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Android 5

by Kyluke McDougall on 12 January 20152 min read

Installed CM nightly 12 on my LG G2 after they had announced their release.

Lollipop is the latest edition to the Android family. It was released last year November and is probably the most exiting release since Android 4.0. It uses the new ART architecture, which replaces Dalvik, and comes with the new Material design that Google has been slowly leaking into our phones via their applications.

All in all it is a big release. Google has released Android 5 on a number of their flagship devices already, while the rest of us, stuck with the likes of Samsung, have to wait. Probably for another 6 months to a year.

Last week CyanogenMod released its version of Lollipop into it's nightly stream based on v5.0.2. Of course I immediately downloaded it to test and play around with. The new Android OS is impressive to say the least. There are noticeable speed improvements and they've done an exceptional job with Material. BUT! The battery drain that the Nexus users complain about is a real thing. Here we see my LG G2 after a days light usage and I'm already having to look for the nearest charger. Before this phone would power through 2 days without needing to be recharged.

This seems to be more of an Android 5 rather than a CM nightly problem. Google is planning on addressing this in future releases (5.2) which is probably only due at the end of February.

The struggle is real.