Samsung's take on Android 16, One UI 8, finally went live on 27 November of last year, after an additional 6 week delay, for the A24 at least. At first, it was great, but the joy got short-lived very quickly.
The biggest issue brought by One UI 8 on the A24, as well as other devices with 4GB of RAM, was app crashes, and it wasn't a software problem, but a hardware, or lack thereof, problem.
So how has One UI 8 been holding up, three months later?
In my experience, it's become more stable than when it first arrived. The updates Samsung have been pushing since December, I would say, have really improved stability. Granted, there are still some annoyances, like the lag when pulling down the notification panel, especially in horizontal mode (though I would argue that this has been an issue for a while now).
App crashes are still a thing, but only when I try to run more than 5 apps in the background, or when two or more apps start fighting for resources. Nearby Devices still crashes on boot, and honestly I've gave up on troubleshooting it, the update itself has locked the bootloader, with no easier way to unlock it, and recent updates have removed useful troubleshooting features in Android Recovery, but other than that, it's been really good so far.
However, it's still disappointing. Why?
One UI 8 is basically One UI 7: Remastered. Or, One UI 7.1, or 7.5. Either way, there's really no major difference from One UI 7, apart from jumping to a higher number, and, I don't know, a few fixes. It's like One UI 4 and One UI 5 all over again, difference being those two weren't hot messes like these were.
What doesn't help Samsung is that the update that was SUPPOSED TO BE One UI 8 has been in testing for 700 years at this point. Too many betas, with no idea of when to expect a stable release. But then, they brought this on to themselves with the messes they created with One UI 7 and 8.
Overall, One UI 8 has been good, for the most part. I could list additional things that have been removed with the arrivals of One UI 7 and 8, but it's a discussion for another day. But, if I'm being honest, One UI 6 was the last perfect major update Samsung pushed, and it'll forever be my favorite version of One UI.
Samsung deciding to spend additional time testing One UI 8.5 internally before releasing it, even though it's not a major update, is a good thing, because it means they can iron out any bugs that may pop up unexpectedly. In other words, the backlash they got thanks to One UI 7 and 8 hit them hard, so they clearly want One UI 8.5 to be perfect, despite the impatience it has caused.
What about you? What device are you using, and are you impressed or disappointed with One UI 8? Let me know what your thoughts are, good or bad.
