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In case you haven’t heard, several Nexus devices have started receiving the upgrade to Android 5.1 over-the-air. You should check to make sure it is available on your phone or tablet (we know it to be hitting the Nexus 6, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 2012 WiFi and Nexus 10 right now) and see if you can pull it down the natural way.
But if you can’t wait and you don’t like to go the factory image route, you’ll be happy to know that OTA links for each of those devices are now available to flash atop your existing installation. Note that these should only be flashed on top of the appropriate firmware (listed next to each file) and that you might need to be on stock firmware (meaning no root or custom ROMs) for the best result.
Without further ado:
Nexus 5
- Android 5.1 LMY47D (flash from Android 5.0 LRX21O)
- Android 5.1 LMY47D (flash from Android 5.0.1 LRX22C)
Nexus 6
- Android 5.1 LMY47D (flash from Android 5.0.1 LRX22C)
Nexus 7 2012 WiFi
- Android 5.1 LMY47D (flash from Android 5.0.2 LRX22G)
Nexus 10
- Android 5.1 LMY47D (flash from Android 5.0.2 LRX22G)
We’ll be looking to update this post with more links for different devices if they become available. As always, be sure to make a backup of your important data before flashing, and if you’re not comfortable applying the update on your own then you should simply wait for the OTA to hit your device.
Need help? The folks at AndroidForums.com are always willing to lend a hand to anyone not familiar with the manual flashing process:
Let us know how your device is feeling after you’ve gotten it loaded up!
Needs more note4 updates
anyone side load for the N6 yet? have any issues?? not OTA for AT&T for me yet….
I sideloaded last night, working great!
gotta do it tonight! I’ve never sideloaded anything. should be fun!
It’s really easy. If you don’t know how to get ADB working and all that sort of stuff (though you should learn) you can always try the Nexus Root Toolkit. It’s very simple.
What’s sideloading?
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
*leans close and whispers*
Seriously, What’s sideloading?
are trucks involved?? haha still waiting on u to pimp out my corolla!
Don’t tempt me man
DON’T….
TEMPT….
ME!!!!
Let’s do it man!
Got my name in the headrest, read it and weep! NOS tank in the back, camel hair on the seat! too fast, too furious, i’m too fast for yall man!
Brave man to run NOS. i’ve got horror stories for days about the cheap horsepower. Get either a turbo or supercharger and run it at a low boost you’ll be good. when the horsepower bug bites though you can’t get enough.
I can go for an AT&T M8 update..
Too late for me, I got sick of having to restart my phone daily due to memory leaks. The N5 is gone and a shiny Z3 compact is sitting in it’s place.
Every time I see these lollipops.. I think condoms.
haha
I took this picture. Now I see Google condoms. Thanks :/
I bet google can enter condom business and beat trojan on market share.
With the “I feel lucky” button?
I’m so looking forward to it. I had to restart N5 everyday in 5.0. Now once every 5 days in 5.0.1. I have high hopes for 5.1!
Though N5 was really demoted to take place of the iphone 3gs as a game device already.
And no, it’s not any better than 3gs, sadly, but the screen is much larger!
If there was an idiot proof way to go back to kitkat…….
Why can’t they have OTA downgrade?
It does make you wonder when even Google can’t get Android 5 running properly on their own devices. Laughable that none of the gushing reviews picked this up either.
Yeah, I’m keeping all my other devices on KitKat for now.
N6, apparently runs fine on lollipop. I have no idea if that’s true. After seeing lollipop on n5, I opted for note 4.
My Nexus 6 blows my old Note 3 out of the water in terms of performance and stability. Plus, I couldn’t stand to buy another phone with an encrypted bootloader and no root access.
My N6 is a steaming pile of poo. Apps crash like a dozen times a day, each, phone keeps freezing and restarting… This thing is almost unusable on 5.0.1. And now I realize I’ve had to wait so long for an update because of Verizon. It will probably be like this every time. I’m so ditching nexus Google sold out, and for no real reason, I can’t imagine it’ll sell much on Verizon especially considering how old it is now.
Ever thought you just have a defective phone, and should have sent it back for one that works. i never had problems like that with my Nexus 6. If i did i would have called T-mobile and i would have had a new phone the next day. Hate people that immediately blame the software for every problem. Sure the software needs tweaking, but it dont come close to causing all the problems youre listing. those are hardware issues.
Shouldn’t even respond to your trolling comment, but I am not the only one having problems with lollipop. Hate people who’s phone works so they feel the need to bash everyone who has problems, especially with the useless “mine works fine” comments.
Its sad that a comment offering a different perspective to yours is “trolling” to you. Assuming its the software without even trying to get a new one is asinine and worthy of ridicule. If someone is having a better experience than you are, it doesnt mean their comments are “useless”, it means theyre not experiencing problems. Doesnt make them wrong, or make them “trolling”. Grow up and get used to people having different opinions than you. Also get a new phone and see if it happens on a new one, then you can complain. If it dont then you know you were wrong and should eat your words.
You did not simply “offer another perspective”. You ASSUMED I never considered any other possibilities, and then essentially said you hated people like me (read: me) for doing something that, again you assumed. And went on a rant about what YOU would have done, with the help of the super awesome T-Mobile, which is way way better than what, once again you ASSUMED I did. That is asinine and worthy of ridicule. After being that big of a jerk, I don’t owe you an explanation of all I did to troubleshoot my phone.
You didn’t ask a question to be helpful in a respectful way. You commented for nothing other than to criticize and be negative. Ironic that you can accuse me of making an assumption when you have no idea what kind of research or troubleshooting I did.
I don’t need to follow your instructions in order to have the right to complain. There are a lot of nexus 6 users having the same software issues as me, and yes commenting to simply say “mine works fine” is useless if not accompanied with a genuine intent to help. It crosses beyond useless and into trolling when it is accompanied with insulting rants. Grow up and get used to being called out on being a jerk. I will not read your comments or respond after this.
You seem to have some emotional issues. But being that i seem to have struck a nerve i guess im right. There was no rant except btween your ears. Troubleshooting a defective phone is about as useful as getting your dog a pedicure. But ok, youre right and im just wrong, that is what you want to hear right ? Good luck with overreacting to everything in life….. Peace !
Well according to some people Google’s software is dang near perfect, and all it needs is a tiny little bit of tweaking. Anybody with bigger issues has a defective phone and deserves ridicule if they even think of blaming Google’s software… Fanboys.
There’s a step-by-step howto on Google’s developer site for a full factory wipe and reinstall of whatever version you please.
Only issue I’ve had doing it is getting the driver properly installed in Windows 7. If you know how to navigate folders in a command line, it’s easy-peasy.
Still waiting patiently for the Nexus 9 update…
me too. Particularly now that the nexus 5 update seems so much faster.
Though it’s only been a few hours…let’s see if the memory leaks are really gone.
LRX22C is the version sold out of the U.S. Play store, why doesn’t that version get Android 5.1 first? instead its LMY47D ???
You can thank Verizon for that bit of interference.
Things seem maybe a bit faster on my N5 but on my old 2012 N7 the difference is night and day.
When I upgraded my 2012 N7 to 5.0 the difference was night and day too. Please let us know if this is a good or bad upgrade!
4.4.4 Good
5.0 Bad
5.0.1 Less bad
5.0.2 Not quite good, but not totally bad.
5.1 ?
Sorry I mean in the good way haha. 5.0 was definitely very laggy but 5.1 brings it back to a good state.
1. Is it possible to install the download without a custom recovery?
2. Does it now support hardware encryption?
Yes. Actually, not sure how it would work with a custom recovery, but these you just adb sideload.
It supports extended CPU instructions/optimizations for encryption, but not full hardware encryption. There’s a different article about it.
Whats the difference between flashing the factory image and flashing the OTA?
Is it available for nexus 4 also. I m sick of this 5.0 version
I live Dominican republic and when I was stocked on android KitKat I never received the lollipop update over the air on my nexus 5, some people told me “that’s depend of the phone carrier” so I got tire to wait for almost 2 months for receive the update so I restored my N5, wipe and all those steps to installa the factory image of lollipop 5.0.1… Something that I don’t want to do again, I want to know if the same will happens with this version 5.1 that I won’t never receive the update because of the incompetence that Google has distributing updates over the air ??
everyone should have this program, the nexus root toolkit: http://www.wugfresh.com/nrt/
a couple clicks and you can unlock, root, flash back to stock, flash an OTA update (make sure you check no-wipe), etc.
everyone should have this program: http://www.wugfresh.com/nrt/
a couple clicks and you can unlock, root, flash back to stock, flash an OTA update (make sure you check no-wipe), etc.
Installed the 5.1 ota on my Nexus 5 lastnight and like I always do after an update I performed a hard factory reset. I have definitely noticed improvements in all categories,especially with the battery! Performance is faster,data signal is better and after putting it threw its paces for 24 hrs, I must say this is probably one of the best bug fixing updates I personally have received from Google! So far so good in my neighborhood!