Well, color us surprised! The Galaxy S4 sets in Russia are already receiving the Android 5.0 update when the same hasn’t even hit the Kies, yet. Usually, we see a firmware or two appear on Kies first before OTA rollout begins, especially when there is a change in Android OS version, but not this time. The Lollipop OTA update is already flashing a popup on Russian S4 users, as can be seen from the pic above.
Not that this is the first Galaxy S4 running Lollipop update, as only some days ago, we saw a Chinese Galaxy S4 blessed with Android 5.0 build. Meanwhile not long ago, Galaxy Note 3 received the 5.0 update, too, and this one did appear of Kies first. Btw, Galaxy S5 was the first one the Samsung sets to be bestowed with all the goodness of Android 5.0, and the new TouchWiz based on material design. That TouchWiz is undergoing a huge revamp, btw, in case you didn’t know — read here and here — and would feature first of all on upcoming Galaxy S6.
When talking about updates for Samsung devices, it’s important to talk about model no. too, because there are really many variants of each flagship. So, the Galaxy S4 model no. GT-I9500 is the variant that is received the updates in Russia.
The update is massive, sized 1050MB approx. And requires substantial 3GB of internal storage as free, to be able to update your Galaxy S4 to Lollipop. Make sure you empty the storage to have at least 3GB of it free, before trying to upgrade.
As soon as we have the firmware, we will get you the download link, so that you can install it manually, all by yourself, using the Odin Windows PC software. You can install a Lollipop update from any region of the world, as long as the model no. remains same. Just change the language from settings, or while setting up. Tough, you may get bloatware apps meant for that region. Right now, we don’t have the firmware, because surprisingly, OTA came out before the Kies rollout, which is how we usually get the firmware.
