Top 3 One UI 8.5 features to look forward to

Since Samsung introduced a major visual overhaul with One UI 7.0, One UI 8 didn’t include many noticeable user-facing changes. With One UI 8.5, however, the company is preparing to deliver some substantial upgrades. We have reported on several of them, and here are the top three features to look forward to.

The biggest One UI 8.5 feature is undoubtedly the Quick Panel. It is now completely customizable. You can remove all toggles if you like, add as many as you need, and even resize them to your preference. Elements such as the brightness and volume sliders can also be arranged either vertically or horizontally.

Samsung seems to have taken consumer feedback from One UI 7 and One UI 8 into account. With One UI 8.5, you can now remove toggles such as Home, Mode, Nearby Devices, and Smart View, features that many users rarely accessed. You can see this in action in our in-depth video below.

Samsung is introducing some UI design refreshes with its stock apps in One UI 8.5. In apps like Gallery, My Files, and Phone, the tab bar has been redesigned to be more compact, with labels beneath the icons removed. This makes the tab bar smaller and allows more space for content to be displayed clearly.

Other UI elements are also being made more compact. For instance, the shortcuts for accessing specific file types in the My Files app now take up less space, leaving more room for other elements and reducing the need to scroll.

With One UI 8.5, Samsung seems to be revisiting its One UI 1.0 roots. The company has started placing the search bar at the bottom of the screen in stock apps. In early One UI 8.5 internal builds, the bottom search bar is visible in apps like My Files and Settings, and it could expand to other stock apps in future builds.

Beyond these changes, Samsung is also introducing an NFC-based Quick Share feature, retiring the OneDrive backup option from the Gallery app, and updating the software update screen with more prominent One UI branding. The battery icon has also been redesigned to look more compact.