One UI 9: All the features you need to know [Video]

Now we’re a few builds into the Android 17 Beta or One UI 9 for Samsung Galaxy phones, so now...

Now we’re a few builds into the Android 17 Beta or One UI 9 for Samsung Galaxy phones, so now is the perfect time to take a look at what’s coming ahead of its debut on foldables very soon. As noted, the One UI 9 Beta has been running for a few months, allowing the Korean company to adjust, tune, tweak, and add new functionality to the build ahead of its likely official launch on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 in the coming weeks. Table of contents While we’re not sure when the S26 or other Galaxy phones will get the stable release, it’s likely not too far away, given how polished the experience is right now.

Fully customizable Quick Settings One of the first and most prominent changes in One UI 9 is the updated and enhanced Quick Settings panel. At first glance, it looks really similar, but there are some visual changes, like thicker sliders for the volume and brightness levels. The dark mode and volume settings toggles get undocked from these sliders now, too.

It gets better as there are even more changes when you make edits. Firstly, there are new toggles for certain Accessibility options, including “Select to speak,” which reads aloud UI sections. The aforementioned dark mode and volume level quick buttons are also here.

If you want to make adjustments and changes, the Quick Settings panel handles toggle resizing better than before, with the ability to move and resize even more. The volume and brightness sliders can be resized to 2×1 for the first time, allowing for more compact layouts. The media player has moved some things around, like the album or podcast information, gained new circular toggles for play/pause, skip, and go back, but it also has a lick of paint with better handling of album art colors.

It’s richer, and when playing the visualizer waveform on the playback bar will have more color and vibrancy because it takes hues from the currently playing album art. One more thing that makes a big visual difference is the added blur to even more areas in the One UI 9 interface. Credit where it’s due, the Gaussian blur is very well implemented basically everywhere that matters.

Status bar You can now add a network speed indicator to the status bar for the first time. This has been huge on Chinese phones for a long time, but it’s finally here, and it’s a very useful way to see if anything rogue is using your data or Wi-Fi connection. You do need to use the Quickstar app in Good Lock, though, to enable this, but it’s 100% worth it.

Samsung has adjusted the status bar pill size to be bigger. That means you get a bit more information. However, it can feel a little bit congested compared to the smaller pill bar.

Usability changes I’m not a Samsung Browser person, but I love that there is the ability to turn each browser window into the Recents section. This isn’t even a new function on Android; it’s a Material era change that comes back and is great for multitasking or quick reference. Since One UI 8.5, there have been a ton of visual changes in various first-party apps.

Floating bars are back. On the one hand, I like this as you get a clean gesture bar. On the other hand, some things get obscured.

I’m sort of indifferent to it all in all. If you use the Routines feature, Samsung has done the right thing and put explanation text for each of the presets. So you’re not just guessing what they do – or don’t do.

The Game Booster toolbar has some cool new options like screenshot resolution that bypasses the game-specific setting and bypass charging. I’m not a big mobile gamer, so these don’t matter to me all that much, but I can 100% see the value in these nice extra options. Samsung Notes has an interesting new tape tool for obscuring text and images.

I’m not entirely sure how useful it is beyond maybe as a study aid. You can draw over text, then tap with the S Pen to reveal what’s underneath. I like that it’s getting attention, but not really sure how useful this is for everyone.

One other thing to note is that if you try to restart or power down your phone with One UI 9 installed, you need to enter the PIN. It’s just a quick added security measure, which is probably a good thing. Camera A couple of neat changes come to the camera, such as the ability to record vertical video from the selfie and rear cameras simultaneously.

It creates a 1:1 ratio square video, which might be nice for Instagram, but maybe not that useful outside of social media. Sadly, it’s limited to 1080p, which does limit where you might share it. Network restriction controls Honestly, one of the best new additions in One UI 9 has to be the ability to block certain apps from connecting to the internet within Settings.

Network Restrictions is a powerful tool, and it makes you wonder why this hasn’t been available for some time already. There are so many apps that don’t need external connections, so this is a privacy game-changer. Gamers should 100% take a look at it, but it’s a great killswitch to have.

Unified phone app Samsung has improved the dialer or phone app experience by merging all calling applications into a unified section with the One UI 9 update. So, open the phone app and previous Google Meet, WhatsApp, Viber, Line, and other apps that have their own calling option will be visible in the feed. Driving report Not all features added to One UI 9 are “good” in the traditional sense, and I personally feel like “Driving report” is one of those.

I’ve actually refused to use it as it can track a recent drive, then use that data to give you a report on various things like how often you hit the accelerator rapidly, slam on the brakes, take a sharp turn, or even how many times you use your phone. Now I’m all for policing your phone usage while driving, but there is no reason to have this data on your phone. I’m almost certain this will be used to sell data to insurance companies.

There is no reason to have this on your phone, in my opinion, and I think it’s a really bad feature. I would suggest never enabling it in the first place. I don’t know what Samsung was thinking.

This probably only benefits insurance companies. What else is to come from One UI 9? It’s highly likely that the new Galaxy Fold will ship with One UI 9 pre-installed, and there will no doubt be a few little things added that we haven’t yet seen in the beta.

Google confirmed that Gemini Intelligence was coming to Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10, so expect that to be rolled out once it’s ready. It’ll be a layer on top of Android that will do even more AI-powered tasks and automations – not that everyone needs it. I do wonder how the Create My Widget feature will look on Samsung phones and if we’ll get visual changes for Galaxy phones when it does eventually roll out at some stage this year.