I'm using Samsung's One UI 8.5 beta, and there's one feature every Android skin needs to copy

If you’re a Samsung fan, you probably heard about the One UI 8.5 beta release last week. Samsung officially launched the beta on December 8, and since then, we’ve discovered a surprising number of new features and settings.

While there’s a lot to like about One UI 8.5, having used the update myself for a few days, it’s clear to me which new feature is the best. And I won’t beat around the bush — it’s Samsung’s new Quick Settings.

One UI 8.5 takes Quick Settings to another level

Quick Settings are a crucial part of any Android phone, and every Android skin offers some level of customization for them. In Google’s version of Android 16 on Pixel phones, you can add, remove, rearrange, and resize Quick Settings toggles. OnePlus’s OxygenOS lets you add and remove toggles, but doesn’t let you resize them. Customizing your Quick Settings isn’t a new concept for Android. However, Samsung has taken it to a completely different level with One UI 8.5.

With One UI 8.5, Samsung has taken off all guardrails and gives you free rein to make your Quick Settings look like whatever you want them to. And compared to One UI 8, the difference in customization options is staggering.

Previously, Samsung only let you add/remove toggles from the expandable menu. Things like the media playback widget, smart home controls, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles, and Smart View could be rearranged, but not deleted. Don’t want to see buttons for Nearby Devices and Modes? Too bad! Samsung made you keep them.

But in One UI 8.5, that’s no longer the case. Open your Quick Settings, tap the edit button, and you can change … everything. You can delete those pesky Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles, the media player, and even the brightness and volume sliders if you want to.

More importantly, you can add new toggles and arrange them almost however you’d like. Want a dedicated button for Google Wallet? You got it. Want to separate your volume and brightness sliders so they’re on different parts of the page? No problem. Hell, you can even arrange those sliders vertically if you want to embrace One UI’s increasing fondness for iOS.

So, what does all of that look like in action? I spent about ten minutes playing with the new Quick Settings tools on my Galaxy S25, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I’ve got my media player at the top and four large toggles below for some of my most-used Quick Settings — including the flashlight, QR code scanner, song identifier, and smart home controls. Below those are smaller toggles for the Google TV remote, Google Wallet, Do Not Disturb, and auto-rotate. Finally, the brightness and volume sliders are at the bottom.

And that’s just one example of how you can customize Quick Settings in One UI 8.5. I made a few other layouts just for the heck of it, and each one looks dramatically different from the last. No matter how you want to arrange things, One UI 8.5 lets you.

Every Android skin needs to copy this

One of the reasons so many of us choose Android is because of the freedom it provides to use our phones however we like. While I may have issues with One UI as a whole, I have to give Samsung credit for building on that freedom of user choice in One UI 8.5.

Some people may not care about fine-tuning their Quick Settings like this, which is fine. But for those of us who do, it’s incredible to see Samsung give us so much control here. This level of customization isn’t offered by any other Android brand, and after a few days with it, I’m annoyed I don’t have it on my Pixel 10 Pro.

Although Google may be in charge of Android, Samsung’s influence on the platform can’t be ignored. I hope Google and other Android OEMs see what the company has done with Quick Settings in One UI 8.5 and brings that to their own Android versions. Samsung got it right here — now it’s time for other Android skins to follow.