Review: Samsung One UI 4.0 has simplified, organized and elegant designs

Buying a Samsung phone means saying bye-bye to fast updates not too long ago. Fortunately, Galaxy updates appear faster and longer on recent Samsung devices. With the update to One UI 4, Samsung has shown that the phone does not have to be on older versions of Android for months.

One month after the arrival of Android 12, Samsung released the One UI 4 based on Android 12 for the Galaxy S21 series. Samsung’s new promise to update support is a feature – the most important feature you can find on a flagship smartphone. The rest of the features are less impressive than you might expect as Samsung does not like to rock the boat.

Samsung One UI 4.0 Review

Samsung’s One UI with Android 12!

Even with the major update to Android 12, I never expected Samsung to radically change the way the One UI looks in the S21 series. It still does the same thing, so people will not be confused when they reboot their phones after upgrading. However, I guess there will be a lot of edits in favor of Google. Notifications include some style changes, quick settings, and more remote parts of the OS, but if you expect things to run rigidly, you may be physically frustrated.

Although Samsung has updated amazing of its widgets to fit the rounded Android 12 aesthetic, none of them are part of the Material You device theme. Themes are included, but they are much more limited than Pixel.

Samsung removes color palettes from wallpaper images, but they are much older than Google’s saturated tones. I liked it at first, but some of the combos, especially those taken from more vibrant backgrounds, look a little too much. Some compromise between Google’s sophistication and Samsung’s boldness. Icon theme is disabled by default as it is in pixel.

Though, enabling the Icon theme only changes Samsung’s own apps. Google apps that help themes in Pixel are also non-themed in One UI 4, but Google’s widgets work with themes. Apps support the color palette in One UI 4, but Samsung apps do not use Google’s themes.

In a twist, Samsung tones the lock screen clock and notifications based on the lock cover background. It’s different from the rest of the system themes and makes more sense to me than Google’s approach of developing the whole theme every time you set a lock screen or home screen wallpaper.

Overall a One UI 4 has asymmetrical theme implementation. See below, Google’s widgets are thematic, but not icons. While, Samsung’s icons use colors theme, but its widgets do not. We know Google’s “Monet” policy is currently unavailable to other OEMs, so this may cause differences.

Unlike the change to OG Material design or navigation gestures, it seems to me that it’s going to take some versions to work. Some OEMs do better than others, but Samsung is the only one we’ve seen so far.

If you’re a long-time Samsung user plugging into company bundled apps, you’re very happy with One UI 4. Those apps received minor but sensitive changes. For instance, you can search for media in the Messages application and the browser will go into private mode by default.

The Samsung Health app now has more inclusive gender options and the layout is easier to navigate. From photographing yourself in a softly lit cafe to capturing a beautiful evening view, Night mode will cover you. With the press of a button, your camera captures and combines up to 20 of the best AI-enabled shots to give you a clear and vivid image.

Samsung introduced a feature called RAM Plus several months ago, which allows phones to reserve 4GB of internal storage as virtual RAM. Although the S21 family has between 8 and 12GB of RAM, RAM Plus is online by default and will not be disabled on Android 12.

I do not understand why Samsung is wasting storage on such low utility when not set. To put it bluntly, “RAM Plus” is a feature that uses part of your device’s storage to create “Virtual RAM” that maximizes the limit on your Galaxy smartphone. For Samsung Galaxy high-end smartphones with more than 8-12GB of RAM, this is probably not even a problem, but for low-end devices with hardware limitations, this can be a real way to increase or improve normal performance levels. I found that the performance has not changed much since Android 11.

One UI 4 is even better than Android 12!

I was disappointed not to do anything big with Samsung Material You, but things are still evolving. Future updates to Android 12 may make OEMs more themed. It’s not just for visual changes – updating to Android 12 can also remove a feature I use all the time. Like the Google Pixel, the S21 in Android 12 has lost the ability to control the cast volume with your phone buttons. This is thanks to a legal dispute and the solution should be available on Android 12L. Losing a feature like this “upgrade” is still frustrating.

No privacy without strict security

Since the One UI 4 is based on Android 12, it has all the deep-down system enhancements introduced by Google in the new pixels. Most of these changes are related to privacy and security, which are always appreciated in today’s age.

Sensitive data such as PINs, passwords and Samsung Pay fingerprints are always protected with Knox Vault. Encrypt and store data separately to protect against attacks, hacking and errors with Knox Vault Storage. For other important files like photos, videos, files, applications, and data you want to keep private, Secure Folder blocks browsing.

However, Samsung does not get all the credit – you will find more or less the same content as other Android 12 phones. Samsung has adjusted features such as the new privacy dashboard and sensor alerts to make it visible and work as part of the One UI.

Nevertheless, Samsung has done some good with battery-powered devices. While Google has lowered the battery menu on Android 12 to show the last 24 hours, Samsung has kept the “from last charge” view as well as the last 7 days’ trends. The Device Care menu also has a new emoji that lets you know how happy your phone is. Okay, Samsung.

I’m testing the One UI 4 on the Galaxy S21, which I believe is a really underestimated member of the S21 family. I preferred this phone because One UI 4 is not yet available in Z Fold 3 and I am very excited about it. I love how powerful the multi-window is on the Z Fold 3 and the One UI 4 makes it even better.

On the S21, Samsung’s multi-window functionality now looks simpler. Resizing apps has just gotten easier and many of the things that were crash-prone are now fixed. I’ve been able to resize videos that are actively playing videos without even breaking the size.

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What about the point of speed of One UI 4?

A few years ago Samsung was lucky enough to complete an Android update in six months, but things really changed. A few weeks after Google released Android 12, Samsung has OTAs for its most popular phone of the year and the rest of its high-end devices are coming soon.

I’m glad that OEMs including but not limited to Samsung have been committed to updating phones for a long time. Samsung charges a lot for its devices and it may not pack properly in the major feature upgrades, but it has been shown that it can provide a much closer updated experience to Google.