Sprint Galaxy S5 Early Android 5.0 Lollipop Firmware Leak

Sprint Galaxy S5 Early Android 5.0 Lollipop Firmware Leak

Samsung has usually been very quick with rolling out Android updates to its devices in the past, but with Android 5.0 the company has been outpaced by LG and Motorola. The Lollipop update for the Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy S5 and a few other devices is expected to begin rolling out next month onwards. We have seen preview videos and leaked screenshots of the Samsung Lollipop update in the past one month but no Lollipop firmware had been leaked so far. That has changed today though as XDA moderator and recognized developer garwynn has posted a leaked Lollipop test buildfor the Sprint Galaxy S5 variant (SM-G900P)

The leaked release carries the build number PVPU1BNKD and according to the developer, so far everything like calls, SMS and other functions seems to work fine. The ROM is available for flashing on devices with unlocked bootloader. Unfortunately it is not available as a flashable zip so you will need to flash this firmware via ODIN. So if you are not very familiar with firmware flashing with ODIN on Galaxy devices and have a locked bootloader, you should probably wait until Samsung releases the official update in the coming weeks. But if you are the more adventurous type and do not mine losing warranty on your device, you may give this a go. Also keep in mind this leaked firmware is only meant for the Sprint Galaxy S5 variant and should not be flashed on any other variant of the Galaxy S5. Doing so may result in your device getting bricked.

The ROM does wipe all your data when it is flashed, so make sure that you backup all the files that you need. We’re talking about a full wipe here, which means all your photos, music and videos will also be removed and not just the system partition. So save a backup of all your files to the computer before you proceed with flashing this ROM on your Galaxy S5.

To flash the ROM you would need to download the self-extracting EXE file from this link and place your phone in download mode. Then open Odin, extract the tar.md5 file from the file that you downloaded and select in PDA slot. Start flash and wait for the installation to be completed. Famed XDA developer Chainfire has managed to root this firmware and the CF Auto-Root package for this firmware can be downloaded from here. You might see KNOX pop up a number of warnings after rooting the firmware, just ignore them and let the root settle in.