Yesterday morning, Lollipop arrived “Over the Air” for my Samsung Note 4. This was a UK Unlocked Sim Free phone (BTU). I had waited patiently for this update, and to be honest was in no rush to update from Kit Kat as I was happy to allow third party developers to update their apps whilst I remained on a stable firmware.

The download was substantial at 930mb and took about 40 mins to install. Several error messages subsequently appeared after the update. These were cured by updating Google Play Services and addressing some of the new setting options. This followed by 2 soft resets has so far seemed to fixed all the error messages. Currently, the only noticeable downside is rapid battery drain. However, this is to be expected following a firmware flash.

So what is the difference with lollipop. Predominately the key standout difference is speed. The Note 4 is fast now. This becomes really noticeable in the camera burst mode. Hardly any delay whatsoever, meaning I took 100 shots of my dogs running last night and most were in focus. Sample from a burst shot below.

In fact the camera took some marvellous photos last night. 2 samples below.

Touchwiz is lighter and cleaner in style. Shame there are no themes and that the optional grid layouts (4×4, 4×5, 5×5) are not available as they are on the Samsung Galaxy S6. The Samsung Email app like the camera and all the other apps open noticeably faster.

I have just received a S6 Edge to replace the S6, but after the Note 4 update to Lollipop, I must be honest and wonder whether it is indeed necessary to change. That large screen on the Note 4 is fabulous, along with the S Pen, camera and more!