Samsung introduced One UI 6 at the Developer’s Conference last year, in October 2023. With rolling it out internationally, the Galaxy S23 series was the first to receive the stable update. The One UI 6 is the next iteration over the top of the latest Android 14, which sports not-so-big revamps and overhauls, but Galaxy enthusiasts will love the new and refreshed Galaxy One UI experience. So lets talk about One UI 6 Review.
Samsung One UI 6 Review
With that, if noticed well, the One UI 6.0 has arrived with a number of noticeable changes and enhancements that certainly refresh your Galaxy user experience. As mentioned, the newest One UI iteration doesn’t come with a massive overhaul while upgrading from the Android 13-based One UI 5 but can create a bigger impact on your Android experience. Simultaneously, with some smaller tweaks, you will also notice that most of the UI features look similar, and apparently, which doesn’t require to be changed anyway.
In the meantime, there’s a lot to look for in terms of features and tweaks of the newest and Samsung’s most refreshed Android 14-based One UI 6. Samsung has significantly bumped up some interesting improvements, especially those that can be easily noticed in the lock screen, quick settings, and notification panel. Let’s dive into a detailed look at what the Korean brand has to offer with its Android 14 X One UI 6.0 for users.
Here’s One UI 6 for you!
Colorful Quick Settings Panel
With a new and refreshed look, Samsung has added some colors to the UI of the Quick Settings panel. The most preferred Wi-Fi and Bluetooth options received their own dedicated, enlarged tiles. In contrast, with the addition of the new Quick Settings Instant Access setting, if toggled on, users will be able to swipe down from the right corner to access only the Quick panel and not the notifications received, which looks impressive and several other brands do offer this capability, including Xiaomi, and is admired by most of the customers.
At the same time, the One UI 6.0 Quick Panel refresh has significantly removed the most comfortable one-handed mode from the Quick Settings, making a few of the most used tiles, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, even harder to reach as they have been placed on the top of the panel and also can’t be repositioned, which is slightly annoying. However, other quick settings tiles can be easily customized as per your preference.
The Notification Panel
Samsung has provided a comfortable way to easily access your notifications by adding separate cards for every incoming notification. This makes it very easy for users to configure their most important and preferred notifications first. There’s a notification grouping feature in which if a notification arrives from the same application, it will automatically be grouped together with the older notifications, but you will still be able to see the separate card for each notification.
While streaming music, you will be able to see interesting visuals. You will notice the background of the song that’s currently playing on the progress bar with a unique visualizer or sound waves produced as your song is playing.
The lock screen gets a new clock repositioning capability
With the One UI 6, Samsung has significantly added a new capability that will allow users to change the position of the clock as per their preferences on their lock screen.
Simplified Home Screen
Samsung has offered a fresh, clean, and more simplified look to the home screen by removing the words, including Galaxy and Samsung, from a few applications’ names so that they can be short and easily scanned. For example, the Galaxy Store will just be Store, while the word Galaxy has been removed from it.
Samsung Keyboard grabs the new Emoji designs
Samsung has upgraded its keyboard and provided a fresh look to the emoji designs. Users will notice an all-new look to their emojis while sending them to their social media posts, texts, and everywhere. With that, One UI 6 also has a new default font that offers an elegant look to your fonts, which could be liked by some users, while others might not like the change, and apparently most of the users haven’t easily noticed it yet.
Camera settings and Gallery app refreshments
In terms of camera capabilities, Samsung has pushed some significant enhancements; the most useful customization is the capability to add the watermark, while Samsung didn’t have its own iconic watermark earlier. You can easily customize the watermark as per your preference.
With regards to the gallery app, a new Details option lets you add more depth to your picture editing, helping you improve your editing skills a little more. The new details options include several options like remaster, portrait effect, and object eraser, respectively.
Helpful Weather and Camera Widget
The addition of two new and interactive widgets, the Weather and the Camera widgets, gives your home screen a different look and some useful information at a glance. The first one, the Weather widget, offers quick information about the current weather along with temperature and future forecasts at your location, which is helpful when you have planned a long road trip with your bunch of friends and want to see whether the forecast conditions are considerable or not. On the other hand, the Camera widget acts like a shortcut that allows you to quickly get to enter the Camera app with a specific mode.
Studio: a dedicated video editor
The impressive addition of a dedicated Studio app for video editing can be found to be very helpful and a nice icing on the cake! For users who are dedicated to making videos and love to share them with their friends and followers, especially social media influencers, this new addition would be very useful.
In contrast, earlier, users were only able to edit their videos using their default Gallery app. You can easily access and use the Studio app while tapping on the hamburger icon at the bottom right corner of your Gallery app. However, the slightly disappointing aspect is that Samsung has not provided a separate app icon for the Studio app yet.
At the same time, other than editing filters from the Gallery app, Samsung’s Studio app will let users have a more ambitious and interactive video editing experience. A well-managed and organized video editing system is perfectly equivalent to the best video results.
Modes are now directed to Lock Screen, resembling iOS 17 to some extent
Samsung should have taken inspiration from Apple’s latest iOS 17, which allows users to set different lock screens for every separate mode. At the same time, Samsung introduced Modes and Routine features with the One UI 5, which was followed by the introduction of the capability to set wallpapers as per your scheduled routine with the One UI 5.1 update.
In simple words, while editing your lock screen with your respective mode turned on, you are actually editing that specific mode’s version of your lock screen, which could be significantly helpful when you wish to edit your preferred activity, including any shortcut to a specific mode, on the basis of what you are currently doing.
However, Apple, apparently, offers to style your lock screen according to each Focus mode, while Samsung doesn’t provide such capability, and your lock screen mode edits get stuck within the particular mode only. On the other hand, with One UI 6, there’s no such ability to change the mode directly from your lock screen, but on iOS 17, you can do so. In contrast, Samsung has adopted the iOS 17 functionality, but it doesn’t prove to be an up-to-date feature.
Your Galaxy device has a new auto-blocker feature for enhanced security
Samsung added a new auto-blocker feature with One UI 6. You can get it enabled by navigating through your device’s Settings >> Security and Privacy, which is turned off by default. This feature must be turned on, as it protects your device and prevents your device from installing applications from unauthorized app stores.
The auto-blocker feature works by blocking certain unauthorized and unauthenticated app stores, protecting your device from several phishing attacks, and enhancing the security and authentication of your devices. With that, malicious chargers, computers, and other devices won’t be able to send commands to your device when it’s connected using a USB cable. Other than that, there are two additional options under the advanced sections, including messaging app protection and blocking software updates by USB cable, which should be turned on for more advanced security and protection.
Final words
Samsung has always ensured to offer a more interactive and advanced user experience with the help of its One UI, which significantly results in a mesmerizing reach for users with a number of new features and enhancements. With One UI 6.0, Samsung has kept every aspect in a very innovative and balanced manner, and Samsung enthusiasts will admire the overall performance of the One UI 6. However, some features aren’t up to the mark, while others prove to be very satisfactory.
In contrast, Samsung stepped up, offering serious competition among several other brands within the tech industry with the introduction of its latest and next One UI iteration, the One UI 6.1, which will be based on Android 14. On the flip side, it’s already been confirmed that the latest One UI 6.1 will be incorporated within its forthcoming and most-awaited Samsung Galaxy S24 series, featuring some of the most advanced and innovative AI capabilities and features, and this time, with the inclusion of the new One UI 6.1, the upcoming Galaxy S-series will be AI-powered!
