One UI 8.5’s hands-on build points to a meaningful mid-cycle refresh that prioritizes visual polish, ergonomic layout changes, and smarter defaults across system apps. The Quick Panel becomes far more flexible, core apps adopt bottom bars and pill-shaped elements, and animations feel smoother and more cohesive.
This early build is still rough around the edges, but it already reveals big changes in Gallery, Camera, Settings, Phone, and My Files, along with a bottom-placed search bar and notable shifts like a rethought battery indicator.
AI is set to take center stage as Samsung expands Galaxy AI’s presence, and a wider stable rollout is expected around the Galaxy S26 window, aligning timing with Android 16’s maturity and Samsung’s annual flagship cadence.
Key takeaways
- Quick Settings can be freely rearranged and resized, including horizontal or vertical brightness and volume sliders.
- System apps adopt unified bottom bars, bigger touch targets, and more glassy, rounded visuals for consistency.
- Gallery and My Files become more visual and ergonomic, with previews, pill containers, and a bottom search bar.
- Camera and Phone see layout refinement, clearer video settings, and early signs of Direct Voicemail and Transcript Assist.
- Battery indicators, software update screens, and Settings spacing reflect the new design language and usability goals.
- Galaxy AI integrations are expanding, with more tools expected as development moves toward stable release.
Quick settings and notifications
One UI 8.5 elevates the Quick Panel from a static tray to a flexible control board. Tiles, sliders, and blocks can be freely placed, resized, or removed, enabling truly personalized layouts for different usage patterns.
Brightness and volume sliders are no longer locked to one orientation; horizontal and vertical options are now both supported, which helps optimize for one-handed reach or large-screen ergonomics.
Notifications align with the new visual language, featuring higher contrast, cleaner separation, and subtler blur effects for improved scannability and reduced cognitive load.
Design language changes
The overall aesthetic moves toward a softer, more fluid look with rounded corners, pill-shaped elements, subtle translucency, and thicker spacing between items.
Bottom bars are now more consistent across Samsung apps, with some labels replaced by icon-only navigation for a cleaner look and more screen space.
Settings gets a notable ergonomic shift as the system search bar relocates to the bottom, reducing thumb travel on taller displays and encouraging more frequent search usage.
Gallery and My Files updates
Gallery receives one of the most visible redesigns, with the top half of album screens switching from a plain header to a live preview of the latest photo or video in that album.
Navigation adopts a bottom pill with larger, easier-to-tap buttons, while new options surface through refreshed menus and experimental toggles, hinting at deeper customization.
My Files mirrors this direction: rounded visuals, pill containers, and a bottom-positioned search bar, alongside clearer emphasis on sections like recent items and internal storage.
Camera and Phone app tweaks
The Camera layout remains familiar but the settings architecture is cleaner and more logical, particularly for video. Options are grouped into areas like audio controls, recording formats such as HDR or log, and multi-camera or dual-recording modes.
An early option to save video directly to external storage appears in this build, signaling better media workflows for heavy shooters.
Phone gets a visual refresh to the bottom bar and shows signs of deeper intelligence with options like Direct Voicemail and Transcript Assist, fitting the broader AI-forward direction.
Battery and system behaviors
The status bar battery icon is absent in this leak, replaced by a prominent percentage that shifts to red when power is low and morphs to a leaf in power saving mode.
Battery settings adopt the updated look, and animations appear smoother and more consistent with the rest of the system’s motion design.
Software update gets a friendlier presentation with a One UI version splash and a more obvious Check for updates button, with secondary options relocated into a tidy overflow menu.
AI focus and what’s next
Galaxy AI is positioned as a core pillar of One UI 8.5 rather than a separate add-on, with more features expected to touch productivity, calls, and content creation.
Some previously rumored tools—like NFC-based Quick Share taps, enhanced call screening, Meeting Assist, and a privacy display mode—weren’t visible in this early build, which suggests phased enablement closer to stable release.
Given the state of the hands-on, a wider stable rollout aligning with the Galaxy S26 launch window appears likely, with polish and feature completion landing in late-stage betas.
Eligible devices and rollout
As a mid-cycle milestone, One UI 8.5 is expected to reach recent flagship lines first—led by the Galaxy S26 family at launch—then expand to S25, foldables, and upper-tier A-series, following Samsung’s usual wave-based cadence.
Carrier testing, region-specific schedules, and device-specific tuning will impact the timeline, especially where AI features require dedicated NPU or modem capabilities.
The stable channel will likely roll out in phases, with some features toggled server-side as Galaxy AI packages and app updates land through Galaxy Store and Play Store.
Real-world impact
The reworked Quick Panel is the immediate day-to-day upgrade, letting power users build minimalist layouts or dense control grids without hacky workarounds.
Bottom bars across system apps reduce top-reach strain and bring navigation into a cohesive mental model, so moving between Gallery, My Files, and Phone feels consistent.
Camera’s reorganized settings cut the time to configure a shoot; placing codec, HDR, log, and audio options into sensible buckets means fewer taps under pressure.
Tips to prepare
- Back up fully before installing any pre-release build, and verify storage health to avoid corruption during updates.
- If testing, track app-specific issues, especially in Camera, Gallery, and Phone, and keep a changelog to spot regressions.
- Expect some features to be hidden behind flags; final behavior may change as builds approach release candidates.
Potential pain points
The status bar battery icon’s absence may split opinions; reliance on numeric percentage and color cues is a stylistic shift.
Icon-only bottom bars can reduce instant recognizability until muscle memory forms, especially in less frequently used apps.
Early builds can misrepresent performance; animation polish and haptic balance typically improve near the stable cut.
Who benefits most
- Creators who need faster toggling for video formats, external storage saves, and reliable multi-camera controls.
- Power users who depend on granular Quick Settings customization for workflows like travel, content capture, or presentations.
- Accessibility-focused users who gain from bottom search in Settings and My Files, larger touch targets, and cleaner contrast.
Conclusion
One UI 8.5 looks like a confident mid-cycle upgrade: a more flexible Quick Panel, modernized system visuals, and smarter layouts across Gallery, Camera, Phone, and My Files that put ergonomics first. The new design language feels cohesive without breaking habits, while refinements to animations and spacing make daily interactions feel calmer and quicker.
With Galaxy AI poised to expand and the stable release likely tied to the Galaxy S26 timeline, the hands-on build suggests a platform that is getting cleaner and cleverer in tandem. Expect a phased rollout, iterative polish, and feature flags that unlock more of the AI story as One UI 8.5 approaches its final form.
