones at great prices. Moto X Pure, Zenphone 2, even the Nexus 5X.

Last year value was basically cornered by the OnePlus One.

If next year we can mix good prices with SoCs worth owning then it will be a great year for Android. I would also love to see some desperate MAJOR Android phone maker (LG, HTC, etc.) commit to stock Android with fast updates as a way to stand out from the crowd.

 

[VashHT]

It's not too bad on my note 4...I had some shit happen with the battery life when I first updated but it's back to all day battery life now. Not quite as good as when I had KK but it still is good enough for me. Performance-wise I'm not sure what people mean by slower, I definitely saw improved performance in a few apps that were noticeably choppy on 4.4.4 (mainly google music and gmail). I turned all of my animation speeds up and everything seems fine aside from the annoying multitasking delay and the camera opens kinda slow, but I don't remember that being much different on 4.4.4.

 

[shabby]

On my nexus 5 i experience the memory bug on a daily basis, apps and webpages constantly reload. But i've been using a nexus 4 for a few days and the memory bug isn't there, both have the latest 5.1.1 build, is google incompetent or what?

 

[StrangerGuy]

I would also give props to the fact that this year was the year of good midrange phones at great prices. Moto X Pure, Zenphone 2, even the Nexus 5X.

Last year value was basically cornered by the OnePlus One.

If next year we can mix good prices with SoCs worth owning then it will be a great year for Android. I would also love to see some desperate MAJOR Android phone maker (LG, HTC, etc.) commit to stock Android with fast updates as a way to stand out from the crowd.

2014-2015 Android was just awful IMO. Between iSamsung, Qualcomm and Lollipop sucking hard I never has been so turned off by Android flagships. No way I spend that much to be treated like disposable garbage.

 

[jhansman]

Same here. 5.1.1 on my Nexus 6 is great.

Ditto on my GS5 and my Nexus 7. The devices are very responsive, much easier to use than under KitKat, and virtually no force closing. You have to keep in mind how the OS is implemented by manufacturers.

EDIT: Left my fully charged phone home ALL DAY yesterday. Got back from the movies around 7 p.m. to find the battery at (and I am not fibbing here) 95%. Phone is set in low power mode, stock 5.1.1 on T-Mobile. Could those of you having trouble be suffering your provider's ROM? Just askin'...

 

[Mem]

Lollipop 5.1 on my ATT Moto X 2013 is great actually. I just got the latest update with the Stagefright patches and I am very happy. For a 2 year old phone this sucker is nice. And I like the aesthetics of Lollipop a lot.

Happy with my 64 bit Android 5.1 phone, not had a crash yet, do have a battery saver software and "Clean Master" installed via Play Store.

 

[GoodEnough]

The 5.0.2 on LG G2 Verizon works great the last few months.

I recently had a AutoUpdate issue with battery life.
After I solved that (Shazam), the phone is back to great again.

 

[shimpster]

So I've been on LP for a few months. It is absolutely the worst Android OS in terms of speed since I don't know when.

It's the memory leak thing. And then the process kswapd0 goes insane trying to manage memory.

The user responsiveness basically grinds to a halt. You have to do a restart, probably multiple times a day, which is really super annoying if you're in the middle of something (which, by definition, you always are if lag is a problem).

I have an S5. It's not the newest phone but it certainly should not be this slow.

Is it possible to downgrade to KitKat after upgrading to Lollipop? I read somewhere that there were deeper processes that stick around after a Lollipop upgrade?

I downgraded on a 2013 moto x from lpop to kk 4.44 via these steps. Not sure on a S5. Been prob free since the downgrade.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-x/moto-x-qa/guide-faq-how-to-downgrade-5-1-to-4-4-4-t3182118

 

[KentState]

My S5 was pretty much destroyed with 5.0. Went from an acceptable phone to poor battery, tons of lag and crashes. Got to the point where it wasn't worth using it even though work paid for it. Picked up a Note 5 which is nearly perfect with 5.1.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

So what I'm getting from this thread is certain devices work perfectly with 5.1.1 while other devices, my S5 included, do not.

For some reason.

 

[Megatomic]

Just got my old OPO back online, updated to 5.1.1. So far so good. I'll update this thread in a week with my findings.

 

[Bman123]

Lollipop was shit for the galaxy s5 phones we have, but it's great on my nexus 6. Granted it's apples to oranges comparing those phones with lollipop since the nexus is bone stock and the S5 is bloated

 

[ControlD]

So what I'm getting from this thread is certain devices work perfectly with 5.1.1 while other devices, my S5 included, do not.

For some reason.

Maybe it isn't LP that's the problem. Maybe it's the extra two tons of crap Samsung puts on top of it, assuming you are running stock. I do feel sorry for the people I see still stuck on 5.0 though. Lots of guys at work are still on 5.0 carrier released ROMs.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Maybe it isn't LP that's the problem. Maybe it's the extra two tons of crap Samsung puts on top of it, assuming you are running stock. I do feel sorry for the people I see still stuck on 5.0 though. Lots of guys at work are still on 5.0 carrier released ROMs.

Yeah, that was what I was deathly concerned about with my S5. I was worried that TMO would only release a ROM update up to 5.0. Luckily the TMO S5 made it to 5.1.1, although I'm not holding much hope that it'll make it further.

I had already frozen/uninstalled a lot of the Samsung bloatware with Titanium. I just went in and froze some more, so we'll see how that works.

Using OSMonitor, I noticed that one of my games (Fallout Shelter) just wasn't freeing up RAM after exiting out of it, so I'll make it a point to manually close it each time I close the game.

Facebook, as always, is a big memory culprit.

The big problem with the S5 is that it only has 2GB of RAM. That's just retarded. How much extra would it really cost to stuff the phone with 4GB/8GB of RAM? C'mon... things start to get laggy with 400MB free, so even though you have 2GB of RAM you've only really got 1.6GB of RAM that's usable before the device craps on itself.

 

[zCypher]

That's odd, L has been a huge upgrade for me on my OnePlusOne. So much faster, more responsive, everything is buttery smooth compared to before. Not that it felt like a slouch before, but it's just that much better now. Most people I know with various phones have had a similar experience.

Samsung has a history of horribly laggy interface and bloat, so for Samsung devices experiencing any lag I wouldn't necessarily pin that on Android. Though the people I know with Note 4 have been very happy, and I haven't seen them lag at all the few times I saw them. Way better than the original Note anyway, that's for sure lol.

 

[malbojah]

Last year value was basically cornered by the OnePlus One.

I was one of the many who bought a oneplus when they came out a year ago. It was fine until Cyanogen updated to Lollipop. Now I when I try to make a call from my room, I go from full cell signal to emergency calls only as soon as I hit dial. I've already checked for any updates and did the APN and SMSC refresh. I can't wait for the Nexus 5x to make it local to me.

 

[jhansman]

So what I'm getting from this thread is certain devices work perfectly with 5.1.1 while other devices, my S5 included, do not.

For some reason.

Not for "some reason." Think about how many variables are at play here. If I have a N7 that flies completely stable on 5.1.1, and a T-Mobile S5 that does just about as well (with a full day's battery use), and you have another device made by, oh Moto or LG (or whomever) that sucks with the same OS massaged by a different provider, then what would you guess is the variables are at play? This knee-jerk reaction to blame Google for a version of Android that runs poorly on hardware over which they have no control baffles me.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Not for "some reason." Think about how many variables are at play here. If I have a N7 that flies completely stable on 5.1.1, and a T-Mobile S5 that does just about as well (with a full day's battery use), and you have another device made by, oh Moto or LG (or whomever) that sucks with the same OS massaged by a different provider, then what would you guess is the variables are at play? This knee-jerk reaction to blame Google for a version of Android that runs poorly on hardware over which they have no control baffles me.

Uhhh... well, I figure I'm justified considering that the lag with 5.0 was, squarely, in Google's court. And there are discussions on Google's forums stating that the fix hadn't been rolled into 5.1.

It's hardly knee-jerk considering the recent history has exactly been what I'm talking about.

 

[quikah]

Not for "some reason." Think about how many variables are at play here. If I have a N7 that flies completely stable on 5.1.1, and a T-Mobile S5 that does just about as well (with a full day's battery use), and you have another device made by, oh Moto or LG (or whomever) that sucks with the same OS massaged by a different provider, then what would you guess is the variables are at play? This knee-jerk reaction to blame Google for a version of Android that runs poorly on hardware over which they have no control baffles me.

That is a ridiculous assertion. Windows and Linux manage to run well on a plethora of hardware that they have no control over.

 

[sweenish]

It took Google only about six months between when Lollipop is released (November 2014) until 'M' is announced (May 2015). I think I could call it 'quickly released'.

I'm sure Google has things scheduled to be released and everything is on schedule, but remember, there's no strict rule about what the next version number is (which is not what we're talking about here) or what to call it (e.g. it took about 9 months from 4.2 to 4.3, and they're both Jelly Bean).

In my mind, they were rushing to get the next update out to call 'M', partly because of how bad Lollipop name had been.

And you would be wrong. iOS is on a similar update schedule. One major version per year. Like I said, 5.1 was fast. It was also necessary because 5.0 was a joke.

It's on schedule. Previous release to next announce is a terrible measurement, and why am I even having to tell you that? It's release to release, because that makes sense, when discussing "quickly released."

Google used to release two major versions a year, now it's one. This is not slow.

I wasn't discussing the naming or numbering. Just the fact that you think a company that releases major updates annually releasing a major version one year later is somehow quicker than the schedule they've set for themselves.

 

[podspi]

I've basically decided to skip 5.x entirely on my Nexus 7 (2013). We'll see how M runs next week.