The Galaxy S4 Android 5.0.1 ROM has been leaked online so that those of you who aren’t lucky enough to own GPe Galaxy S4 units (which have already received Android 5.0 Lollipop) may take advantage of the Material Design and new features in Google’s new OS. The official Galaxy S4 Android 5.0.1 ROM showed up in a Chinese forum and naturally, XDA Devs quickly pulled it and posted it to their forums, making availability much easier and closer to home.
The Galaxy S4 should receive the official OTA with TouchWiz included soon enough, since the Galaxy S5 has already been updated in the UK and a few other European countries. U.S. owners of the Galaxy S5 should also be receiving Android 5.0 Lollipop soon enough, but the exact release date hasn’t been revealed as of yet.
Nonetheless, if you own a Galaxy S4, you should be glad to hear that if you have some basic knowledge about hot to flash a custom ROM to your device, you can now enjoy the official Android 5.0.1 Lollipop build from Google. The prerequisite for a successful installation of the ROM is for you to have one of these Galaxy S4 units: GT-I9500/9502/9508/9508v. You could try porting it to other model numbers, but be cautious that you might brick your phone.
The only downside of the Galaxy S4 Android 5.0.1 ROM that was released online is that it will display certain system messages in Chinese, even though you can set the main language to English. It shouldn’t be too bothersome, though, and if you’re impatient to have the OTA from Google, it shouldn’t bother you until the update is officially sent out over the air. Be sure to back your phone up and charge your battery before starting the installation process so that you can have a clean install and working software in the end.