Exclusive: Samsung’s progress with Android Lollipop update for the Galaxy S5

A month ago, SamMobile gave you folks an exclusive preview at an alpha build of Android Lollipop running on a Galaxy S5, but as Samsung was still working on making TouchWiz compatible with Google’s new design guidelines, a lot of inconsistencies could be seen throughout the user interface. Nevertheless, thanks to our elite friends, we have scored a new internal Android Lollipop firmware for the Galaxy S5, which is leaps and bounds better than the build we previewed before, so let’s see what’s new.

First and foremost, Samsung has upgraded its Android Lollipop base from LRW58J to LRX02E. Now, even though the Korean giant is using an updated source code, the build is still missing the Lollipop branding, which indicates that it’s not using the most recent code from Google. However, the new LRX02E build does change the Android version from ‘L’ to ‘5.0’ and also brings in the new Android Bird game as an easter egg, but instead of using lollipops as blockades, the current build uses black and yellow striped rectangles — this was probably a security measure taken by Google to prevent the Lollipop branding from getting leaked before the official announcement.

Samsung’s latest Lollipop build brings in a plethora of changes, mostly to the user interface, and at the same time adds a few new features as well.

List of changes in the new Lollipop build compared to the old one:

• • New Note 4 fingerprint lock screen
• • New system-wide font — similar to the original one, but a tad thinner.
• • New animations, much smoother than before — there’s a screen off animation present as well.
• • Google Search bar in recents menu
• • Brightness slider in notification centre has a new yellow colour — while changing the brightness, the notification centre disappears and allows the user to view the content beneath it.
• • Removed “Interruptions” from Sound settings
• • Gallery: Media can be sorted using new filters including Pets, Events, Scenery, Documents, Food, Vehicles and Flowers.
• • Music: Improved UI
• • Clock: Navigation bar icons are now accompanied by text
• • Calculator: Removed square grids which surrounded the numbers and symbols
• • Contacts: New search box
• • Stock Material Design inspired applications receive colored status bar
• • Android Lollipop theme’s core green elements replaced with Samsung’s blue colour
• • Settings: Improved UI, new icon colours
• • New UI for setting wallpaper from home screen
• • Better spacing between options in power off dialog

If we compare the latest Lollipop build with the one we previewed earlier, it’s a night and day difference. We are really amazed by the amount of progress Samsung’s software engineers have made in such a short time. Now, we know that all the Samsung fans out there want this build badly, but we can’t leak it just yet simply because it’s still in an early stage, and is nowhere near a daily driver. We can’t put our readers’ devices at risk.