We have a feeling that more carriers and phone makers are going to scramble to announce the rollout of Android 6.0 Marshmallow for numerous devices as the MWC 2016 gets nearer. The mobile industry has the rest of the week to wait for official releases but let’s start with Verizon’s announcement that the Marshmallow is ready for the LG G3, LG G4, and HTC One M9. We already know about the LG G3 being prepped for it. The LG G4 was the first to receive the upgrade ever while Android 6.0 for HTC One M9 was ready as early as January.
It’s only now that Verizon Wireless is making the official announcement and release of the software updates so just wait for an OTA notification that the new mobile OS is ready to be installed on your smartphone. After updates have been successfully installed, you should see the following software version numbers: VS98546A (LG G3), VS98624C (LG G4), and 3.37.605.7 (HTC One M9).
As with most Marshmallow software update releases, Android 6.0 for the mentioned mobile devices will bring WiFi Calling, Now on Tap, Doze mode, Runtime Permissions, Silent Mode, Direct share, plus some fixes for Android Pay on HTC One M9. These features are guaranteed to bring an improved mobile experience to your LG G3, G4, and HTC One M9’s.
OTAs are being pushed out in batches but if you really can’t wait for the notification, you can always check manually by going to your Settings> About Phone> Software updates> Check for Update.
Got my update yesterday and so far, it’s excellent. The phone was already performing fine under LP, and it may be too early to tell at this point, but battery life does appear to have gotten better (when it’s not being used). The Doze mode appears to do as advertised (although I’m also using a combination of Greenify and SnapDragon BatteryGuru), but under LP, even with Greenify and SDBG, in a non-rooted mode, even on standby mode, my phone would drop 3% to 5% battery overnight with no usage.
After upgrading to MM yesterday, I left my phone as is and when I went to bed, it was at 93%. When I woke up 6 hours later the next morning, it was at 92%. That’s pretty amazing. But again, we’ll see how things are as the week progresses, but so far, not disappointed with this upgrade, with the one minor issue.
My external sd card is no longer mounted as /storage/external_SD. Instead, it’s now /storage/3894-D900. I’m assuming that’s the number it was given when it was formatted. Don’t like that which means if I swap out SD cards, it will be a different number. Not sure why this is, except for the fact that possibly it’s a security feature.
Also, with the LG G3, the ability to use the external SD card as internal memory isn’t there. I do believe if you root, you can modify the build.prop file to turn it on, but it might also be that it’s not fully working. Maybe it will show up in another OTA (if we get any more for this phone).
But overall, if you don’t root, it’s definitely worth the upgrade. And apparently, Kingroot still works for MM on the G3, so you can still root. Only issue is TWRP. It hasn’t been updated apparently to work with the boot image and such.
FINALLY! I can silence my phone for the first time since they removed the feature in Lollipop. BONEHEAD MOVE! I’m not thrilled with the new icons, but am hoping for better battery life. I said yes to the upgrade as I figured things couldn’t get much worse after Lollipop. I came VERY close to sending in my phone to LG to have it loaded with Kit Kat!!!
My G4 battery life is much worse than it was before this update. I can’t stand it! I used to go all day, with medium usage and by 6pm, still have 30-40% battery left. I monitored it closely yesterday and by 6:30, I have 14%.
It’s like every time I turn the screen on, the battery has dropped a percent. I wish I could revert back to Lollipop. None of the “upgrades” with Marshmallow are worth the horrible battery life.
On top of that, the update in November (VS98613B) had finally fixed my issue where Gmail would not sync automatically on WiFi. Whatever they changed, suddenly my emails were coming in real time. Now…I’m back to having to manually refresh my inbox, where I’ll get a bunch of emails at once with time stamps from hours ago.
Really hating this update.