Lollipop is almost a complete overhaul over KitKat, Samsung has only borrowed a few bits of Google's newest OS. Apart from the enhanced notification drawer, the Settings menu, and the overhauled Recent Apps switcher, we generally failed to notice any other stark differences. The bigger changes are the under-the-hood ones (mostly the default ART runtime, Project Volta, etc.), as Samsung has generally retained the same design language with just a few touches here or there.
Lollipop running on our S5 felt a tad more snappier and less prone to lag. While KitKat showed a few hiccups here or there, its software successor surprised with its smooth performance. Yes, we were expecting the new firmware to fare better, and, boy, it didn't disappoint!
So let's start with some of Difference between the Two OS.
Notification Drawer
Samsung has borrowed a lot from Lollipop as far the notification drawer is concerned. Your notifications are now listed as cards. The brightness slider has been merged with the toggles at the top, which further consolidates the looks of the drawer. Speaking of the toggles section, it now comes painted in a brighter and more vivid shade of blue. This might appeal to some, but we feel that it's less "contrasty" than the darker hue that is omnipresent across the KitKat variation of Galaxy S5's firmware. Also note that the drawer itself no longer sports a handle at its bottom, which further simplifies the looks. As a whole, the drawer now looks a little bit cleaner than before, and while it's still a bit overwhelming with information and buttons, it's a definite improvement over its KitKat counterpart.
Dialer
The white color that is widely used as a background in many apps in Android 5.0 Lollipop is an AMOLED display's, but Samsung has decided that it should be used in its Lollipop build. That's why many of the system apps now come with a white background instead of darker one. A slew of default apps, namely the Dialer, Contacts, and Messaging, have been adorned with a Lollipop white background.
Settings
The Settings app has also scored a white background.Apart from this entirely visual change, the philosophy behind Samsung's tabbed interface has remained mostly the same. A pretty nice , yet somewhat hidden addition is the improved Running Apps tab in the Application Manager, which now provides you with a more advanced breakdown of your RAM, giving you a generally better understanding of what apps take up the most operational memory.
Recent Apps and active applications
Recent Apps menu that made a debut alongside Android Lollipop has been fully adopted by Samsung inside the brand new firmware for its flagship. The card based tabs does not only show you all of your recent apps, but also all of your browser tabs, broken down to different swipable cards. Yes, it gets populated faster than its KitKat counterpart, which shows you separate apps only. Samsung has, luckily, not forgotten to throw in a "Close all" button in the recent apps menu of its Lollipop build for the S5, something that is not present in vanilla Android 5.0. You can still access your active apps from there, too.
Calculator
The calculator app has also been changed with a white background and a material finish.The material Design looks pretty decent.While in kitkat app it has a darker look to it.
Conclusion:
So the dark battery friendly Dark background is gone in this update which does not have darker colors. It's true that visually it's quite similar to the older TouchWiz, but the hidden improvements make it feel snappier.
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