I tried Samsung’s One UI 8.5 beta, and these 3 features made my phone feel like new

Samsung’s One UI 8.5 beta just dropped, promising to fix our cluttered lock screens and plenty more. It runs on Android 16 QPR2, bringing with it a bunch of fresh features to Galaxy devices. The update might still be in beta, but I went ahead and installed it on my Galaxy S25 Ultra to see what all the fuss is about.

I tend to drift in and out of Samsung’s ecosystem, but One UI 8.5 adds a few smart touches that make the OS feel refreshed, even for casual users. Here are the features that impressed me most so far.

Even more customization

One UI 8.0 marked a new era of customization for Samsung’s mobile OS, and the 8.5 beta pushes it even further. The Quick Settings panel now gives you more freedom than ever to configure various control widgets — resizing tiles, reordering them, even stripping the panel down to the bare essentials. With the expanded, configurable layout, it’s surprisingly easy to sculpt the panel into something that actually feels like mine. For the first time in ages, I didn’t even bother putting Wi-Fi or Bluetooth at the top, just because I could.

That said, I could live with the insipid Liquid Glass theming, the Apple-esque pastel gradients strewn throughout apps, and those occasional white pill-shaped docks that run counter to One UI’s traditionally brighter, more playful personality. The 8.5 beta doesn’t radically change the look from 8.0, but the writing’s on the wall: if Apple does it, Samsung will eventually follow. Still, the mix of squircles and those buttery-smooth animations feels just distinct enough to keep One UI interesting— even for someone like me, who bounces in and out of the Galaxy ecosystem.

One smaller but no less thoughtful change is how One UI now uses AI to automatically shift your wallpaper so the lock-screen clock and widgets don’t sit right on top of your pets or the people you actually like. It’s not some fancy depth-based 3D trick; just a simple adjustment to the wallpaper’s size and crop. But honestly, anything that saves me from the fiddly ritual of nudging and recropping wallpapers to get them “just right” is a win in my book.

Better battery management

No one likes micromanaging their phone’s battery life. But if you’re going to do it, it’s nice to have the right tools to do it right, and One UI 8.5 introduces some genuinely useful ones.

The Battery settings page has been refreshed with a cleaner layout that makes it easier to spot which apps and features are quietly draining your power. That part is mostly cosmetic, though. The real upgrades sit deeper in the Power Saving menu.

Tucked under the Power Saving menu, you’ll find two options: standard and maximum. That’s not groundbreaking in the Android world, but the level of control is new for One UI. With standard mode, you can cap CPU performance and toggle many of the usual suspects: always-on display, display brightness, motion smoothness, dark mode, and screen timeout. Maximum mode goes further, allowing you to toggle only the essential apps you want to run, while preventing everything else from draining the battery.

Paired with Samsung’s existing tools, such as basic or maximum battery protection toggles, an 80% sleep charging cap, charging settings, and more, I’m finding it easier than ever to keep my Galaxy’s battery topped up and in good shape for the long run.

Smarter apps and services

Samsung has sprinkled a handful of quality-of-life upgrades across its in-house apps and services. None of them are headline-grabbers on their own, but together they make the default app suite feel genuinely more helpful.

Take the Weather app. The widget now shows a quick rain-forecast graph, which makes the guesswork out of “umbrella or not?” at a quick glance. There’s also a new pollen index for trees, grass, and ragweed — something I’ll be obsessively checking once hayfever season rolls around.

The clock app has received upgrades, too. The alarm screen can now display the current weather, which is obviously handy when you’re figuring out what to wear first thing in the morning.  For someone who has the pleasure of working with a team based all around the world and has to wrangle converting something to EST at least a couple of times every day, the clock app’s new timezone feature is the real headache saver. I also love Samsung’s graphical globe approach to picking time locations — I wish every clock app worked this way.

Much more for the Samsung ecosystem

Now I’m not deeply embedded in Samsung’s expanded product portfolio — no Galaxy tablet on my desk, no smartwatch on my wrist. But if you are more invested in the ecosystem, One UI 8.5 will almost certainly feel even more expansive than what I’ve experienced so far.

For instance, Storage Share now makes it effortless to browse and pull files from your various devices, and the new Smart View shortcut lets you mirror your phone in seconds. DeX regulars see a practical upgrade, too: app windows reopen exactly where and how you left them. Meanwhile, Samsung Health users in the beta receive a surprisingly hefty batch of additions, from richer weekly reports to upgraded workout sharing, new meditation features, and even antioxidant measurements.

After spending a short time with the One UI 8.5 beta, my early takeaway is that Samsung is once again glancing over at Apple’s homework — with all the pros and cons that come with that. Expanding and improving its in-house apps is absolutely a win for anyone firmly planted in Galaxy land. But the subtle design shifts that echo Apple’s latest aesthetic changes also reinforce a familiar critique: Samsung seems uncertain about its own visual identity, something we’ve noted with its recent flagship hardware as well.

Still, the One UI 8.5 beta already feels solid, and it’s made my Galaxy S25 Ultra feel a little new again. With more beta builds undoubtedly on the way, we’ll just have to wait and see what else Samsung has planned before the stable release drops.