Samsung didn’t tear up the script with One UI 8, but it certainly polished it. During a week with the update on my Galaxy S25, five changes struck me as particularly useful for making daily workflows more efficient or taming background chaos and helping the phone feel (slightly) more desktop-capable while retaining the comforting One UI polish.
What follows is not a feature dump. It’s the stuff that actually made me faster, calmer, and more confident using a phone as my primary computer.
A smarter split screen that’s more than 50/50
One UI 8 introduces an open-canvas approach to multitasking at last, allowing for split-screen panes that you can slant as wide as about a 90/10 divide instead of confining us toward the middle. That’s so your main app can take over, with a reference app slung underneath as a svelte strip you can glance at without constantly switching.
Drag an app toward the top or bottom, drop a second app, and then use the handle between them to refine the layout. That may not sound like much, but it addresses small annoyances like keyboard overlap, ad-stuffed feeds, and tightly cropped text fields. OnePlus popularized a similar idea with Open Canvas; Samsung’s implementation seems tailored for phones you’re meant to clutch all day, not just tablets or foldables.
In practice, I draft emails while glancing at travel confirmations or maintain a thin chat thread open as a map dominates most of the screen. It is multitasking that respects attention, and not just screen size.
Desktop Mode replaces DeX but lacks some features
DeX is not so much gone as standardized. One UI 8 moves to Android’s own Desktop Mode roots, rounding out more neatly with the Android Open Source Project but keeping key features like taskbar, resizable windows, keyboard and mouse support, and common hotkeys.
If you used DeX as a quick presentation tool for a second-screen kind of cropping, that workflow remains the same. Window management is snappier, external display handoff is smoother, and the learning curve is shallower for anyone familiar with ChromeOS or Windows windowing conventions.
Some of the power-user add-ons from classic DeX aren’t available yet here, but this base is more future-proof. There’s much greater incentive for Samsung to improve a standard than maintain a parallel universe, and that’s great for long-term support.
Quick Share gets quicker — and clearer on privacy
Quick Share is getting cleaned up in One UI 8 with a send/receive split that’s apparent to the eye. The new flow reduces those “did I just broadcast that file to everyone?” seconds by providing clear directionality and more deliberate device engaging.
In side-by-side tests of a big batch of photos and 4K clips, moving them around between Galaxy devices on the same Wi‑Fi network using Microsoft’s Nearby Sharing felt more predictable and was less error-prone. It’s not just speed, but confidence: You feel good when you’re relocating work files or sensitive PDFs.
Apple’s AirDrop established the standard for frictionless local sharing — and NameDrop, a free iOS app that we previously covered when it was in beta, has raised the bar for contact handoffs. Samsung has me on the right path — this interface refresh smooths away any friction without burying privacy controls. A simple and transparent UI can often beat a raw speed bump.
Portrait Studio finally gives pets some attention
Samsung’s generative Portrait Studio felt like a demo before. In One UI 8, its most charming use case — dogs and cats — opens up. Open up a photo in Gallery, tap Edit, then Galaxy AI sparkles, and you can create stylized portraits with Studio, Fisheye, Oil Painting, or 3D Cartoon looks.
The key is preservation: fur texture, face shape, and the structure of the eyes now remain far more consistent than in early versions, which stayed in the uncanny valley. It’s tastefully restrained compared to some overcooked filters found in the wider app market.
As a profile pic or pet memorial frame for social posts, this is the first time Samsung’s creative AI feels both playful and reliable. It is a little feature you’ll use all the time, and that’s exactly the point.
Audio Eraser now removes noise beyond video edits
Before, Samsung’s Audio Eraser mostly existed within video edits. In One UI 8, it’s opening up to audio snippets from Voice Recorder and Samsung Notes, so you can denoise interviews, lectures, or your quick voice memos recorded in noisy environments.
In real-world use — busy café, transit platforms, gym — the device dragged down just about all HVAC hum and crowd murmur while keeping voices intelligible. Sharp transients are still the bane of any consumer denoiser, but it’s a noticeable improvement and can save an otherwise unusable clip.
This one will be appreciated by journalists, students, and field workers. It turns the S25 into a viable pocket recorder, without having to juggle third-party apps or clean up your desktop.
Bottom line: small, shiny updates that change habits
None of these improvements exist in isolation. They expand patterns people already use — splits, shares, edits — and file down the snags. That’s why they stick. Samsung’s own release notes highlighted stability and continuity this go-around, and you can feel that in daily usage.
If you happen to be on a Galaxy S25, One UI 8 is a no-brainer. For everyone else, it’s a good sign that Samsung’s software is maturing the way you hope it would: to save time rather than merely accumulate features.
