Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition Android 5.0 Update Live

Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition Android 5.0 Update Live

After the Galaxy S5 LTE, it is now the turn of the Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition to receive the Android 5.0 Lollipop update. Samsung is now seeding the Android 5.0.0 Lollipop update to the S4 GPE devices. Strangely the update isn’t based on the latest Android 5.0.1 Lollipop version as the Galaxy S5. This is a bit odd considering the Google Play Edition runs stock Android and is thus getting the 5.0.1 firmware ready for the device should ideally take a lot less time than developing for TouchWiz based devices like the Galaxy S5. Nevertheless, the 5.0.1 update for the device should also be rolling out in the coming weeks. So far the only devices to run Android 5.0.1 apart from the Galaxy S5 are the Nexus devices and the HTC One M8 & One M7 GPE models.

The Android Lollipop OTA update for the Galaxy S4 GPE is around 500MB in size and if you own one, you can check for the update by going into Settings – About Phone – System Update. Ideally it should show up automatically in notifications though, so you shouldn’t have to manually check for the update. The update brings all the Android Lollipop features and improvements like the updated Material Design UI, improved performance thanks to the switch to Android ART runtime, new lockscreen notifications, multi-user support including Guest mode, new battery saving mode and improvements to battery life thanks to Project Volta, interruption and downtime settings, improved security, Smart Lock and a lot more.

If you haven’t received the OTA update yet on your Galaxy S4 GPE, you can download the OTA ZIP file from this link or even the full ODIN recovery image and then perform a full restore in the program. You can simply download the OTA ZIP file and transfer it to the internal storage. Boot into recovery on your device and perform a factory reset. You will also need to wipe cache, dalvik cache, system and data individually. Once you are done wiping everything, simply flash the ZIP file to get the latest Android 5.0 firmware running on your Galaxy S4 GPE.

If you have a regular Galaxy S4 and are wondering when Samsung will be rolling out the Android Lollipop update for it, you definitely will need to wait longer as the update for the Galaxy S4 is expected to arrive early next year. As the Galaxy S4 is the oldest Galaxy device slated to be updated to Lollipop, you can expect the update to begin once the update starts seeding for the Galaxy Note 4 and the Galaxy Note 3.