The Google Android 5.1 Lollipop update seems to impress, especially when the Nexus 6 is concerned. While it does not come with huge changes, there are numerous worthwhile improvements that Nexus users would appreciate.
One of them is the faster performance of the Nexus 6 after installing the Android L 5.1 update. In one initial reviews on the Nexus 6, the device is said to have slower interface than the Nexus 5. But with the Android 5.1 on board, the Nexus 6 becomes snappier and can now keep with the performance speed of the Nexus 5.
In the storage test posted by Ars Technica, the Nexus 6 registered faster random read and write scores than with 5.0 on board. The Nexus 5 also showed slight improvements.
From 7.2 megabytes per second random read score, a huge leap to 17.53 was registered when the Android L 5.1 update was installed on the Nexus 6. From 1.3 write speed, it increases to 12.21. On the Nexus 5 powered with Android 5.0, a 9.81 random read score was recorded. This increased to 12.52 after installing the Android 5.1. For random write, the device registered 0.75 random write core and increased to 3.14 when the new Android update was used.
The significant increase in the random read and write scores could be due to the encrypted Nexus 6. A longtime third-party Android developer revealed that Google now uses NEON instructions on the Nexus 6 for faster encryption performance. The CPU of Nexus 6 also runs in quad-core mode all the time, which in theory should consume more battery "but the majority of device power usage is consumed by the screen, not the CPU."
Bugs - both old and new- have also started to emerge soon after users installed the Android 5.0 on the Nexus devices. One of them is the persistent memory leak which drains memory resources. This bug can be diagnosed by going to Settings > Apps > Running. Other problems encountered by Nexus users include random restarts, connectivity issues, random reboots, broken hotspots, to name a few.
The good news is that not everyone experienced these problems. But even so, such issues should not stop Nexus users from installing the Android 5.0 Lollipop update as these are minimal compared to the performance speed boosts and fixes that users can benefit from. Users of older Nexus models should postpone installing the update, however.
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