While the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop update may not be available for the Samsung Galaxy S4 yet, the device has a very active community of users, some of whom are quite savvy with their operating system and are willing to work hard for everyone’s benefit. As a result of this, those who want to get Android 5.1.1 on their devices but have hit a brick wall with the official releases can now do it through a custom ROM that was just recently released.
HALCYON, an old-time member of the XDA Developer Forum, has prepared the custom release and has posted some details about what users can expect from the ROM. There are various details included, and it looks like it’s overall much better than the standard Android experience, so users who want to get something more out of their devices should definitely consider it.
Among the tweaks in the list, we saw that the OS supports dynamic zip-aligning with each boot, it’s more optimized in its CPU and RAM use across the board, and it’s particularly good when it comes to utilizing its RAM better. Users can expect to see a much more solid performance from the operating system, and possibly also a better battery life.
There is a 5-way reboot menu available as well, and even though it probably isn’t going to be that useful to everyone who runs the operating system, it should be a nifty addition for some users. The UI is much more responsive now as well, with less lag and a smoother response time. It looks like the operating system has been made a bit more intuitive in the way that it uses its resources in its UI as well, and a major RAM leak in the original Lollipop has been addressed with this release.
It also comes with the latest versions of some community-made binaries as well, which add additional optimizations and tweaks to the system, while also giving power users more features to play around with. Knox, on the other hand, is no longer included and users will have to check the release list to see if anything else that they might be interested in is now gone from this version.
Last but not least, the changelog also mentions various performance improvements and tweaks, and those who’ve had a chance to use the new OS build have had nothing but positive comments regarding its performance and stability. The S4 is not a new phone by any means, but it looks like its owners can easily get a few extra months of lifetime thanks to the improvements realized in this custom ROM.
Of course, we should note that flashing a custom ROM to an Android device always comes with a slight risk, but at least it’s nowhere near the danger associated with the procedure on iOS. Android is a much more open and free operating system, and it’s practically designed to allow its tech-savvy users to modify it easily, so situations like this shouldn’t be a problem to anyone with significant experience in Android tweaks.
There are plenty of instructions and guidelines for the procedure available online as well, and a user should find it very easy to get the information that they need to complete the flashing procedure from start to finish. Even if something goes wrong and the device gets “bricked”, it’s usually not that hard at all to restore it to a previous state and restart the flashing procedure, avoiding the mistakes that were made this time.
But how is the bluetooth? The GPE version and optimized cm12.1 both were very buggy. Pandora kept skipping and FCing on one and the other kept freezing my phone while listening on my bt stereo.. i had to go back to stock for these reasons. Great versions otherwise but i need my music :-(