- Aug 13, 2014
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Ok, I know the Xperia range isn't exactly the most popular choice on these forums, and Lollipop is well covered elsewhere, but I've now spent a few days using Lollipop on the Z3 (O2 in the UK - flashed the Nordic variant ROM late last week), so thought I'd share a few thoughts as there may be someone out there who's also interested on how Lollipop runs on the Xperia range...
Firstly, the flashed Nordic ROM is great. I did expect a few glitches, but nothing. The last time I did something similar was when I was updating via leaks on the Blackberry 10 software, and when I did this it ALWAYS when back to "out-of-the-box" state, so I had to restore and then muck around with folders and so on to get my handset back to as it was, but you can flash this ROM and you get 5.0.2 Lollipop and all you settings, folders etc. exactly as they were (anyone who wants the link, just say - it's on Xperiablog).
Sony seems to have done a good job integrating it's own skin with Lollipop (as it did with KK to be fair), but once you go into the menus etc., it's VERY obviously Lollipop. I like the UI, and stuff like the dialler are nicer to use. There's nice blue tinge to the picture of who you're calling, and the hanging up is better too (I used to find that hanging up was a little unresponsive on KitKat - I often pressed the red bar more than once to be sure).
In E-Mail, it's now 'Lollipopped', but the swipe to dismiss works the same. However, the bars for each message are quite a bit bigger, and I found one-handed swiping to be not quite so accurate due to this, and I sometimes missed one or it opened the message instead.
SMS it similar, although the conversation bubbles or blocks are more central now.
I used to use the Walkman app for my music, but since the update I've found that the search facility only recognises a handful of songs (I have 7000+), which is a shame. However, I've switched to using the Google Play Music, which works well. I've also noticed that the sound through my headphones goes considerably louder than before. There's no change through the speakers though.
Something that does seem to be missing which I uses on KK is Location based WiFi. This option is no longer there. However, I did notice over the weekend that, whilst out and about, WiFi did seem to turn off anyway whilst away from one of my saved networks, so maybe this is now stock in Lollipop? No sure.
The cards system for open apps is nice. It's purely an aesthetic thing really, as the previous KK way of things was fine for me, but it's smooth and works well.
I like the notifications on the lock screen. I used to use ACDisplay on KK to do a similar thing, but have uninstalled this now as Lollipop does it anyway.
It's too early to say if there's any appreciative difference in battery life, but if you own a Z3, you'l know this isn't much of an issue anyway. I did notice that my internal storage space dropped by about 1GB, as Lollipop runs on ART instead of Dalvik, and the pre-loading of some of the apps features means more memory is used. May be something to think about if you're near full. However, Lollipop also allows you to store some apps on the SD card.
From what I've heard about the glitchy start to Lollipop, I was glad Sony waited as this seems very smooth thus far.
Firstly, the flashed Nordic ROM is great. I did expect a few glitches, but nothing. The last time I did something similar was when I was updating via leaks on the Blackberry 10 software, and when I did this it ALWAYS when back to "out-of-the-box" state, so I had to restore and then muck around with folders and so on to get my handset back to as it was, but you can flash this ROM and you get 5.0.2 Lollipop and all you settings, folders etc. exactly as they were (anyone who wants the link, just say - it's on Xperiablog).
Sony seems to have done a good job integrating it's own skin with Lollipop (as it did with KK to be fair), but once you go into the menus etc., it's VERY obviously Lollipop. I like the UI, and stuff like the dialler are nicer to use. There's nice blue tinge to the picture of who you're calling, and the hanging up is better too (I used to find that hanging up was a little unresponsive on KitKat - I often pressed the red bar more than once to be sure).
In E-Mail, it's now 'Lollipopped', but the swipe to dismiss works the same. However, the bars for each message are quite a bit bigger, and I found one-handed swiping to be not quite so accurate due to this, and I sometimes missed one or it opened the message instead.
SMS it similar, although the conversation bubbles or blocks are more central now.
I used to use the Walkman app for my music, but since the update I've found that the search facility only recognises a handful of songs (I have 7000+), which is a shame. However, I've switched to using the Google Play Music, which works well. I've also noticed that the sound through my headphones goes considerably louder than before. There's no change through the speakers though.
Something that does seem to be missing which I uses on KK is Location based WiFi. This option is no longer there. However, I did notice over the weekend that, whilst out and about, WiFi did seem to turn off anyway whilst away from one of my saved networks, so maybe this is now stock in Lollipop? No sure.
The cards system for open apps is nice. It's purely an aesthetic thing really, as the previous KK way of things was fine for me, but it's smooth and works well.
I like the notifications on the lock screen. I used to use ACDisplay on KK to do a similar thing, but have uninstalled this now as Lollipop does it anyway.
It's too early to say if there's any appreciative difference in battery life, but if you own a Z3, you'l know this isn't much of an issue anyway. I did notice that my internal storage space dropped by about 1GB, as Lollipop runs on ART instead of Dalvik, and the pre-loading of some of the apps features means more memory is used. May be something to think about if you're near full. However, Lollipop also allows you to store some apps on the SD card.
From what I've heard about the glitchy start to Lollipop, I was glad Sony waited as this seems very smooth thus far.
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