New One UI 8 beta for Galaxy S25 removes features, delays final release

New evidence suggests that Samsung is working on a fourth One UI 8 beta build for the Galaxy S25 series. Whether it will roll out to beta testers is unclear, but regardless, this new build throws a spanner in the works and appears to be removing some features.

As some of you might recall, Samsung seemed like it was getting ready to push One UI 8 out of the beta program a few weeks ago. At that time, the company uploaded a new build on its servers that was not labeled as a beta build. We tested it and waited to see if Samsung would roll it out publicly. That hasn't happened, and now, we see a new One UI 8 beta build on Samsung's servers (via @tarunvats33).

This time, the new One UI 8 build is clearly labeled as beta firmware (ZYG5). Furthermore, this new beta build is newer than the stable-looking build (BYFB) we tested last month. BYFB was finished in June, and ZYG5 was finished this month. Here's how we know.

Once again, whether Samsung will release the One UI 8 beta build ZYG5 to Galaxy S25 testers is unknown, but the firmware exists on Samsung's servers, which indicates that the company isn't finished working on the update.

In fact, some features that were available in the BYFB build are missing from the newer ZYG5 build. Most notably, ZYG5 no longer has the Adaptive Lock Screen Clock feature, which finally started working in the previous BYFB build. Now, the feature is gone from the ZYG5 beta build.

We will test this new ZYG5 firmware regardless of whether or not Samsung releases it to beta testers, so make sure to stay tuned. But don't expect too many changes apart from some missing features.

Of course, the Adaptive Lock Screen Clock will be available in the final public release of One UI 8. However, these recent events behind closed doors suggest that the firmware is still not ready for a public rollout and that Samsung is still ironing out some bugs. We will keep you posted.