The painful wait for Samsung owners in the U.S. to begin receiving OTA update notifications come the release date of Android 5.0 Lollipop may be over sooner than you think. Images have leaked online of a Samsung Galaxy S4, of all devices, running an official TouchWiz Android L OS, while user manuals for Android 5 on the Note 4 have hit the web as well.

Samsung's spotty global rollout of Android 5 has been a little unconventional, with, for example, Galaxy Note 3 devices in Russia getting the update before the newer Note 4. Similarly, the news of a GS4 running Lollipop may seem to leapfrog the Galaxy S5 rollout -- especially since it's got the newer Android 5.0.1 -- but the devil is in the details.

The GS4 running an official TouchWiz-ified Android L OS in question was spotted by XDA members (via PhoneArena) this week, who noted that several labels and headers appear to be in Chinese. But the firmware was tested by community members, who reported no bugs and, more importantly, no trickery or hoaxing.

The firmware is downloadable at XDA right now, but there are important caveats to think about before GS4 owners jump for joy.

First of all, this Android 5.0.1 Lollipop version reportedly only works with the following variants of the GS4: GT-195000, GT-I9502, GT-I9508, and GT-I9508v, leaving the Snapdragon 600-running GT-I9505 behind.

Secondly, even though it appears to be an official version of Android L, the version available on XDA is still a ROM. That requires rooting your phone (and thus, likely voiding whatever warranty you still might have on your GS4), installing ROM flashing software, performing a NANDroid system backup, and then flashing your system, installing the custom Android L ROM, and booting into it.

And that doesn't even take into account the fact that many carrier variants of Android Jelly Bean and KitKat, such as AT&T's, irreversibly locked the bootloader on the GS4, making any such updates impossible, even if you have the knowhow (much to the dismay of yours truly).

In any case, if half the words in the previous two paragraphs are completely Greek to you, it's safe to say you're better off waiting for an official Android 5.0 update from your carrier.

But more and more, it seems like that update is on the way. The other Samsung Lollipop news from this week is that several user manuals for the Galaxy Note 4 leaked online (via SamMobile), complete with screenshots of TouchWiz Android L and instructions. Those instructions are in Dutch, unfortunately, so don't get your hopes up too high for an imminent release of Android 5 for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 in the U.S.

Lollipop is clearly on the way, though. One last sign of hope? Samsung has updated the images of the Galaxy Note 4 on its website to show the TouchWiz Android Lollipop lockscreen.

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