Android Lollipop was released in on 3rd November 2014 and major and recent phones (nexus lines) were updated with this release.
Lollipop 5.x starts with build numbers: 5.0 (LRX21T), 5.0.1 (LRX22C), 5.1.1 (LMY48T).
The very first release 5.0 (LRX21T) has the major problem on fonts formatting and some applications will misbehave with this release version, besides, the memory leak issue and random reboots.
After that, several releases were published promising that it fixes all the previous problems: 5.0.1 (LRX22C), 5.1.1 (LMY48T).
The major update on 5.x was the material design, profiles, status bar, AND behind the scenes the greatest changes since the launch of android: the new virtual machine ART, which replaces Dalvik.
So, lets take a look on the good, the bad and why you should stay on kitkat.
The good: Lots of improved features
It has major improvements like:
- new material design, the UI is really beautiful, new icons, new styles.
- a new redesigned status bar with lots of options: new flashlight, option to control the cast feature, airplane mode, bluetooth, etc...
- another new feature that is amazing is the "selective notifications": now you can select which app can display notifications and even which apps can make a sound (good if you are in a meeting, and somebody on whatsup starts to bug you, you can disable whatsup).
- phone profile, you can set up new accounts for other users of your phone, like guests.
The bad: slow, lags and freezes
- The virtual machine replacement is the reason why the first boot using 5.x takes 20minutes, each application has to be compiled to native code, so it takes time, a lot of time.
- The lags are visible when you switch from one application to another and most of them does not run smooth on 5.x, they lag. Sometimes, they freeze and cannot recover, you have to manually close the app (sometimes, not possible, so you have to reboot). I trust the benchmarks on why ART is faster than Dalvik, but in practice, It really doesn't matter if you cannot use the app. "ok my app is fast now, but nobody can use it, because it sometimes freezes". In software engineering terms, this has a good name, it is called, lack of reliability. It does not deliver what it should. And after a while the app freezes, so it compromises availability.
Why you should not upgrade:
I tried 5.1.1 (LMY48T) on nexus 4, and it lags on basic functions like swapping among apps and watching youtube. The youtube app freezes after a while and creates an unknown inner problem with the wifi. After youtube crashes, it does affects your wifi connection and ANY other app cannot connect to the internet. So, if youtube crashes, your chrome cannot connect to the internet: does not make sense. To fix this issue, you have to reboot your device.
Another annoying thing is that the airplane mode, was removed from the shutdown menu. You have to pull the status bar and disable it: really smart, now I have to unlock my phone to disable airplane mode, where are the Human Interface Guys here?
To conclude, I can't see any reason why users on nexus 4 (and possibly many others) should move to the new version. The latest stable version is the kitkat 4.4 (KTU84P). The newer builds really s--ks.
Unless you like the UI, but UI does not play your favorite musics, UI does not play your favorite movies, UI does not run the basic stuff that provides you the basic services. UI is beautiful I can't deny that, but the core system... s--cks.
