Users in India are the first to get the upgrade

Feb 11, 2015 22:07 GMT  ·  By

Samsung confirmed back in December that Android 5.0 Lollipop will arrive on older Galaxy smartphones like the S4 sometime in early 2015. The South Korean company did not provide an exact release date for the rollout, but that shouldn't be surprising since it never happened in the past.

The good news is that Android 5.0 Lollipop is now live for Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones and users in India are the first to get it. The update can be downloaded OTA (over the air) or through Samsung Kies desktop software.

As shown on XDA Forum, the update nets in at a little below 1GB (990MB), so make sure you have enough storage on your smartphone before attempting to upgrade.

If you live in India, the update will bring your Galaxy S4 to Android 5.0.1 Lollipop and, with it, the whole range of new features and improvements by Google.

The update is rolled out in stages, so if it doesn't show on your smartphone right away, you should check for it in a few days by going to Settings / About Phone / System Updates.

The important improvements are underneath, TouchWiz UI looks the same

Moving on to actual changes the Android 5.0 Lollipop brings to Galaxy S4, those who upgraded confirm they got slightly better battery life and a bit more speed when it comes to navigating the menus.

However, the TouchWiz UI has remained the same to the point that you won't be able to tell the difference between the previous version and Lollipop.

In fact, you shouldn't expect too many visual changes when upgrading to Android 5.0 Lollipop from a previous version, as Samsung did not reduce its TouchWiz UI, instead it only applied a few tweaks to make it work with the new OS.

Hopefully, the big changes will come with the Galaxy S6 that will be announced in early March, though many would rather Samsung dropped TouchWiz UI entirely.

Have you downloaded Android 5.0 Lollipop on your Galaxy S4? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.