Honestly Is Lollipop better or worse than kitkat?

[mohit9206]

Or is this the first time when a new Android version is actually inferior to the previous one? Let's say if all the bugs and issues are fixed in v5.1 would Lollipop become better than kitkat or Kitkat 4.4.4 will still be the best and most polished version of Android yet?
I am still awaiting Lollipop on my Moto but i will most likely not upgrade (or downgrade) to Lollipop.
So in your honest opinion as of now which OS version is better Kitkat or Lollipop? I would love to make this a poll but there is no such option.

 

[B. Diddy]

There certainly are front-facing changes to Lollipop that are not popular, like the lack of a true Silent mode, the dependence on lockscreen notifications instead of widgets, and the ubiquitous white background. But I think we also have to bear in mind those under-the-hood changes that are important, like security improvements and ART.

 

[ptkelly]

I was happy with KitKat and I'm happy with Lollipop. I did do a factory restore and everything works fine.

 

[rrballer11]

I think 5.1 will make lollipop like KitKat in performance

Posted via Android Central App

 

[ram1220]

A lot of it is personal taste. Other than the above listed annoyances like notifications and lock screen I just think Lollipop looks too cartoonish and washed out. Also looks as if kids mode is stuck on all the time. If this is the way Android is going then I will seriously look at other phones when it comes time to replace my HTC M7. I have always had HTC and Android. But I do not like the way Android is going or looking.

 

[itic]

It works fine on my Moto X PE and sorta good on my N7.

 

[Becky Baker]

I'm sorry if this is not the proper protocol to ask, but I am a newby to this page. I hate the update. My s5 is not giving me problems where I had none before. At least 20 times a day, I now get a message, in the middle of whatever I am doing, telling me that "contacts has stopped working." All the icons that I had assigned to contacts are gone. Colors are faded looking and no icon is the same or even responds the same when touched. The main issues of most concern to me are: my phone gets really hot now. I never had this problem before. Second, the battery is now drained by mid morning and I find that I have to plug it in a couple of times a day. I have tried to shut off any unnecessary apps, but it makes no difference. It still recharges quickly, but this is an annoyance. The drop down menu on the lock/home screen is completely changed. I hate it all. Can any of these issues be resolved without having to do a complete reset? Any help is much appreciated. Becky Baker

 

[B. Diddy]

Try wiping the system cache partition: http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-10404 No personal data will be lost.

 

[Hypnotoadd]

I don't think it's really better or worse for a lot of users, it's just different. Everyone has their own personal preference & I bet if you look back over posts when kitkat came out, some people hated it & some had problems. I don't like the look of some changes with lollipop but my phone still does all the things I need it to do, & functionality far outweighs little aesthetic changes, for me.

The beauty of Android is choice: different apps, launchers, rooting, etc. & you can customize your phone like crazy regardless of OS. I've had lollipop for a few weeks & I already forgot what kitkat looked like on my phone.

 

[sharkita]

I was happy with KitKat and I'm happy with Lollipop. I did do a factory restore and everything works fine.

My sentiments exactly.

 

[BRM2290]

They probably got some new guy in there who just graduated and is gung ho and wants to reinvent the wheel. Should've just left it alone.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[cybernutte]

The beauty of Android is choice: different apps, launchers, rooting, etc. & you can customize your phone like crazy regardless of OS. I've had lollipop for a few weeks & I already forgot what kitkat looked like on my phone.

If the beauty of Android were choice, choice would include being able to go back to KitKat if for any reason you try Lollipop and don't like it. But unless you root the device, it's damned hard if not impossible to go back to KitKat. That's NOT choice! And telling people that if they root their device, they void the warranty, etc. is not choice.

I don't recall nearly as many serious complaints about KitKat as there have been about Lollipop. And that being the case, I've stayed with KitKat, since I don't have a realistic choice to return to KitKat if I find that Lollipop is as bad as many people have said.

 

[Vijay Menon]

True. Looks like they tried to put many releases into one big release and that's what happened to release 5(lollipop). It is just not comparable to 4 (kitkat) in times of speed. Lollipop-How much it take to re-boot?! Horrible user experience. 5.1 did not fix much either. They should given an option to go back to kitkat if user did not like the new version. You can do this only if you root your device. No wonder google popularity is going down - they need to realize that user experience is most important when it comes to their products. They have been good at it for a long time, but lost it on lollipop! I will be upgrading my phone to lollipop only after a significant upgrade comes along to fix the issues (e.g. memory leaks, slow re-boots, slow app load times, etc.).

 

[Harry_Yambag]

I typically don't complain about updates but there were a lot of stupid decisions made with lollipop.

-Why get rid of the ability to select vibrate, silent or sound profiles? Now you have to manually move everything and hope you remember what level you had the sound at (not to mention the fact that android completely lacks "profiles" the way my Blackberry did)

-The color scheme. Dear god. Can we get a "dark theme" option?

-I have the Note Edge yet some of my 3rd party apps now have pop up notifications (with no way to disable them), rendering my edge notifications worthless.

 

[rob damiani]

Why not just install a different theme if you don't like the default color scheme?

 

[Lisa Bonjour]

If I had known what Lollipop was going to be I would have stayed with kit kat. I do NOT like the "color scheme". The battery goes down faster because of all the white screens. It is severely annoying to look at. If you are going to have a color scheme, let users choose what colors they want. I seriously cannot stand to look at these colors. So, I am currently looking for a way to get back to kit kat.

 

[Lisa Bonjour]

It wasn't the ugly teal color. I could open my music from the lock screen. I remember. I was really impressed with kit kat when it came out. I am not with lollipip.

 

[Tony Cochran]

It is 100% worse. Battery no longer lasts a full day, system runs slower, and we'll it is a lot less customizable. Looks dull and depressing unable to be changed. The text actually hurts my eyes now. I have never wanted to stab my phone and then smash it with a damn hammer ever in my life till now.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[catberryday]

It is 100% worse. Battery no longer lasts a full day, system runs slower, and we'll it is a lot less customizable. Looks dull and depressing unable to be changed. The text actually hurts my eyes now. I have never wanted to stab my phone and then smash it with a damn hammer ever in my life till now.

Posted via the Android Central App

Pretty much the same issues I have. Phone gets hot. Nothing runs right anymore. System UI stops working. I wish I could go back to kitkat. I did not want this update my phone just updated on it's own. I have done a factory reset and wiped the cache and still have these issues.

Not to mention several settings have frustrated me. Had to dig deep to discover why WiFi was still on when it was off. A setting in WiFi was automatically set to scan for WiFi when WiFi was off. Then tonight I discovered I wasn't really in power saving mode. I had it turned on but was still getting terrible battery drain. So I got to looking and found there is an auto enable mode. It was set by to default to auto enable. I have never seen it come on. So I set to be on when power saver mode is turned on.

Kitkat was so much better.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Xparent Purple Tapatalk 2

 

[flicker0x7]

I guess, putting the changes aside, your mileage may vary according to your hardware. Material design makes everything look/work nice, but 5.0 is lagging a bit on my 2012 Nexus 7, sadly.