Source
r/GalaxyNote3•
codq

Anyone not liking Lollipop?

I, much like you, got excited and upgraded to Lollipop on my Verizon Note 3 the moment it was available OTA, and while the application manager is certainly prettier, within the day, I found myself wishing I hadn't upgraded.

  • I lost a solid 25% of my cellular reception instantly. I no longer got reception in parts of my house, whereas I was previously fine.

  • I really didn't like all the white in the settings menus--they're way too bright at night, or in concerts/bars, etc.

  • As much as people disliked the black/neon-green accented touchwiz, I don't really care for the seafoam green notification drawer. Again, hurts my eyes.

  • Battery life DECREASED, which is funny, because I noticed my battery life decreasing when I upgraded to KitKat, and similarly regretted doing so.

Fortunately(?), a few days later I irreparably damaged my phone at the beach and ended up getting a new Note3 through Asurion, which came with 4.4.4. Every morning, I find myself setting the 5.0 OTA update to LATER.

Hopefully, the reception issues and the battery issues will be addressed if Samsung/Verizion comes out with a 5.1 update soon, but in the meantime, I really have no problem whatsoever staying on KitKat.

Anyone else dissatisfied with Lollipop 5.0 VZ Note3?

Posted Apr 23, 2015, 3:36 PM UTC

2956
USMCSSGT•

I deplore the new chrome navigation in 5.0.

9
TheOriginalZTQ•

You can change it back to how it worked in 4.4

9
USMCSSGT•

How?!?

2
TheOriginalZTQ•

In Chrome, press the Menu Button > Settings > Under 'Basics' there should be a setting called 'Merge tabs and apps' turn that off.

15
USMCSSGT•

Thank you so much!!! I hated the way it has worked since the update. How do you use Chrome?

7
OklasChica•

Thank you so. Damn. Much. This was driving me nutty. Here, have a very valuable internet point.

4
ChipThaBlackBoy•

My battery life has decreased significantly since the update. I've also noticed that it is noticeably slower, also. It's incredibly frustrating because up until this point, it's been the best phone I've ever owned.

9
Dance_Solo•

Do you use greenify?

2
ChipThaBlackBoy•

I don't. I'll admit- I haven't put any time or effort into addressing the problems I listed. I'll definitely read up on Greenify, though. Thanks very much for the suggestion.

2
ScoobySuby•

What are the pros to using it?

1
Dance_Solo•

Freezes apps. Useful before going to sleep, just don't use it for apps that use push notifications or background services.

1
lovere•

I second everything you said, on top of that I wanna add that my Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is messed up since the update... It mind boggles me that Samsung, to this day can't release a finished product (like apple (not a apple fan at all) and why they push it upon its loyal customers even though they know it's still full of bugs and what not.... the only reason I'm happy is that hopefully now I'll be able to root my phone again & get rid of touchWhiz

5
AllPurple•

Yeah I'm tired of touchwiz, thinking of rooting also

1
VEJJ2Freshness•

There's a root already?

1
lovere•

Not sure... I'm still looking for a stable one (I like alliance rom) Kit Kat 4.4.4 I know for sure the guys didn't work on, since Google had released lollypop at that point, when we had to update to it

1
VEJJ2Freshness•

Let me know when u find one

1
lovere•

Check out GalaxyNote3Root.com (I'm not sure who's your carrier but according to him there is no root for Verizon phones yet, coming soon

1
omeganemesis28•

Lollipop has has a root on the note 3 for the att ones at least since day 1 ota

1
VEJJ2Freshness•

The thing is you have to downgrade back to 442 then root thwn upgeade carefully to the other root versions. I am talking about the n900a att version with the bootloader locked. I could say for the other versions

1
I_Have_Questions_4_U•

Does the update come from Samsung or through Google?

0
lovere•

It's Samsung touchwiz on top of android...

1
I_Have_Questions_4_U•

Ummmm idk what that means

1
exaltedgodVZW Stock Lollipop 5.0.1•

So in layman's terms... Google creates the base Android experience. Look at any Nexus device. What happens then is that it is sent from Google to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) such as Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, etc.

Some companies then further tweak that baseline. From here there are two things that happen, some international versions of phones get the update directly from Samsung via OTA or Kies. The other route is that Samsung then sends the update to all of the other carriers in the world, who then perform whatever tweaks they need to do to it to make sure it falls in line with their company (this can range from putting more apps on or patching issues found in the testing process). Those carriers then send out the update to their respective handsets as they wish.

At this point two people are born, those that use the OEM skin (Touchwize in Samsung's case, Sense in HTC's) and skin haters. A lot of people swear that AOSP is better looking but that is only relative to each individual's taste. Touchwiz has been known to "bog down" the system but with the recent changes of the Android OS and the new hardware that is being used, this is really no longer the case.

Hope that answers your questions.

6
lovere•

TouchWiz means Samsung takes Google's android operating system and modifies it to work with their features (and kills it in the process)

1
SkepTones•

I'm just riding out KitKat until this phone is in the grave. Already lost battery life coming from JB back in the day.. I'm rooted and using xposed, so I don't even want to lose all the subtle tweaks that make touchwiz more bearable. Would love a GPE Note 3 on Lollipop tho!

5
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
exaltedgodVZW Stock Lollipop 5.0.1•

Because not all people have an unlocked bootloader to do so.

1
Dance_Solo•

The only thing I hate is seeing s finder and quick connect at notification bar drop down and I can't fucking change it or remove it. Also there's some bug with music players, they take up half of screen on notification drop down menu. Musixmatch and tunein radio are one of these apps.

Edit: My battery is not showing any issues, loses only 2-4 % overnight for 8 hours while connected on wifi. Animation is smooth when going in that recent apps thing. Chrome sucks, have stopped using it altogether.

4
PEPEisGAY•

I like it

3
braincombustion•

After two months of using LolliPop, I downgraded back to KitKat. First thing I didn't like is so much white color (damn it, its AMOLED, black is preferable) Then, some apps I like but are not developing further, didn't work or were slow. In my case, battery life was worse but not significantly. Since I rooted my device, I use Xposed framework modules but on LP it is not possible yet. In my case, upgrade to LP was not improvement.

3
MrOptiX•

I have a Galaxy Note 3 AT&T N900A. Now I know they've disabled taking screen captures with the S pen holding down the button, but when I screen cap using the power and home button, (I can't palm swipe for shit) I get 2 of the same pix. Samsung nor AT&T were no help. Also if you hover the S pen and click the button twice the lil scroll wheel comes up and you can screen cap that way, I just wish it would stop taking the pix twice, It shows up in stock gallery and QuickPix, Help? Please?

3
nickb64•

My battery life hasn't been as good as it was on KitKat (when I got the phone it was on KitKat already, so I can't compare to Jelly Bean). It has been good enough to get me through the day most of the time though.

Sometimes I notice a bit more lag, like when updating a lot of apps in the background.

I'm not a huge fan of the white background in the settings menus, but I don't go into them very often so it isn't a huge deal to me.

The main reason I like the update at all is that it seems to have fixed the problems I had before where my phone would reboot unexpectedly or become unresponsive and require me to hold the power button or pull the battery to force it to reboot. I have not had either of these problems since the lollipop update. The update also seemed to fix a problem I had with the YouTube app on KitKat, where the video would freeze and then resume out of sync with a several second delay compared to the audio. That problem made videos largely unwatchable, but it has been gone since the update.

3
redrhyski•

Uk user here - I don't have it to not like it :(

2
kentaromiura•

:(

1
bentoboxing•

At&t note 3 here. On lollipop Photo gallery crashes now. Battery will decrease 20% in 20 min. I have to consistently be manually killing apps if I expect my battery to last until lunch.

The flat design is boring and. ... flat.

Overall, lollipop is a piece of shit.

Thank you.

The end.

2
zeusCakeRecovery•

The one thing that I love on any other phone is the way the recent apps shows up. I love how the card stack looks when scrolling through them but I've noticed a huge lag everytime I do it on this note 3. My brother has the 2nd moto x and his is smooth as hell...

1
ugotamesij•

Also I swear I have to long-press home for what seems a much longer time for the recent apps to pop up

2
thatsthewrongone•

I have been noticing issues with GPS being slow to locate the phone and previously where I had a strong signal it is weak and spotty!

1
TheOriginalZTQ•

I factory reset and cleared the cache on my phone from recovery 3x each when I updated. I always do this whenever I update any phone. I don't know if this actually helps or not but lollipop is actually running fine on my VZW Note 3. No complaints here. GPS is working fine. Battery seems about the same. Going into recent apps doesn't slow down the phone at all. Maybe I just got lucky but I like this new update.

1
exaltedgodVZW Stock Lollipop 5.0.1•

I don't think you were lucky. You tend to hear more about people that complain about something more so than the ones that enjoy it. The reason why is because they are off using that device/service and do not waste their time by posting the good feedback. Those that complain rally together and it seems like a big deal but its not.

When you think about the big picture, the number of complainers is so small. Now does that excuse for issues? No, not at all but by no means is it an epidemic.

As for me, I fixed my system partition without killing my setup and did the OTA part one and part two via Kies. It has been the best experience ever. Only thing that I hate is the stupid sounds that I turned off when rooted (boot up, camera, etc).

2
Nails_of_Hekate•

I'm really enjoying my update as well. Of course, I also did a factory reset on my phone and things have been running smooth. I love all the lollipop animations. My battery life is still the same.

2
taserx•

Could you explain the process a little more for a noob? I want to update but don't want a bad experience like others are saying.

1
TheOriginalZTQ•

I'm not guaranteeing that you won't have a bad experience with Lollipop but I haven't had any trouble at all since updating about a week ago.

First, make sure you have all your photos, texts, contacts, WiFi passwords, etc. backed up because you will lose everything on your phone.

Update as you normally would and what I usually do is after the update is installed, but before the phone boots back up for the first time, I pull the battery out (on the red Verizon boot up screen in my case). Put the battery back in, and while the phone is powered off, hold down the Home, Power, and Volume up buttons all together until you see the Galaxy Note 3 boot screen but with little blue text on the top left side of the screen that says 'RECOVERY BOOTING......'

Once you see this you can let go of the power button but continue holding the Home and Volume Up buttons for a few more seconds and you will boot into recovery.

Navigate with your volume buttons to where it says 'wipe cache partition' and confirm it with power button. Do this 3 times. Then go to where it says 'wipe data/factory reset' and do that 3 times as well. (This is the part that deletes everything on your phone!)

After that's all done you can just press 'reboot system now' and the phone will boot up after 5-10 minutes to the setup screen. After you finish setting up your phone you can hopefully enjoy Lollipop without any issues. Hopefully this helped you out.

1
starkinmn•

I already posted a problem with my Google+ app crashing if I have it on it's newest version after doing a factory reset because Play services was crashing every 5 seconds. I'm really upset about this.

1
jarannis•

I had the same issue with Play services on my Note Edge when 5.0 hit, but they went away nearly immediately when Play Services updated through the App Store. That happened only moments after I upgraded to 5.0

2
starkinmn•

I'm hoping that this problem gets fixed if Google+ drops a new update.

1
Richard__Rahl•

And this is why I haven't updated. I would go back to jellybean if I could honestly.

1
TangerineDiesel•

I read this right as my phone was halfway through updating SMH. It just finished and the back of my phone is so hot right nowI think the cover might melt off.

Now google play services keeps nagging me to uupdate and fails every time. WTF.

1
exaltedgodVZW Stock Lollipop 5.0.1•

It just finished and the back of my phone is so hot right nowI think the cover might melt off.

Its very common for the OTA to make the processor work extra hard on applying the update. There is nothing to be concerned over.

Now google play services keeps nagging me to uupdate and fails every time. WTF.

Had the same issue for a while. More than likely its an app looking for the old Gapp Services and the dev hasn't updated yet.

1
Mostly_Lucid•

My update has worked flawlessly - no change to battery life, no change to reception.

That said, I did a reset on my phone after the installation, because I like a fresh clean install, and also, I haven't used touchwiz for a couple of years - I've switched to Apex for my launcher, so if there's a bunch of bright colors, I don't see them.

1
Baxtir•

I've only noticed a slight decrease in battery life but overall, the update has been nice. It sounds so clichéd but it actually feels smoother now, and I'm happy I can use the SD card as it ought to be used. Now if my Note Pro tablet could get it soon, I'd be one happy camper.

1
chrissurra•

I have a Verizon Note 3 and have frozen all samsung apps through adb and run greenify and have system apps frozen as well. I have juice defender and a tasker profile that automatically turns off bluetooth and wifi if they are not connected. When Idle I have 0.5% battery drain per hour.

Its much more responsive and overall a better more polished experience. Even touchwiz is more toned down but I run Nova launcher which helps with smoothness.

1