[Nexus 5 General] Ketzal:
Android Lollipop preview review and battery test

Battery test

I had reasonable battery on my first day with L, but had the weird miscellaneous stat appear and sudden fast drain.

I think I found the app causing it for me.

Podcast Addict

While it was running I had the drain and the miscellaneous percentage went up rapidly.

Uninstalled it.

Day 2. Fantastic battery life, best I've ever had on Nexus 5. No miscellaneous stat at all. Maybe, it really does mean unexplained rogue app usage. Weird, and nobody seems to really know. Wish Google would actually converse with us customers and explain it.

Likely 4+ hours SOT

1 hour of bluetooth music

Google Now on

Location on battery saving

Location reporting/history off

Screen auto brightness on. Dead center

If this is unfinished preview and things will get better when all developers enable the Volta battery API, then count me happy. I'm impressed with today's effort.

Lollipop

Graphic design

UI design is simply stunning. I'm a huge graphic design fan and have to say Google have knocked it out of the park. Lollipop is the current benchmark for design and usability in a mobile OS. Obviously, people will disagree and harp on about dark UIs. Get outta the past. It's called change, adapt or die. I personally prefer a less colorful design and darker UI, but can greatly appreciate the incredible work done here. Can't wait for the full Material app suite.

Function

Vastly improved. Proper freaking toggles. Only took 6 years! Really apart from a few small omissions, the OS is just massively customizable and greatly improved from KK. Frame rates are good, but not superb on the Nexus 5. Try the developer options GPU overlay and you'll see there are still many many frame drops. Especially in complex apps like Play Newstand. However, it is the best Android has ever been. ART has greatly improved app launch speed and system scrolling seems slightly improved.

At this stage I imagine the fluidity is hard wear limited. Maybe the more powerful GPU on the Nexus 6 will truly power a sustained frame rate. I won't hold my breath as the idiotic increased screen resolution simply counteracts any advancement in GPU power.

Any other comments are just too early. Let's all wait till the definitive version has been out a month before we cast a final verdict.

What I can say for sure now.

Lollipop has made the Nexus 5 the current benchmark in many ways.

How times have changed. Within reason, modern hardware is totally irrelevant. Phones are just small flat touchscreen computers. They are almost all the same, no matter what idiot tells you that the latest model is a design marvel.

It's down to software and services now. With Lollipop Google has potentially leapfrogged their competition and set the new benchmark.

The question is, can they roll out the software correctly? Can they ensure that customers phones update smoothly without a reset to cure numerous bugs? Will they drop the ball and ruin the camera update even with the incredible new camera API?

The ball is in a different court now. The design team have delivered a win. Can the delivery crew come through?

We'll know soon.

I started with the T Mobile G1, so for me Lollipop is almost what I always imagined Android would be.

Very impressed.