LG has been in the software news a lot lately with prompt roll outs for many devices in their range including the Sony Xperia range. Making matters even worse is that they are in the middle of releasing the L series III and most of those smartphones come with Android 4.4 KitKat. That particular set of phones is entry-level and very cheap so it only makes sense that the LG G Flex gets updated to Android 4.4.2 KitKat now and not later on down the track to keep things as fair as possible inside of the LG ecosystem. Since being released back in October of 2013, it has only had one software build available and this marks the next update that many have been waiting for to arrive.
Even though it is listed as the same numbers (4.4.2) the enhancements can change depending on the device in question. So, with that understanding, I will run you through the key features that I know have been included in this update. A Few of you may have discerned the user interface was not crash hot. Android have made some UI changes this time and along with that comes battery improvement and processing speed. The status icons are now all white instead of just mostly white. The idea here was to make them easily readable. We can only assume that Android thought all white was too boring to begin with, but now changed their minds because it still wasn’t easy enough to read properly We certainly can’t argue there. However, I love the white look also so I like this inclusion a lot. Closed captioning support is improved, navigation bar is altered, full-screen mode and better security round out the UI differences. As for the rest, well there is now printing in the Cloud, the fun and adventurous Knock Mode that lets you tap the screen to unlock it fast. There was rumors about a knock also locking it on YouTube with several comments saying it can be done for a different device I was looking at. If you had your hopes up there it might be time to lower expectations because it is not listed on the change-log that I am viewing here.
Sprint has released this a few days ago now so people should be well and truly starting to see it arrive over the air to their devices. About a week before Sprint’s version arrived, AT&T launched theirs. That did not have many people talking so information in comments might be hard to come by for this. If you are reading and have anything to add that I have missed out such as an extra thing you have noticed when using it then please let us know in the comments so you can break the news to the readers.
OTA updates happen gradually and still arrive randomly for people. To check if it has arrived for you to install go to Settings > About Phone > System Updates and heck for updates here.
The G Flex started with Android 4.2.2 jelly bean and this is the next official update it has received up from that original build. Now we are at 4.4.2 KitKat. That means it jumped the 4.3 update. This flexible smartphone has a big 6.0-inch screen and if you want to utilize it with something new in this software I will show you a cool trick. Go to Settings > firmware Version > and keep taping on the screen until a letter “K” comes up. Now tap on the letter and it will start spinning. Doing so will cause it to turn into the Android KitKat logo that looks like the original chocolate bar. This graphic will look cool on the big screen.