Samsung recently unveiled its new Galaxy S25 Series of smartphones globally, including in India, that the latest and most powerful hardware Samsung has to offer but these also run on the company's latest software - One UI 7. Though the full review of the Galaxy S25 Ultra will take a little more time, this is looking more in the software side of things - what are the major changes, what's so good and what might not be.
The One UI 7 is based on the Android 15 version. Samsung promises seven years of OS updates and security updates for the S25 series. One of the first things you might see new is the pill-shaped notifications - some might like this change some may not - having said, you still get decent amount of information regarding the notification that you wouldn't miss out much. There's also a bouncy effect when you pull down the notification pane. Plus, settings icons and notifications have been separated into different panes.
Now Bar was one of the talked features by Samsung at the Galaxy S25 Series launch and it is quite an addition - basically gives you an informational and interactive bar at the lock screen and always-on display screen. It can show you calendar updates, Google Maps navigation (next turn), Samsung Health (live activity), Samsung Notes as well as Voice Recorder and Interpreter.
Battery health is now a part of the One UI, showing you overall battery condition like how Apple and OnePlus show under Settings. There's also updated battery stats for your usage and apps consuming battery. You can now also disable automatic dimming of the display at 5 per cent battery.
While scrolling through some social media app such as Instagram, you might have noticed HDR photos popping up with higher brightness and contrast, which might be a little off putting, especially when using the phone at night, Samsung has now added a system-wide Super-HDR mode that you can enable or disable, as per your preference. A small but useful feature.
Samsung has done away with its own messages on the Galaxy S25 series with Google Messages being the default messaging app.
Icons on the homescreen can now be placed upside down or tilted plus you can also place your own made stickers on the homescreen from the gallery. Oh, and on the homescreen you can also remove the app dock.
Animations is another aesthetic change in One UI. Samsung now gives you a few animation presets offering you effects to choose from. This is further customisable by stiffness to change how quickly the animation effect shrinks.
Moving to more AI-centric features, which did get a lot of attention at the Galaxy S25 series launch, you can now make voice commands to change settings in place of navigating inside Settings to make these changes. This could be changing display brightens when outdoors or text size by simply opening One UI search and tapping the mic icon, followed by your voice commands - saving you a few taps. Object Eraser is now a little more usable and better for minor infills for objects. You can also make multiple voice commands into a single command and the OS should follow it step by step based on Gemini AI.
The OS runs really smoothly on the S25 Ultra so far, but more on the performance side in the full review. When and how well it runs on older Galaxy devices remain to be seen.
