If you are a Samsung Galaxy Tab owner who bought from late 2013 to 2014, the wait for Lollipop may finally be over. Late last week Samsung began pushing out the Lollipop 5.1.1 update to several Galaxy Tab models, all of which are 32-bit versions of their tablets. I can confirm that my Galaxy Tab 4 has received the update and a collage has reported his Galaxy Tab 9.7″ model has received the update as well. You will need to check on your individual devices to make sure you have the update available although it should be pushed to you & you will be notified.
For those of you who have Pro model 64-bit Galaxy Tabs, your wait is a bit longer.
To check to see if the Lollipop 5.1.1. update is available for your particular Galaxy Tab model, go into Settings>General>About Device and then tap on the Software Updates section. You can also enable auto download of updates in this section. Once you have the update you can schedule it to update your tablet immediately or use the scheduler to have it kick off later when it is more convenient for you.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Lollipop Update
The update is a massive one at 876MB so you will need to make sure you are on Wi-Fi to download it. The install on my Galaxy Tab 4 took about 15 minutes from the time I started until the device rebooted. There are a lot of the Lollipop elements you will notice immediately but unfortunately, as they often do, Samsung has modified Android for their own apps and services. Personally, having used Cyanogen on my OnePlus One for so long, I like a more pure Android experience but if you use the Samsung services heavily, this will feel quite natural.
A big thanks to Clinton Sr (@ClintSr) on Twitter (yep, that’s my 93 year old grandfather) for doing the research on his 64-bit Galaxy Tab. In the research he did, it was discovered that the 64-bit units will be getting the Lollipop update but after all the 32-bit updates are rolled out. The only word he got on it was “later this year”.
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