Android 5.0 Lollipop was made official a few days ago along with the all new Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 devices. Unfortunately, the full release won’t be available for Google Play Edition/Nexus devices until November 3rd and other devices at a later date. Fortunately, if you have a Nexus 5 and or a Nexus 7 (2013 edition), you can install the developer preview of Android 5.0. We recently acquired a Google Nexus 5 and installed the new developer preview release of Android 5.0 Lollipop, and we’ll go over our first impressions.
Design
Hands-down, Android 5.0 is the best designed OS to date of any Android release. For the first time, Android truly has a uniform design, and it looks amazing. Everything from the app drawer, notification panel, lock screen, navigation bar, and even the settings have been overhauled.
The battery statistics have also been revamped. The battery section in the settings now includ an all new approximate time left in the battery’s life and an approximate of how much capacity (in mAh) the user has used compared to the total battery capacity.
Performance
While the design and aesthetics are amazing in the latest version of Android, the performance is even better. While using the Nexus 5, which comes with 2 GB of RAM powered by a Snapdragon 800 processor, we found no lag, stutters, or freezing of any type.
Android 5.0 Lollipop’s animations do not slow down the phones actions whatsoever. Every app is brought in a fluid motion, unlike previous iterations of the OS. Every transition is smooth through and through.
The on-screen navigation performs as well as ever. Every button’s response is almost instantaneous, even multitasking. The multitasking menu pops up right away and scrolling through it is a breeze. It is very easy to navigate compared to KitKat’s. Apps that are pressed when multitasking, open up almost immediately, even third-party apps.
We compared the responsiveness of the navigation on the Nexus 5 with 5.0 developer preview to the Galaxy Note 4 and the ever-popular OnePlus One, and it won outright every single time. Just imagine what the Nexus 6 will do with this software with the Snapdragon 805 processor with 3 GB of RAM. It will truly be unmatched.
Conclusion
Google has definitely hit a home-run with the latest release of Android in 5.0 Lollipop. Lollipop’s performance is unmatched by any previous iterations, and we are only in the developer stage. We expect much more tweaks and enhancements once the final version is released November 3, 2014.
Android has always lead the OS market in customization and having phones with the best specs, but the OS’s performance and stability has lacked when comparing it iOS running with lesser specs. We believe Android 5.0 will change that and are fully confident that it will have better performance and more fluidity than iOS 8.
We will be sure to go over the final release when it comes out and we will have you covered on all things Nexus 6 once it is released.
