That's just a result of the move to ART. I didn't want to just carbon copy Andrei's article, but it's linked in there and it's definitely worth the read.
It's the other way around: Android absolutely needs AOT-type compiler (ART) to decide between aarch32 and aarch64 prior to starting the process. If an app contains even a single JNI call to an aarch32 subroutine, the whole app HAS TO be compiled to aarch32, because no mode switching is allowed within a process.
Your saying "apps are primarily written in Java" and Andrei's article are also misleading in just stating what Google claimed: 85% apps are written in Java.
Google most probably isn't lying with that, but the fact is: most TOP apps AREN'T written in Java. I once checked top 25 apps in the US store: only two of them were written purely in Java.
What this means? 64-bit will remain just a gimmick on Android for the upcoming 4 years thanks to the fragmentation.
For 64-bit NDK apps, the devs HAVE TO set Lollipop as the minimum requirement since it REQUIRES AOT.
Also, it seems much less clear whether and how much of a speed boost you actually get (as evidenced by the benchmarks run on the Nexus 9 where basically there is no difference between running Android in 32 and 64 bit mode).
I haven't seen anyone do an AArch32 vs AArch64 showdown on Android yet. The Denver CPU is also a very weird thing so it might not benefit from the move to AArch64 in the same way for example the Exynos 7 Octa will.
Are you sure about that? The SoC labled as Exynos 5433 was found in Galaxy Note 4, but later Samsung claimed that Galaxy Note 4 has Exynos 7 Octa. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconduct... Did they changed the SoC through OTA update? :)
Have a look at http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/nexus-9-rev...">Arstechnica's review of the Nexus 9: you see that the Nexus 9 fares better in some benchmarks in 64 bit mode while in others, it's slower. The difference is always quite small (about 1~2.5 %), so small that it's barely above the threshold of the statistical error, I bet.
That was surprising to some, because they expected the Denver-based K1 to get a 20~30 % boosts similar to iOS devices when comparing 32 and 64 bit modes. At this stage nobody knows whether the basically flat results are due to the unusual architecture of the Denver cores (maybe the result of the code morphing is microcodes which is optimized at about the same level) or whether it's that ART does not yet make good use of the architecture. Given the fact that in 64 bit mode ARM processor can address more registers etc. I would guess that it's the former, the unusual architecture of Denver. I really hope Anandtech subjects it to an architectural deep dive.
The 20%-30% speed boosts I've seen in iOS benchmarks from going 64-bit were grossly exaggerated by using the mean. You can't use the mean because it by definition weighs larger values more heavily. If there's a playground with a half dozen 8 year old kids romping around, a single 90-year old sitting on a bench will raise the mean age to 20. So a single large benchmark improvement can disproportionately skew the mean when the vast majority of benchmarks showed little to no improvement.
You have to use the median in these cases. The median benchmark speedup I've seen has been about 5%-9%. If you remove the benchmarks which improved due to specialized hardware being added, the median improvement drops below 5%. Which is in line with the speedup Windows experienced when transitioning to 64-bit CPUs.
Really, the only places where going to 64-bit can speed things up is flat memory addressing, which isn't a factor because none of the iOS devices have more than 4 GB. With calculations using long long ints (64 bit ints), which almost nobody uses. And with double floats, which outside of certain benchmarks is mostly used in scientific programming. Even most 3d game engines still use 32-bit floats because it's "good enough" for most cases (doubles don't become necessary until you start dealing with extremely large distances, like space simulation games). Most of the speed increase from Apple's 64-bit SoC comes from increasing the number of registers and from new specialized hardware speeding up things like AES by over 200%, both of which have nothing to do with 64-bit-ness. (Memory bandwidth is a bigger issue due to light only being able to travel 12cm in a single 2.5 GHz clock cycle. I'm not sure what memory controller ARM uses, but most devices have long since adopted 128-bit or larger memory controllers to get around this physics-imposed limit.)
The added registers and other resource are tied to 64-bit-ness in the sense that ARM decided to make architectural boosts with the move to 64 bit. True they could have added those to 32-bit ARM but there wasn't a point in doing that.
An possible explanation for the Denver results may not be in the code morphing in and of itself. It could just as well be that it uses the full register set and all the other resources for both 32-bit ARM and 64-bit ARM emulation. Because it is not that the 64-bit results are so bad, but that the 32-bit results are so good. You could just be seeing what it would be like if ARM had added the registers and instructions to 32-bit.
First of all, it's part of the interpretation of data on how you obtain an average from the raw data. You argue it's the median instead of the expectation value, but a more realistic average would rely on weighing according to the instruction mix -- which varies. If encryption algorithms are constantly used (and they are used a fair bit on smartphones with all the encrypted traffic), then 250~800 % speed advantage is not an outlier, but significant in applications. Moreover, many of the benchmarks such as these (http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-r... are not necessarily meant to tell you how much faster the device will be in typical use (where most mobile SoCs are idling anyway), but rather probe specific aspects of the architecture in order to understand how it has evolved. Certainly I won't be the one arguing that simulating SDEs such as the Black-Scholes equation is a common real-world application in SoCs ;-) And speaking of a 20~30 % speedup on average (even if you exclude outliers) seems quite sensible given the benchmarks. If you want to argue about how to properly weight these benchmarks (e. g. that FP benchmark results which show more of an improvement are less important), that's a different discussion.
You're also wrong when you claim that flat memory addressing is the only place where going 64 bit can speed things up: ARMv8 has twice the number of registers compared to ARM v7 which (similar to going from x86 to x64) -- and while this has nothing to do with 64 bit, but it has everything to do with being part of the new ARM ISA which also happens to be 64 bit. There are also changes to the Objective C runtime in order to take advantage of the 64 bit-ness, e. g. creation and destruction of objects was sped up by a factor of 2 (https://mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2013-09-27-ar... which can cumulatively become significant in iOS apps where you constantly manipulate objects.
I don't think the attempt to separate improvements which have nothing to do with going 64 bit itself but are rather part of the 64 bit ARM v8 ISA is going to be practically useful because we cannot decouple the different components. Ditto for hardware encryption logic which replaces software routines: they are a real-world advantage, and the only question will be by how much.
It's a little ridiculous to claim that speedups from AES are "unfair" on the same blog that has been complaining about how much dramatically Android's whole-disk encryption slows down the OS...
Did you see any performance benefits moving from Windows 32 bit to Windows 64 bit? Nope. Not one little bit. You wont see any here either. As with desktop PCs the main benefit to 64 bit is that it allows you to address more than 4GB of memory. As most phones are shipping with 3GB or less, you won't see any benefit to a 64 bit environment unless and until the apps start demanding more RAM.
You don't have to struggle to prove your ignorance. After the Itanium fiasco, Intel abandoned IA64 and licensed the half-baked x86_64 where larger addressing space is practically the only benefit.
Aarch64 is a full-fledged 64-bit architecture with a completely rewritten ISA similar to what Intel dreamed of with the Itanium. Larger addressing space is just one of the many side benefits on Aarch64.
I don't know why people refuse to accept that the Lollipop UI, with its metro-like appearance of flat tiles and bold colours isn't a blatant copy of Windows Phone. I'm not hating, I actually like Android a lot, but come on! It's wrong to be in denial like that.
On my Nexus 4, the recent contacts in the dialler app are actually coloured squares arranged in a grid! I mean, seriously? Might as well have polished up Holo. At least it was unique to Android.
I have used windows mobile, and its not that similar experience compared to android L although it is really really good if not counting the lack of apps. I think android with material design is kinda unique and almost new.
Microsoft's Metro design language was the first to prominently feature a flat, typography-centered, stark, and geometric UI. What Microsoft did here was start a trend rather than make a design that was copied piece-wise by competitors. iOS 7/8, for instance, are also stark, typography-centered and geometric, but they're not flat. Android is following, too, by simplifying shapes, etc. Duarte who is in charge of Android's UI design had similar plans for the ill-fated webOS (search for the last evolution of the UI which never made it into a product, a strikingly beautiful compromise between the aforementioned qualities with some whimsical elements sprinkled in).
There is nothing wrong with adopting and adapting good ideas, quite the contrary.
A sensible comment! Yes, there's nothing wrong with it. I agree with you on all accounts. I am not saying they did wrong by it, but what I was saying was people are wrong to deny something so obvious.
people must have been sleeping not to notice the trend. I mean, just look at Anandtech. 10 years ago a style like this would have been completely ridicolous.
I think I would be fine without each mobile OS review talking about what came over (copied) from competing platforms. It's pretty obvious that the best or most logical concepts are coming through in the market, as they should. I was ready to give this article a pass until we got to the Notification Center bit. Once the writer opened the door, then it became time to give other companies credit for good ideas, too. MS offered the flat UI with WP7, and it has aged so well that Apple and Google have followed suit.
Lollipop is a blatant copy of Metro? What are you smoking? Not only is Lollipop still very much Android-like much more so than anything related to Metro, but I actually believe material design > iOS7 > Metro. Yes, that's right - Metro is the ugliest of the 3 new design languages, while material design is the most advanced and more thought out. iOS7 is kind of amateurisly made, but Metro has some huge practical problems that make it the worst.
Um. I'm not really commenting on how polished or refined it is. I didn't comment on usability either. I'm talking about purely appearance. Google might have made it a lot more usable than Microsoft ever could, but that still doesn't mean they didn't take design cues from Windows Phone...
Yes, but Metro was first and set the trend. iOS 7/8 is also not a copy of Metro, Apple was taking some ideas (which had already been embodied in their hardware!) such as cutting embellishments, focus on type and a move away from skeuomorphism but the iOS 7/8 user interface is not flat at all: Windows Phone uses the scroll metaphor to connect screens while iOS uses zooms and other animations to create depth. In short, even though Apple took some grander ideas the result still feels like iOS. And ditto for Android 5: Google has taken some ideas (e. g. simplified the navigation icons on the bottom), but it still feels like Android. IMO Lollipop is an improvement.
The trend has been to go towards it everywhere, Microsoft simply acted on it earlier than the others, being a trend-setter if you will. But they did not invent anything.
But that's as misguided a statement as »Microsoft didn't invent squares« or »Apple didn't invent rounded rectangles«: Microsoft deserves kudos for being the first to pick up on this trend on a large scale. And if you claim »but they didn't invent it« what you really want to say is that you don't want to give them credit for it.
Maybe because you're incorrect and couldn't be more wrong? To associate a connection between material design and that hideous metro interface is just ludicrous. I've used both interfaces and thankfully I've abandoned that ugly metro interface with its superfluous animations that did nothing but hide the performance problems of the OS. Additionally, it seems the only people complaining about the similarities are butt hurt windows phone fanboys that are upset their OS of choice in tanking so hard.
Microsoft throwing toys out of the pram because they messed up on mobile (again)... Windows Phone will keep failing as long as Microsoft keeps trying to sell us another closed and locked down ecosystem.
Well... Apple is selling closed and locked ecosystem and is doing better than Android... The WP is just fine mobile os! It is something between iOs and android when compared how locked down it is. It has been very snappy and light (a good thing !) it has been new (bad thing ?) I have used all those three and all of them have their advantages and disadvantages. It is really good that we have three ecosystem. It keeps competition high enough!
I'm guessing most people are not in denial, they just don't care whether ideas have been copied, independently developed or somewhere in-between or perhaps trends followed as another commented. Taking inspiration is how the industry have moved for decades and generally it benefits the user.
It looks nice and coherent but I wish there was an option for inverted Colors as that would or could make a difference in battery life for those of us with OLED screens. The white everywhere is nice and clean but is also far more prone to being washed out in my experience.
I for one welcome (our bright minded LCD overlords) the new design, as I am really tired looking at the dark and gloomy pre-Lollipop styling. And you can't really be mad at Google who is always trying to make the android experience consistent across all devices, and your OEM is free to change the colour scheme as far as I am aware.
Lollipop. Far too many bright and cheerful battery wasting images. My kid got Lollipop to the phone but doesn't want to install it, because it will "change everything" and going back to 4.4 is a hassle. In short she's satisfied with 4.4 but doesn't see what will be gained with 5.0.
Where did personalization and tailor making go - the original reason to get Android over iOS? Apparently the calendar only has 5 day weeks. I guess this will improve in future iterations, but in some areas Lollipop apparently presents a step backwards.
This is the problem whenever you change your UI. Everyone thinks the UI is the only change that happened, disregarding anything else (like AOT instead of JIT for application performance).
Like in Windows 8. There were a few things that I found under the hood (and some of them blatant) that I liked and were the reason for keeping it as my main OS, but everyone else harped on Metro.
At least with Lollipop, they didn't change much in the way of the user interface paradigms. But alas, too many loud mouths will constantly bash the look of something and not really understand the meat of it.
So step by step Google will reformulate my experience. I want to be in charge of my phone, rather than Google, or Samsung. Google mixes brilliant with appalling.
@tralalalalalala40 I stand corrected.
It's like the Keep app - great for entering data, abhorrent for structuring it. Of course one can always fall back on that Google function par excellence - search. By handing data to us like this, we become dependent on the search, and Google will know more and more about our habits, which is how they make their money. Datamining is where it's at.
"In fact, I haven't really noticed any significant bugs at all after upgrading to Lollipop, which says a great deal about the work Google has put into testing to make sure things are stable. "
really? Both my Nexus 5 and 10 have been more unstable with Lollipop, crashing and even getting in a rebooting loop.
Nexus 5 and Nexus 6. I've had no issues with the former, and I was just speaking from my experience on the matter. I haven't seen any major complaints elsewhere though.
I've had a SHIELD Tablet and Nexus 5 both lock up and require a reboot more often than with 4.4. Might be more of a factor of playing games (PvZ 2, AC Unity Companion), and I don't mind the change in general, but I think we'll see a few updates and maybe 5.0.2 or whatever will be needed before we really clear up the remaining glitches.
Same here with my Nexus 5. It would seem (quite a few others have noticed this as well) that if you don't reboot the phone eventually just dies. It's happened to me twice only to work perfectly again after the reboot, and hasn't happened since I started rebooting nightly.
The theory is a memory management/leak bug but it's tough to tell.
That happened with Kit Kat too tho, if you pummeled Chrome with enough tabs or generally just kept enough things open it'd eventually get weird... Keyboard would act up, my 3G or GPS would occasionally work intermittently, etc. Reboot always fixed it... On face value it sounds less stable than my older Android phones but I never did quite as much on them as on the Nexus 5 either (and/or I'd end up rebooting to flash stuff for features I don't really need anymore).
Hang on, why no battery life tests? One of Lollipop's biggest draws is Project Volt which claimed an increase of up to 30% in battery life. Anandtech does the most comprehensive battery life evaluations on the internet, why not here?
I really would have liked to, but Volta has more to do with increasing battery life through better coalescing of CPU and network usage. When you do a battery life test which is just a web browsing or video playback test, none of those improvements have much of an impact. With the current state of mobile and how sandboxing works, it's very hard to build a battery benchmarks that can string together multiple applications being used to simulate a workflow that would get better battery life on Lollipop compared to KitKat.
Just an additional note, I just talked to Josh and he already tested it, there's no improvement in our web battery bench. I would be suspicious of anyone reporting otherwise because like I described above, it doesn't make sense to have significant battery improvements in a browser test because of Volta.
I'm not understanding your confusion with the performance issues on the Nexus 6, which are well known to be caused by the mandatory device encryption. You pointed this out yourself in another article very recently: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8725/encryption-and-...
Ah, reading comprehension fail on my part. I would blame the issues on the ridiculous 1440p display, but the Adreno 420 should be more than up to the task of driving that resolution without issues. Strange.
Yeah, I think his conclusion is wrong, iirc. Pretty much all gaming benchmarks, onscreen, deliver almost exactly the same performance @1440 as adreno 330 @1080. I know some folks don't see the point in increasing DPI but in this case I don't see the evidence for it being the culprit (especially when the note 4 doesn't appear to have the same issues).
The big 3... Windows, Apple and Android are all very good now. It's senseless to constanstly bicker back and forth who's better. With 7 1/4 billion people on earth, a good number of them who will have cell phones, there is definitely space for 3 major players and the smaller guys. They all connect, share documents, utilize the same file formats.... in short.. who cares?
I do prefer my windows phone... but it's not because as I perceive it is any better than apple or android... In fact Windows Phone is kind of Windows 8ish.. which I don't like... and Android/Apple feels like Windows 3.1 with it's folders of chicklet sized icons.... again which I don't like. so nothing's truly perfect... regarding my Lumia with Windows, it's just what I have and what I like,.. and is intuitive for me (yes, of course I'd like to see some level of customization available, like app ordering and so forth.... but nothing that leaves me unsatisified and I'm quite delighted I'll get Win20 too. I think my complacency shows my age.
Reading this review... from a UI perspective... there is some give and take between 4.4 and 5.0 ... some things better.. some things less helpful... But, I bet under the covers it's performing very well.
Where the big 3 have taken smart phones to is amazing... from highly proprietary embedded feature phones to full operating systems running on an architecture without allot of legacy bloat. Good stuff all around. Kudos to google for 5.0.
It's a duopoly. If you just use your smartphone to make calls and browse the web, then yes, microsoft and BB still matter. But MS devices are missing out on billions of hours of developer time making wonderful tools/games/etc.
" They all connect, share documents, utilize the same file formats.... in short.. who cares?"
Great for consumers.... However, from Google's, Apple's and Microsoft's perspective, and in particular their share holders' perspective, they care, because to them, this is war.
Im still waiting for PC support - with app in window mode and multimonitor support and virtualisation and more PC HW drivers. They already have x86 build for tablets, even small 1 man project Android-x86 is now number 8 on linux distrowatch.
Linux is dammed (something wrong fix it from terminal.. is show stopper for normal user) but Android could be way for good free desktop PC, users already know how to use it.
I was hoping for a paragraph or 2 on the improvements in low latency audio. It's unfortunate that audio always seems to be left out of the mix for most OS reviews.
Look at reddit for this. Folks have adjust tested it and it still isn't usable (midi to USB). The system audio latency hasn't changed, iirc. Regardless of I/o talks Google simply doesn't care about either audio or low touch latency.
Didnt care for it, actually was the main factor in trying out rooting my Nexus 5. Flashed Kitkat and then Slimkat 8 in less than 2 hours from never having done it before.
Odd that you would do an entire review on Android and miss arguably the single biggest improvement that this OS provides...namely, the ability for "OK Google" to be active at all times (a la Motorola). Having a personal assistant always available is a huge plus.
Kit Kat was already halfway there with the stock launcher (post updates), you could call it up while within any app or with a locked phone if it was charging.
I have yet to acept the Lollipop update in my N5, as I did not like the Calendar update with its new Material Design (lost ofnow in the weekly view you see only six hours per day, forcing you to scroll) As others, I also do not like the mostly white background neither the lost of the separate keys in the Keyboard and Calculator (as shown in this review)
Brandon, Regarding ART, you mention that it stores a pre-compilation after the first use of the application, so reducing the available storage space, but did not quantify by how much.
The more I read about lollipop the less interested I am, and the more I hope Samsung doesn't force the upgrade on my Note 4.
Everything moving to white instead of black is a huge one for me. As a Note 4 owner/user, blacks are my batteries best friend, and as a 30yr old I feel black background white text is easier on the eyes, especially in a darker environment.
I also see a lot of the specific apps that are coming with lollipop are already available for download in the play store. I've tried them all, mail/calander/messanger and ive still reverted back to samsungs software. Mail is nice, but my main accounts are live and yahoo. The organization and just readability in the 'email' app are in my opinion vastly superior to inbox/mail. Messanger is nice, but I like samsungs messages just a tad better. My common's are on top of the feed, and instead of random colors assigned to people, its all custom and for me set up as a photo for each. The calendar app, I don't see much of a change, and don't care to much about. The app drawer with its transparency on kit cat are much nicer than the white background that just jumps out at you, and the notification center on my note 4 is way more easy and functional than the upgrade will be.
I haven't looked into the 64bit and performance upgrades with lollipop vs kitcat, but I have no issues at all right now, so that's I guess welcome performance boost, but not needed and not going to make me upgrade.
I do really hope that lollipop wont be forced, and if it is that this whole white theme can be brought back to dark. But honestly just don't want to upgrade.
Sounds like your just avoiding change. That's fine, but the rest of us would like to move on. No one forces you to update, thankfully it's there for those who want it.
The good thing about "change" is that it comes about every six months in this industry now. So if he's not thrilled with this look, he can just hang on because Android 6.0 "with all-new Unmaterial Design!" is just around the corner.
"I think in the context of iOS applications Google may be going a bit too far by ignoring the design guidelines of that platform in favor of their own."
Wow Brandon Chester, you are a dumbfuck noob. Pardon my online gaming terminology but this article reads like a whining post from one of those mongoloid little kids who are too dumb to grasp the basis of a game, so they cry and cry and some more and then finally rejoice when a tiny spec of their stupidity is made insignificant by the UI change,
Seriously, have you considered moving to iOS platform if you're too stupid for 4.4.x's appearance? At least you won't have to trouble yourself with the issues have been facing here as somebody else will be doing the thinking for you.
The design aesthetic of tiny text surrounded by tons of unused white space cannot die soon enough.
I bought a phone and a tablet with fantastic screen resolution, so I can finally display a useful amount of text without compromises. Now I can't display more than a few lines of anything because the UI won't let me. Dates and times on your e-mail? Sorry, no room Inbox for that!
I think the ui is inconsistent and the usability is down. The button placement in apps is nice to look at but not nice to use everyday.
The notifications now intrude onto the screen for some apps, the lock screen is less useful without additional dragging that takes dexterity to do right. And having to drag down twice is much more difficult than pressing a button. It is as if no typical consumer testing was done. The task switcher is so sluggish and going back home now takes much longer. Everything seems to use more memory and takes longer to start which is odd. And I have a Nexus 5. I hope 5.1 comes soon.
I actually prefer dragging twice to the top right button, but that's probably because I use my phone primarily with my left hand. Always thought the quick settings button was much too close to the clear all button tho, despite only hitting clear all by mistake once or twice over the last year or so. I do agree some of the other card stacking and UI choices are questionable tho.
Oh and can Google explain why Chrome crashes when sharing to Google Plus via the mobile browser interface? Or why the plus app shate function causes every other app to crash from memory depletion? Also Google search inexplicably crashes on my Nexus 5.
The speaker talks about the issues of Android's render thread priority causing lag, and how google worked to fix it in lollipop. I think it starts about 19:30 in.
My main question though is how browsers are affected. iOS and WP browsers scroll every webpage with pixel perfect smoothness, where Android has always lagged and stuttered on heavier web pages. Does Lollipop fix this, or will developers have to code their browsers to take advantage of Lollipop?
Lollipop is OK, but I preferred KitKat on my Nexus 10. On Lollipop is seems to take longer / more steps to do the same things compared with KitKat. For example, switching users used to involve: 1/ swipe down settings 2/ click on my avatar 3/ enter my PIN Now it invovles: 1/ swipe down notification tray 2/ click on user icon 3/ select my avatar 4/ drag up lock icon 5/ enter my PIN
The added steps add zero value to my experience. It's just plain poor.
Frankly, I've been disappointed with Lollipop on my Nexus 5. First thing I noticed was highly visible frame drops swiping between Google Now and the home screen. Dashclock no longer functions. I need to swipe twice to get to the quick shortcuts... why? Meanwhile I haven't seen any improvement in the camera, which is slow to focus even in well lit scenarios... wasn't Camera2 supposed to fix this?
I really, really wish art had delivered what was promised, but for my sample of three nexus devices (n4,n5,n7-2013) it has unambiguously made things worse. All of these devices were installed using the factory image, and two were fully wiped. It's just awful. Load times are longer. The interface is more janky than its ever been. Battery is pretty much unchanged, however. Google would've really benefited from an additional developer release so as to avoid these issues.
I have infact experienced a drop in battery life. I used to have a screen on time of little over 3 hours on Kit Kat but I havent been able to touch 3 hours so far with Lollipop.
There are still a few areas where the animations do not even do close to 30 fps, let alone 60. The new message application is one example when you tap a conversation and it opens up. That said I do not know why the animations on my iPhone 4s feel smoother. Are they rendering it higher than 60 fps or is it physics?
I responded earlier in the comments about this. There's really no way to benchmark Volta, it has no impact on anything like web browsing or video playback tests.
My experience with Lollipop went from positive to negative after the first week. I absolutely loved the concept & execution of Material Design. The other things that I was excited for with 5.0 was how smooth everything would feel and better battery performance. I'm so disappointed with those two things because things feel even more sluggish than it did on KitKat, and battery life isn't noticeably better at all! I seriously have sent more complaints/feedback while using Lollipop than I ever did on KitKat.
1. I don't feel the new Android much since I'm using a different launcher just to remove Google's search bar on the main screen. 2. I like the flashlight capability, goodbye flashlight app. It still has a bug though. When it sleeps, it just stops working and the camera app will crash. 3. I appreciate the Auto rotate shortcut missing from the the previous. 4. Battery life seems the same. I have been using the excellent Greenify App. Yet, there should be a way to control power draining issue when the phone has little or no cellular signal. 5. ART has probably remove very small stutters in some apps. Overall, my N5 is very smooth and quick and nothing left to ask for. 6. Google camera HDR has become slower and faster depending on the scene. It's still the best way to get good photos from a smartphone. I hope for manual controls, RAW mode, and other powerful features such as 60 fps video capture on 720p.
7. Now the UI and most messaging/social apps use white background, there should definitely a content aware Auto Brightness control so that it lowers the backlight for such content and then boosts again for full screen photos or videos.
8. A very small and niche annoyance for is the missing IP Address from the WiFi information page. In 5.0, I can only find it in About Phone - Status. I currently use my phone to troubleshoot WiFi connectivity at work and implementation of 5GHz AP setup.
9. I don't like the Photo app. It still feels the Backup Photo App. I have to download a 3rd party app for viewing pictures since they have removed the Gallery app.
10. There should be an option to bring out the keyboard immediately when unlocking the phone. In 5.0, it will require to swipe the lock icon first which is probably useful if you to want to read your notifications first before deciding to unlock the phone.
What a disappointing review. Pointless talk about frame rates and not a word about aspects that actually have practical merit and value - comparative battery endurance and application loading times.
As an N4 user who's been using the Google Now launcher since it was available as a standalone APK last year (for those who haven't tried it, you can get it from the google play store now and it's terrific), I didn't feel as "shocked" by lollipop as I did by kitkat. Like with all android updates, it feels like the google apps were gradually updated prior to the OS update so I was already sort of used to the design changes.
If your apps were fully updated, and you've been using Google Now Launcher, in day-to-day use there's really just 3 main changes: notification bar, homescreen, general smoothness. All good changes IMO.
"I think what can be said is that overall, Android is pretty much at the same level as Windows Phone and iOS for animation smoothness and general performance."
Crazy talk! I have a 2nd gen Moto X with Lollipop, and an iPhone 6. I switch between them weekly. The smoothness and general performance of the iPhone 6 / iOS is ALWAYS a breath of fresh air compared to Android, Lollipop included. I hate it, because I prefer Android, but there it is. It slaps me in the face every time. There's nothing subjective it. It's obvious.
I understand your frustration. There seem to be two issues at work: 1. not every one notices the slight stutters/lag in android, 2. Google doesn't care enough to fix the problem.
The question is however - have you actually tried using it on a 10" tablet (such as my nexus 10).
Suddenly all that love for well thought out and impressive "material design" vanishes. And you realise that on a tablet the Material Design comes down to stretching a phone UI.
In fact the moment you realise you have to reach for the unreachable (with thumbs) middle of the screen to do anything to the notifications AND recents you realise that the whole "design" is basically screwed.
Oh and performance "increases" on droid are laughable seeing how the new UI is basically less responsive than it was before (because animations which take time = less responsive ui). In any case literally the first thing to do on a droid these days is unlock the dev settings and halve the animation duration. After that you may actually get some responsiveness. It was the same on 4.x and its even more so on 5.0
And the same UI stutter isn't going away either. Because you know... endless nand calls. Which is by the way the reason why Nexus 6 shows awful performance results. Because its Nand is slow (thanks forced encryption) the ui is slow. Its really amazing how a device that runs on better hardware runs slower and worse than a device that came a year before (N6 vs N5) because of encryption which is FORCED on a user.
But that's droid for ya. Its like the opposite of forced obsolescence - the newer the device the shittier it works...
I don't mind the design with the exception of so much white color. Don't they know that OLED screens are dramatically more power efficient with non-white colors. Black pixels can be turned off all together. White colors actually lead to significantly worse energy efficiency on OLED compared to LCD.
After reading the whole review, I'd like to point two omissions I noticed: - Play Store and Calendar were named as the applications causing the most noticeable stutter during animations, but in my opinion Google Keep is far worse than the other two. In particular, scrolling always results in evident freezes of the UI, and even opening and closing notes is really painful. - The new multitasking view doesn't just add the possibility to view Chrome tabs as separate apps, but this feature is extended to many other google apps; for example, tapping on the "new mail" button in Gmail brings you to a new application window, and opening Overview shows that actually the previous view is still open "underneath" the current one. That's pretty cool and really functional, in my opinion, because it gives you the opportunity to compare the mail you're writing with the ones in your inbox. Settings app also works similarly, but maybe it's a bit less useful.
Anyway, it's always a pleasure to read a review by Anandtech, they're always thorough and very pleasant :)
i hate stock android .. horribl eicons horribl esymple two color layout.. horribl estatus bat icons .. settings black n white like in WW2 .. thnx good that manufs can have their own gui style of everything
I can't imagine what's been going through the minds of the guys who work on the play store updates, for years they have continued to release stuttery, jittery terrible performing updates for what's possibly the most important app in all Androids, Google should be ashamed of keeping that trend up for so long
Sounds like you think change is good just because it is change. That's fine, but some of us would prefer not to sacrifice functionality just to be fashionable. I couldn't give a bout of aerial coitus whether I add a contact via a floating button or a plus sign somewhere else, but if my SMS or email app is "improved" to use less screen real estate for actual text (causing me to see less context without having to scroll, despite the fact that devices are getting bigger with higher resolution screens so you could actually fit MORE and stay readable) that's not "moving on" - it's moving backwards. Same goes for changes to calendar or camera apps that completely remove features some of us use regularly. Almost everything I've heard about L makes me want to avoid it for as long as possible because I care what about my device DOES more than how it LOOKS. And yes, we are forced to upgrade eventually if we want the latest security patches or devices.
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nevertell - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
And no comment on the move to 64 bit target platforms ?Brandon Chester - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
That's just a result of the move to ART. I didn't want to just carbon copy Andrei's article, but it's linked in there and it's definitely worth the read.Maleficum - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link
It's the other way around: Android absolutely needs AOT-type compiler (ART) to decide between aarch32 and aarch64 prior to starting the process. If an app contains even a single JNI call to an aarch32 subroutine, the whole app HAS TO be compiled to aarch32, because no mode switching is allowed within a process.Your saying "apps are primarily written in Java" and Andrei's article are also misleading in just stating what Google claimed: 85% apps are written in Java.
Google most probably isn't lying with that, but the fact is: most TOP apps AREN'T written in Java.
I once checked top 25 apps in the US store: only two of them were written purely in Java.
What this means? 64-bit will remain just a gimmick on Android for the upcoming 4 years thanks to the fragmentation.
For 64-bit NDK apps, the devs HAVE TO set Lollipop as the minimum requirement since it REQUIRES AOT.
And will they do that? You know the answer.
OreoCookie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Also, it seems much less clear whether and how much of a speed boost you actually get (as evidenced by the benchmarks run on the Nexus 9 where basically there is no difference between running Android in 32 and 64 bit mode).Krysto - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
And what benchmarks are those? So far all the benchmarks I've seen are done in the 32-bit mode.kron123456789 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Geekbench 3, for example.Martuv93 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I haven't seen anyone do an AArch32 vs AArch64 showdown on Android yet.The Denver CPU is also a very weird thing so it might not benefit from the move to AArch64 in the same way for example the Exynos 7 Octa will.
kron123456789 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I'm not even sure that Exynos 7 Octa will support AArch64))http://anandtech.com/show/8537/samsungs-exynos-543...
And, yes — Exynos 7 Octa and so-called Exynos 5433 are the same SoC.
garretelder - Thursday, December 4, 2014 - link
Good news! Now it's about time to upgrade to a TOP phone (see rankings such as http://www.topreport.org/phones/ for instance).extide - Friday, December 5, 2014 - link
Almost the same, the Exynos 7 does not have AArch64 disabled, like the 5433kron123456789 - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
Are you sure about that? The SoC labled as Exynos 5433 was found in Galaxy Note 4, but later Samsung claimed that Galaxy Note 4 has Exynos 7 Octa.http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconduct...
Did they changed the SoC through OTA update? :)
OreoCookie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Have a look at http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/nexus-9-rev...">Arstechnica's review of the Nexus 9: you see that the Nexus 9 fares better in some benchmarks in 64 bit mode while in others, it's slower. The difference is always quite small (about 1~2.5 %), so small that it's barely above the threshold of the statistical error, I bet.That was surprising to some, because they expected the Denver-based K1 to get a 20~30 % boosts similar to iOS devices when comparing 32 and 64 bit modes. At this stage nobody knows whether the basically flat results are due to the unusual architecture of the Denver cores (maybe the result of the code morphing is microcodes which is optimized at about the same level) or whether it's that ART does not yet make good use of the architecture. Given the fact that in 64 bit mode ARM processor can address more registers etc. I would guess that it's the former, the unusual architecture of Denver. I really hope Anandtech subjects it to an architectural deep dive.
Solandri - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
The 20%-30% speed boosts I've seen in iOS benchmarks from going 64-bit were grossly exaggerated by using the mean. You can't use the mean because it by definition weighs larger values more heavily. If there's a playground with a half dozen 8 year old kids romping around, a single 90-year old sitting on a bench will raise the mean age to 20. So a single large benchmark improvement can disproportionately skew the mean when the vast majority of benchmarks showed little to no improvement.You have to use the median in these cases. The median benchmark speedup I've seen has been about 5%-9%. If you remove the benchmarks which improved due to specialized hardware being added, the median improvement drops below 5%. Which is in line with the speedup Windows experienced when transitioning to 64-bit CPUs.
Really, the only places where going to 64-bit can speed things up is flat memory addressing, which isn't a factor because none of the iOS devices have more than 4 GB. With calculations using long long ints (64 bit ints), which almost nobody uses. And with double floats, which outside of certain benchmarks is mostly used in scientific programming. Even most 3d game engines still use 32-bit floats because it's "good enough" for most cases (doubles don't become necessary until you start dealing with extremely large distances, like space simulation games). Most of the speed increase from Apple's 64-bit SoC comes from increasing the number of registers and from new specialized hardware speeding up things like AES by over 200%, both of which have nothing to do with 64-bit-ness. (Memory bandwidth is a bigger issue due to light only being able to travel 12cm in a single 2.5 GHz clock cycle. I'm not sure what memory controller ARM uses, but most devices have long since adopted 128-bit or larger memory controllers to get around this physics-imposed limit.)
The Hardcard - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
The added registers and other resource are tied to 64-bit-ness in the sense that ARM decided to make architectural boosts with the move to 64 bit. True they could have added those to 32-bit ARM but there wasn't a point in doing that.An possible explanation for the Denver results may not be in the code morphing in and of itself. It could just as well be that it uses the full register set and all the other resources for both 32-bit ARM and 64-bit ARM emulation. Because it is not that the 64-bit results are so bad, but that the 32-bit results are so good. You could just be seeing what it would be like if ARM had added the registers and instructions to 32-bit.
OreoCookie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
First of all, it's part of the interpretation of data on how you obtain an average from the raw data. You argue it's the median instead of the expectation value, but a more realistic average would rely on weighing according to the instruction mix -- which varies. If encryption algorithms are constantly used (and they are used a fair bit on smartphones with all the encrypted traffic), then 250~800 % speed advantage is not an outlier, but significant in applications. Moreover, many of the benchmarks such as these (http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-r... are not necessarily meant to tell you how much faster the device will be in typical use (where most mobile SoCs are idling anyway), but rather probe specific aspects of the architecture in order to understand how it has evolved. Certainly I won't be the one arguing that simulating SDEs such as the Black-Scholes equation is a common real-world application in SoCs ;-) And speaking of a 20~30 % speedup on average (even if you exclude outliers) seems quite sensible given the benchmarks. If you want to argue about how to properly weight these benchmarks (e. g. that FP benchmark results which show more of an improvement are less important), that's a different discussion.You're also wrong when you claim that flat memory addressing is the only place where going 64 bit can speed things up: ARMv8 has twice the number of registers compared to ARM v7 which (similar to going from x86 to x64) -- and while this has nothing to do with 64 bit, but it has everything to do with being part of the new ARM ISA which also happens to be 64 bit. There are also changes to the Objective C runtime in order to take advantage of the 64 bit-ness, e. g. creation and destruction of objects was sped up by a factor of 2 (https://mikeash.com/pyblog/friday-qa-2013-09-27-ar... which can cumulatively become significant in iOS apps where you constantly manipulate objects.
I don't think the attempt to separate improvements which have nothing to do with going 64 bit itself but are rather part of the 64 bit ARM v8 ISA is going to be practically useful because we cannot decouple the different components. Ditto for hardware encryption logic which replaces software routines: they are a real-world advantage, and the only question will be by how much.
name99 - Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - link
It's a little ridiculous to claim that speedups from AES are "unfair" on the same blog that has been complaining about how much dramatically Android's whole-disk encryption slows down the OS...tuxRoller - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Denver is a different enough arch (internally) that there may be other reasons why it isn't faster.jnemesh - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Did you see any performance benefits moving from Windows 32 bit to Windows 64 bit? Nope. Not one little bit. You wont see any here either. As with desktop PCs the main benefit to 64 bit is that it allows you to address more than 4GB of memory. As most phones are shipping with 3GB or less, you won't see any benefit to a 64 bit environment unless and until the apps start demanding more RAM.Maleficum - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link
You don't have to struggle to prove your ignorance.After the Itanium fiasco, Intel abandoned IA64 and licensed the half-baked x86_64 where larger addressing space is practically the only benefit.
Aarch64 is a full-fledged 64-bit architecture with a completely rewritten ISA similar to what Intel dreamed of with the Itanium. Larger addressing space is just one of the many side benefits on Aarch64.
kspirit - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I don't know why people refuse to accept that the Lollipop UI, with its metro-like appearance of flat tiles and bold colours isn't a blatant copy of Windows Phone. I'm not hating, I actually like Android a lot, but come on! It's wrong to be in denial like that.On my Nexus 4, the recent contacts in the dialler app are actually coloured squares arranged in a grid! I mean, seriously? Might as well have polished up Holo. At least it was unique to Android.
mmrezaie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Do you mean now microsoft invented squares? ;-)I have used windows mobile, and its not that similar experience compared to android L although it is really really good if not counting the lack of apps. I think android with material design is kinda unique and almost new.
OreoCookie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Microsoft's Metro design language was the first to prominently feature a flat, typography-centered, stark, and geometric UI. What Microsoft did here was start a trend rather than make a design that was copied piece-wise by competitors. iOS 7/8, for instance, are also stark, typography-centered and geometric, but they're not flat. Android is following, too, by simplifying shapes, etc. Duarte who is in charge of Android's UI design had similar plans for the ill-fated webOS (search for the last evolution of the UI which never made it into a product, a strikingly beautiful compromise between the aforementioned qualities with some whimsical elements sprinkled in).There is nothing wrong with adopting and adapting good ideas, quite the contrary.
kspirit - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
A sensible comment!Yes, there's nothing wrong with it. I agree with you on all accounts. I am not saying they did wrong by it, but what I was saying was people are wrong to deny something so obvious.
Murloc - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
people must have been sleeping not to notice the trend.I mean, just look at Anandtech.
10 years ago a style like this would have been completely ridicolous.
MonkeyPaw - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I think I would be fine without each mobile OS review talking about what came over (copied) from competing platforms. It's pretty obvious that the best or most logical concepts are coming through in the market, as they should.I was ready to
give this article a pass until we got to the Notification Center bit. Once the writer opened the door, then it became time to give other companies credit for good ideas, too. MS offered the flat UI with WP7, and it has aged so well that Apple and Google have followed suit.
Krysto - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Lollipop is a blatant copy of Metro? What are you smoking? Not only is Lollipop still very much Android-like much more so than anything related to Metro, but I actually believe material design > iOS7 > Metro. Yes, that's right - Metro is the ugliest of the 3 new design languages, while material design is the most advanced and more thought out. iOS7 is kind of amateurisly made, but Metro has some huge practical problems that make it the worst.kspirit - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Um. I'm not really commenting on how polished or refined it is. I didn't comment on usability either. I'm talking about purely appearance. Google might have made it a lot more usable than Microsoft ever could, but that still doesn't mean they didn't take design cues from Windows Phone...OreoCookie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Yes, but Metro was first and set the trend. iOS 7/8 is also not a copy of Metro, Apple was taking some ideas (which had already been embodied in their hardware!) such as cutting embellishments, focus on type and a move away from skeuomorphism but the iOS 7/8 user interface is not flat at all: Windows Phone uses the scroll metaphor to connect screens while iOS uses zooms and other animations to create depth. In short, even though Apple took some grander ideas the result still feels like iOS. And ditto for Android 5: Google has taken some ideas (e. g. simplified the navigation icons on the bottom), but it still feels like Android. IMO Lollipop is an improvement.FunBunny2 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I guess you weren't around before 3D widgets became possible in GUIs????Murloc - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Microsoft did not invent the Swiss Style.The trend has been to go towards it everywhere, Microsoft simply acted on it earlier than the others, being a trend-setter if you will.
But they did not invent anything.
OreoCookie - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
But that's as misguided a statement as »Microsoft didn't invent squares« or »Apple didn't invent rounded rectangles«: Microsoft deserves kudos for being the first to pick up on this trend on a large scale. And if you claim »but they didn't invent it« what you really want to say is that you don't want to give them credit for it.HisDivineOrder - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I find that most people care less for who does something first and more for who does something best.tralalalalalala40 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Design is never new. People copy each other in this area all the time. Look to the world of fashion how crazy fast people copy.HackerForHire - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Maybe because you're incorrect and couldn't be more wrong? To associate a connection between material design and that hideous metro interface is just ludicrous. I've used both interfaces and thankfully I've abandoned that ugly metro interface with its superfluous animations that did nothing but hide the performance problems of the OS. Additionally, it seems the only people complaining about the similarities are butt hurt windows phone fanboys that are upset their OS of choice in tanking so hard.theduckofdeath - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Microsoft throwing toys out of the pram because they messed up on mobile (again)...Windows Phone will keep failing as long as Microsoft keeps trying to sell us another closed and locked down ecosystem.
haukionkannel - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Well... Apple is selling closed and locked ecosystem and is doing better than Android...The WP is just fine mobile os! It is something between iOs and android when compared how locked down it is. It has been very snappy and light (a good thing !) it has been new (bad thing ?)
I have used all those three and all of them have their advantages and disadvantages. It is really good that we have three ecosystem. It keeps competition high enough!
kyuu - Thursday, December 4, 2014 - link
Right. Closed and locked down are the ultimate sins for a mobile operating system and doom it to failure. Just ask Apple.Hyper72 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I'm guessing most people are not in denial, they just don't care whether ideas have been copied, independently developed or somewhere in-between or perhaps trends followed as another commented. Taking inspiration is how the industry have moved for decades and generally it benefits the user.Narg - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Obviously they don't care. Don't you see how quiet and peaceful they are about the changes.... Oh, wait.tuxRoller - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Material isn't flat. It uses shading to indicate a z dimension (or layers).Poik - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
It looks nice and coherent but I wish there was an option for inverted Colors as that would or could make a difference in battery life for those of us with OLED screens. The white everywhere is nice and clean but is also far more prone to being washed out in my experience.nevertell - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I for one welcome (our bright minded LCD overlords) the new design, as I am really tired looking at the dark and gloomy pre-Lollipop styling. And you can't really be mad at Google who is always trying to make the android experience consistent across all devices, and your OEM is free to change the colour scheme as far as I am aware.Murloc - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
heh windows phone wins with OLEDs.They should definitely provide an alternative color scheme.
tralalalalalala40 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Don't make google cater to the oled users. Why do people bring this up? Is the purpose of OLED devices to use the screen as little as possible? loltuxRoller - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Settings->accessibility->color inversionYou're welcome:)
Gadgety - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Lollipop. Far too many bright and cheerful battery wasting images. My kid got Lollipop to the phone but doesn't want to install it, because it will "change everything" and going back to 4.4 is a hassle. In short she's satisfied with 4.4 but doesn't see what will be gained with 5.0.Where did personalization and tailor making go - the original reason to get Android over iOS? Apparently the calendar only has 5 day weeks. I guess this will improve in future iterations, but in some areas Lollipop apparently presents a step backwards.
xenol - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
This is the problem whenever you change your UI. Everyone thinks the UI is the only change that happened, disregarding anything else (like AOT instead of JIT for application performance).Like in Windows 8. There were a few things that I found under the hood (and some of them blatant) that I liked and were the reason for keeping it as my main OS, but everyone else harped on Metro.
At least with Lollipop, they didn't change much in the way of the user interface paradigms. But alas, too many loud mouths will constantly bash the look of something and not really understand the meat of it.
Gadgety - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
What about the vegetables?tralalalalalala40 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
How dare you mention the 2 unmentionable days of the week.Gadgety - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
So step by step Google will reformulate my experience. I want to be in charge of my phone, rather than Google, or Samsung. Google mixes brilliant with appalling.@tralalalalalala40 I stand corrected.
It's like the Keep app - great for entering data, abhorrent for structuring it. Of course one can always fall back on that Google function par excellence - search. By handing data to us like this, we become dependent on the search, and Google will know more and more about our habits, which is how they make their money. Datamining is where it's at.
simboss - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
"In fact, I haven't really noticed any significant bugs at all after upgrading to Lollipop, which says a great deal about the work Google has put into testing to make sure things are stable. "really?
Both my Nexus 5 and 10 have been more unstable with Lollipop, crashing and even getting in a rebooting loop.
What devices have you used to do this testing?
simboss - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Adding to that that the default unlocking on the nexus 10 and the notifications are less efficient than they were.Ars had a pretty good summary of it:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/the-nexus-1...
Brandon Chester - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Nexus 5 and Nexus 6. I've had no issues with the former, and I was just speaking from my experience on the matter. I haven't seen any major complaints elsewhere though.JarredWalton - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I've had a SHIELD Tablet and Nexus 5 both lock up and require a reboot more often than with 4.4. Might be more of a factor of playing games (PvZ 2, AC Unity Companion), and I don't mind the change in general, but I think we'll see a few updates and maybe 5.0.2 or whatever will be needed before we really clear up the remaining glitches.blzd - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Same here with my Nexus 5. It would seem (quite a few others have noticed this as well) that if you don't reboot the phone eventually just dies. It's happened to me twice only to work perfectly again after the reboot, and hasn't happened since I started rebooting nightly.The theory is a memory management/leak bug but it's tough to tell.
Impulses - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
That happened with Kit Kat too tho, if you pummeled Chrome with enough tabs or generally just kept enough things open it'd eventually get weird... Keyboard would act up, my 3G or GPS would occasionally work intermittently, etc. Reboot always fixed it... On face value it sounds less stable than my older Android phones but I never did quite as much on them as on the Nexus 5 either (and/or I'd end up rebooting to flash stuff for features I don't really need anymore).errorr - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
My Nexus 5 has been great and jank only shows up when it gets hot... Otherwise it has been awesome for me.Unfortunately not so for the wife. She has a memory leak somewhere since the update and her Nexus 5 is almost unusable as everything grinds to a halt.
Jon Tseng - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
One cool thing I just noticed today - apps can now change colour of status bar to match their UI.Websites can also do this (thought not many are doing it at the moment) e.g. BBC News turns status bar red.
bensulli - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Hang on, why no battery life tests? One of Lollipop's biggest draws is Project Volt which claimed an increase of up to 30% in battery life. Anandtech does the most comprehensive battery life evaluations on the internet, why not here?Great article otherwise though! Thanks!
Brandon Chester - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I really would have liked to, but Volta has more to do with increasing battery life through better coalescing of CPU and network usage. When you do a battery life test which is just a web browsing or video playback test, none of those improvements have much of an impact. With the current state of mobile and how sandboxing works, it's very hard to build a battery benchmarks that can string together multiple applications being used to simulate a workflow that would get better battery life on Lollipop compared to KitKat.Brandon Chester - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Just an additional note, I just talked to Josh and he already tested it, there's no improvement in our web battery bench. I would be suspicious of anyone reporting otherwise because like I described above, it doesn't make sense to have significant battery improvements in a browser test because of Volta.bensulli - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Thanks for the response, that's fair enough. Hopefully we see some real-world improvements even if they're hard to quantify.Maxpower2727 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I'm not understanding your confusion with the performance issues on the Nexus 6, which are well known to be caused by the mandatory device encryption. You pointed this out yourself in another article very recently:http://www.anandtech.com/show/8725/encryption-and-...
Brandon Chester - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
No, they aren't. Re-read the second last paragraph of that article.Maxpower2727 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Ah, reading comprehension fail on my part. I would blame the issues on the ridiculous 1440p display, but the Adreno 420 should be more than up to the task of driving that resolution without issues. Strange.tuxRoller - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Yeah, I think his conclusion is wrong, iirc. Pretty much all gaming benchmarks, onscreen, deliver almost exactly the same performance @1440 as adreno 330 @1080.I know some folks don't see the point in increasing DPI but in this case I don't see the evidence for it being the culprit (especially when the note 4 doesn't appear to have the same issues).
HardwareDufus - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
The big 3... Windows, Apple and Android are all very good now. It's senseless to constanstly bicker back and forth who's better. With 7 1/4 billion people on earth, a good number of them who will have cell phones, there is definitely space for 3 major players and the smaller guys. They all connect, share documents, utilize the same file formats.... in short.. who cares?I do prefer my windows phone... but it's not because as I perceive it is any better than apple or android... In fact Windows Phone is kind of Windows 8ish.. which I don't like... and Android/Apple feels like Windows 3.1 with it's folders of chicklet sized icons.... again which I don't like. so nothing's truly perfect... regarding my Lumia with Windows, it's just what I have and what I like,.. and is intuitive for me (yes, of course I'd like to see some level of customization available, like app ordering and so forth.... but nothing that leaves me unsatisified and I'm quite delighted I'll get Win20 too. I think my complacency shows my age.
Reading this review... from a UI perspective... there is some give and take between 4.4 and 5.0 ... some things better.. some things less helpful... But, I bet under the covers it's performing very well.
Where the big 3 have taken smart phones to is amazing... from highly proprietary embedded feature phones to full operating systems running on an architecture without allot of legacy bloat. Good stuff all around. Kudos to google for 5.0.
tralalalalalala40 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
It's a duopoly. If you just use your smartphone to make calls and browse the web, then yes, microsoft and BB still matter. But MS devices are missing out on billions of hours of developer time making wonderful tools/games/etc.Gadgety - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
" They all connect, share documents, utilize the same file formats.... in short.. who cares?"Great for consumers.... However, from Google's, Apple's and Microsoft's perspective, and in particular their share holders' perspective, they care, because to them, this is war.
blzd - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
That's fine, let them declare war on each other. As humble users, we should keep an open mind.tralalalalalala40 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
iOS users welcome Android users to 2015, only 8 years late on a smooth UI!Better late than never. Consumers win!
blzd - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Didn't iOS just get the ability to install a custom keyboard? lol fanboys.ruthan - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Im still waiting for PC support - with app in window mode and multimonitor support and virtualisation and more PC HW drivers. They already have x86 build for tablets, even small 1 man project Android-x86 is now number 8 on linux distrowatch.Linux is dammed (something wrong fix it from terminal.. is show stopper for normal user) but Android could be way for good free desktop PC, users already know how to use it.
HackerForHire - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I was hoping for a paragraph or 2 on the improvements in low latency audio. It's unfortunate that audio always seems to be left out of the mix for most OS reviews.tuxRoller - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Look at reddit for this. Folks have adjust tested it and it still isn't usable (midi to USB).The system audio latency hasn't changed, iirc.
Regardless of I/o talks Google simply doesn't care about either audio or low touch latency.
BobSwi - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Didnt care for it, actually was the main factor in trying out rooting my Nexus 5. Flashed Kitkat and then Slimkat 8 in less than 2 hours from never having done it before.REBERY - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Odd that you would do an entire review on Android and miss arguably the single biggest improvement that this OS provides...namely, the ability for "OK Google" to be active at all times (a la Motorola). Having a personal assistant always available is a huge plus.Impulses - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Kit Kat was already halfway there with the stock launcher (post updates), you could call it up while within any app or with a locked phone if it was charging.pgari - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I have yet to acept the Lollipop update in my N5, as I did not like the Calendar update with its new Material Design (lost ofnow in the weekly view you see only six hours per day, forcing you to scroll)As others, I also do not like the mostly white background neither the lost of the separate keys in the Keyboard and Calculator (as shown in this review)
Brandon,
Regarding ART, you mention that it stores a pre-compilation after the first use of the application, so reducing the available storage space, but did not quantify by how much.
dblkk - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
The more I read about lollipop the less interested I am, and the more I hope Samsung doesn't force the upgrade on my Note 4.Everything moving to white instead of black is a huge one for me. As a Note 4 owner/user, blacks are my batteries best friend, and as a 30yr old I feel black background white text is easier on the eyes, especially in a darker environment.
I also see a lot of the specific apps that are coming with lollipop are already available for download in the play store. I've tried them all, mail/calander/messanger and ive still reverted back to samsungs software. Mail is nice, but my main accounts are live and yahoo. The organization and just readability in the 'email' app are in my opinion vastly superior to inbox/mail. Messanger is nice, but I like samsungs messages just a tad better. My common's are on top of the feed, and instead of random colors assigned to people, its all custom and for me set up as a photo for each. The calendar app, I don't see much of a change, and don't care to much about. The app drawer with its transparency on kit cat are much nicer than the white background that just jumps out at you, and the notification center on my note 4 is way more easy and functional than the upgrade will be.
I haven't looked into the 64bit and performance upgrades with lollipop vs kitcat, but I have no issues at all right now, so that's I guess welcome performance boost, but not needed and not going to make me upgrade.
I do really hope that lollipop wont be forced, and if it is that this whole white theme can be brought back to dark. But honestly just don't want to upgrade.
blzd - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Sounds like your just avoiding change. That's fine, but the rest of us would like to move on. No one forces you to update, thankfully it's there for those who want it.jwcalla - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
The good thing about "change" is that it comes about every six months in this industry now. So if he's not thrilled with this look, he can just hang on because Android 6.0 "with all-new Unmaterial Design!" is just around the corner.tuxRoller - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Settings>accessibility>color inversionwhiteiphoneproblems - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
"I think in the context of iOS applications Google may be going a bit too far by ignoring the design guidelines of that platform in favor of their own."I agree!
chris3145 - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
"iOS had previously resorted to intrusive alerts that displayed in the middle of the screen and interrupted the user."How could you bring that up and then not say anything about Android's heads up notifications that have the exact problem?
mostlyharmless - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
So, now that screen resolution is higher and processors more powerful, they're moving to minimalist design!? I like the old icons better.Arnulf - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Wow Brandon Chester, you are a dumbfuck noob. Pardon my online gaming terminology but this article reads like a whining post from one of those mongoloid little kids who are too dumb to grasp the basis of a game, so they cry and cry and some more and then finally rejoice when a tiny spec of their stupidity is made insignificant by the UI change,Seriously, have you considered moving to iOS platform if you're too stupid for 4.4.x's appearance? At least you won't have to trouble yourself with the issues have been facing here as somebody else will be doing the thinking for you.
Arnulf - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Kingdom for an Edit function !!! "Speck", of course, and some punctuation.RickRussellTX - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
The design aesthetic of tiny text surrounded by tons of unused white space cannot die soon enough.I bought a phone and a tablet with fantastic screen resolution, so I can finally display a useful amount of text without compromises. Now I can't display more than a few lines of anything because the UI won't let me. Dates and times on your e-mail? Sorry, no room Inbox for that!
toyotabedzrock - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I think the ui is inconsistent and the usability is down. The button placement in apps is nice to look at but not nice to use everyday.The notifications now intrude onto the screen for some apps, the lock screen is less useful without additional dragging that takes dexterity to do right. And having to drag down twice is much more difficult than pressing a button. It is as if no typical consumer testing was done.
The task switcher is so sluggish and going back home now takes much longer. Everything seems to use more memory and takes longer to start which is odd. And I have a Nexus 5.
I hope 5.1 comes soon.
Impulses - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I actually prefer dragging twice to the top right button, but that's probably because I use my phone primarily with my left hand. Always thought the quick settings button was much too close to the clear all button tho, despite only hitting clear all by mistake once or twice over the last year or so. I do agree some of the other card stacking and UI choices are questionable tho.toyotabedzrock - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Oh and can Google explain why Chrome crashes when sharing to Google Plus via the mobile browser interface? Or why the plus app shate function causes every other app to crash from memory depletion? Also Google search inexplicably crashes on my Nexus 5.Salty Wagyu - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Tapatalk has the worst jank, even ART hasn't helped much in this case.sonicmerlin - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
This talk in Google's 2014 I/O event is very relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TtVsy98cesThe speaker talks about the issues of Android's render thread priority causing lag, and how google worked to fix it in lollipop. I think it starts about 19:30 in.
My main question though is how browsers are affected. iOS and WP browsers scroll every webpage with pixel perfect smoothness, where Android has always lagged and stuttered on heavier web pages. Does Lollipop fix this, or will developers have to code their browsers to take advantage of Lollipop?
lukechip - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Lollipop is OK, but I preferred KitKat on my Nexus 10. On Lollipop is seems to take longer / more steps to do the same things compared with KitKat. For example, switching users used to involve:1/ swipe down settings
2/ click on my avatar
3/ enter my PIN
Now it invovles:
1/ swipe down notification tray
2/ click on user icon
3/ select my avatar
4/ drag up lock icon
5/ enter my PIN
The added steps add zero value to my experience. It's just plain poor.
Egg - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Frankly, I've been disappointed with Lollipop on my Nexus 5. First thing I noticed was highly visible frame drops swiping between Google Now and the home screen. Dashclock no longer functions. I need to swipe twice to get to the quick shortcuts... why? Meanwhile I haven't seen any improvement in the camera, which is slow to focus even in well lit scenarios... wasn't Camera2 supposed to fix this?Egg - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
Just tested with GPU profiling, I can routinely get spikes to appear. Yikes!(Also, Google Now's undo toast is not full caps like the updated Photos app undo toast.)
tuxRoller - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
I really, really wish art had delivered what was promised, but for my sample of three nexus devices (n4,n5,n7-2013) it has unambiguously made things worse. All of these devices were installed using the factory image, and two were fully wiped. It's just awful. Load times are longer. The interface is more janky than its ever been. Battery is pretty much unchanged, however.Google would've really benefited from an additional developer release so as to avoid these issues.
Lavkesh - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I have infact experienced a drop in battery life. I used to have a screen on time of little over 3 hours on Kit Kat but I havent been able to touch 3 hours so far with Lollipop.Lavkesh - Monday, December 1, 2014 - link
There are still a few areas where the animations do not even do close to 30 fps, let alone 60. The new message application is one example when you tap a conversation and it opens up. That said I do not know why the animations on my iPhone 4s feel smoother. Are they rendering it higher than 60 fps or is it physics?lpyihui - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
How about Project Volta and the battery life on Nexus 5?Brandon Chester - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I responded earlier in the comments about this. There's really no way to benchmark Volta, it has no impact on anything like web browsing or video playback tests.genghisquan - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
My experience with Lollipop went from positive to negative after the first week. I absolutely loved the concept & execution of Material Design. The other things that I was excited for with 5.0 was how smooth everything would feel and better battery performance. I'm so disappointed with those two things because things feel even more sluggish than it did on KitKat, and battery life isn't noticeably better at all! I seriously have sent more complaints/feedback while using Lollipop than I ever did on KitKat.Impulses - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Thank the Google Gods there's a setting in Chrome to disable it's tabs from invading the multi tasker, or I probably would've had to switch browsers.jabber - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I was really looking forward to just ONE thing from Lollipop for my Nexus 4 and that was the potential to use RAW capability for the camera.Unfortunately, Google decided not to update the Nexus 4 camera API. Thanks Google.
zodiacfml - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
1. I don't feel the new Android much since I'm using a different launcher just to remove Google's search bar on the main screen.2. I like the flashlight capability, goodbye flashlight app. It still has a bug though. When it sleeps, it just stops working and the camera app will crash.
3. I appreciate the Auto rotate shortcut missing from the the previous.
4. Battery life seems the same. I have been using the excellent Greenify App. Yet, there should be a way to control power draining issue when the phone has little or no cellular signal.
5. ART has probably remove very small stutters in some apps. Overall, my N5 is very smooth and quick and nothing left to ask for.
6. Google camera HDR has become slower and faster depending on the scene. It's still the best way to get good photos from a smartphone. I hope for manual controls, RAW mode, and other powerful features such as 60 fps video capture on 720p.
7. Now the UI and most messaging/social apps use white background, there should definitely a content aware Auto Brightness control so that it lowers the backlight for such content and then boosts again for full screen photos or videos.
8. A very small and niche annoyance for is the missing IP Address from the WiFi information page. In 5.0, I can only find it in About Phone - Status. I currently use my phone to troubleshoot WiFi connectivity at work and implementation of 5GHz AP setup.
9. I don't like the Photo app. It still feels the Backup Photo App. I have to download a 3rd party app for viewing pictures since they have removed the Gallery app.
10. There should be an option to bring out the keyboard immediately when unlocking the phone. In 5.0, it will require to swipe the lock icon first which is probably useful if you to want to read your notifications first before deciding to unlock the phone.
darkich - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
What a disappointing review.Pointless talk about frame rates and not a word about aspects that actually have practical merit and value - comparative battery endurance and application loading times.
Sigh
Alexey291 - Thursday, December 4, 2014 - link
I know its like I'm on engadget or something...IKeelU - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
As an N4 user who's been using the Google Now launcher since it was available as a standalone APK last year (for those who haven't tried it, you can get it from the google play store now and it's terrific), I didn't feel as "shocked" by lollipop as I did by kitkat. Like with all android updates, it feels like the google apps were gradually updated prior to the OS update so I was already sort of used to the design changes.If your apps were fully updated, and you've been using Google Now Launcher, in day-to-day use there's really just 3 main changes: notification bar, homescreen, general smoothness. All good changes IMO.
oturn - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
"I think what can be said is that overall, Android is pretty much at the same level as Windows Phone and iOS for animation smoothness and general performance."Crazy talk! I have a 2nd gen Moto X with Lollipop, and an iPhone 6. I switch between them weekly. The smoothness and general performance of the iPhone 6 / iOS is ALWAYS a breath of fresh air compared to Android, Lollipop included. I hate it, because I prefer Android, but there it is. It slaps me in the face every time. There's nothing subjective it. It's obvious.
tuxRoller - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
I understand your frustration. There seem to be two issues at work: 1. not every one notices the slight stutters/lag in android, 2. Google doesn't care enough to fix the problem.vgjfelix - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
If you fancy 50 Nexus 9 (and therefore pretty much 50 lollipop) tips and tricks in 15 minutes check out this video: http://youtu.be/aOkK0Dht2QAAlexey291 - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
The question is however - have you actually tried using it on a 10" tablet (such as my nexus 10).Suddenly all that love for well thought out and impressive "material design" vanishes. And you realise that on a tablet the Material Design comes down to stretching a phone UI.
In fact the moment you realise you have to reach for the unreachable (with thumbs) middle of the screen to do anything to the notifications AND recents you realise that the whole "design" is basically screwed.
Oh and performance "increases" on droid are laughable seeing how the new UI is basically less responsive than it was before (because animations which take time = less responsive ui). In any case literally the first thing to do on a droid these days is unlock the dev settings and halve the animation duration. After that you may actually get some responsiveness. It was the same on 4.x and its even more so on 5.0
And the same UI stutter isn't going away either. Because you know... endless nand calls. Which is by the way the reason why Nexus 6 shows awful performance results. Because its Nand is slow (thanks forced encryption) the ui is slow. Its really amazing how a device that runs on better hardware runs slower and worse than a device that came a year before (N6 vs N5) because of encryption which is FORCED on a user.
But that's droid for ya. Its like the opposite of forced obsolescence - the newer the device the shittier it works...
darkich - Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - link
Ah I'm confused.. notebookcheck got great storage performance for the Nexus 6 in their review. (!?)Alexey291 - Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - link
I'll just leave this here :)http://www.anandtech.com/show/8725/encryption-and-...
Narg - Tuesday, December 2, 2014 - link
Yuck. New design is very bad, and looks much more difficult to navigate quickly and efficiently.Nandhu - Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - link
Hi,I am using Nexus 5 32gb. After Updating android version (5.0). Am not able to set custom rigntone in my phone.
Kindly help us on this.
baycorn - Wednesday, December 3, 2014 - link
nexus 9 review : pleasssssssssssssssssse!!!!!Hixbot - Thursday, December 4, 2014 - link
I don't mind the design with the exception of so much white color. Don't they know that OLED screens are dramatically more power efficient with non-white colors. Black pixels can be turned off all together. White colors actually lead to significantly worse energy efficiency on OLED compared to LCD.Alexey291 - Friday, December 5, 2014 - link
I think that its the case of "we know and don't care".pgp - Friday, December 5, 2014 - link
After reading the whole review, I'd like to point two omissions I noticed:- Play Store and Calendar were named as the applications causing the most noticeable stutter during animations, but in my opinion Google Keep is far worse than the other two. In particular, scrolling always results in evident freezes of the UI, and even opening and closing notes is really painful.
- The new multitasking view doesn't just add the possibility to view Chrome tabs as separate apps, but this feature is extended to many other google apps; for example, tapping on the "new mail" button in Gmail brings you to a new application window, and opening Overview shows that actually the previous view is still open "underneath" the current one. That's pretty cool and really functional, in my opinion, because it gives you the opportunity to compare the mail you're writing with the ones in your inbox. Settings app also works similarly, but maybe it's a bit less useful.
Anyway, it's always a pleasure to read a review by Anandtech, they're always thorough and very pleasant :)
Ethos Evoss - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
i hate stock android .. horribl eicons horribl esymple two color layout.. horribl estatus bat icons .. settings black n white like in WW2 ..thnx good that manufs can have their own gui style of everything
insultar - Sunday, December 7, 2014 - link
I'm sorry but this an absolute horrible review. The reviewer has no clue about UI design. So please stop making reviews if you have no clue.Fidelator - Wednesday, December 10, 2014 - link
I can't imagine what's been going through the minds of the guys who work on the play store updates, for years they have continued to release stuttery, jittery terrible performing updates for what's possibly the most important app in all Androids, Google should be ashamed of keeping that trend up for so longrakesh_hocrox - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Check out the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop update for nexus : http://bit.ly/1vDxAwWMarkColby - Saturday, December 13, 2014 - link
Sounds like you think change is good just because it is change. That's fine, but some of us would prefer not to sacrifice functionality just to be fashionable. I couldn't give a bout of aerial coitus whether I add a contact via a floating button or a plus sign somewhere else, but if my SMS or email app is "improved" to use less screen real estate for actual text (causing me to see less context without having to scroll, despite the fact that devices are getting bigger with higher resolution screens so you could actually fit MORE and stay readable) that's not "moving on" - it's moving backwards. Same goes for changes to calendar or camera apps that completely remove features some of us use regularly. Almost everything I've heard about L makes me want to avoid it for as long as possible because I care what about my device DOES more than how it LOOKS. And yes, we are forced to upgrade eventually if we want the latest security patches or devices.