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Don’t Upgrade Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to Android 5.0 Lollipop

The new Android 5.0 Lollipop was rolled out to T-Mobile and Sprint users in early March 2015. Since then, we have seen numerous issues with this update on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

One major issue that many users have complained about is the speed at which the battery drains. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 had a rather long battery life with the Android 4.4.X Kitkat but after the update the battery life has  dropped tremendously. I see the battery life draining rapidly especially when I keep the Wi-Fi, Location and Bluetooth services on.

The second issue that we noticed with Android 5.0 Lollipop on the Galaxy Note 3 is related to notifications. In the earlier version of Android, whenever you would get a new message or mail, the notification would show up on the lock screen.  However, with this update the notifications don't show up this way which can be very annoying to the user.

One other peculiar problem I observed with this particular update was that several widgets that used to work well with the lock screen have stopped working. For example, I play most of my music using Spotify.  In the earlier version of Android I could easily change my song without unlocking the screen as the widget would be right there on the lock screen.

Now, widgets no longer show up on the lock screen.   I have to unlock the phone and go into the app if I want to change the song. The same problem exists with Samsung Music.   Very frustrating.

The Samsung Note 3 was a really good phone before Android 5.0 Lollipop.  Hopefully there will be new Android updates addressing all these issues and that this is not a sneaky way to force users to buy a new smartphone.