The system version is Android 16, but more important is Samsung’s User Interface. that’s where you’ll find new features when the phone is updated, and the version 8.5 of One UI rolling out now is unusually slow.
In the first part of our review, we covered, among other things, the new AI features to handle incoming phone calls, private photo albums that only you can see, and the ability to watch movies together with each headset thanks to the simplified Auracast menu. In this Part 2, we continue to go over the main new features of Samsung’s user interface.
We have started from the Samsung Galaxy S26 and S25 in the text, as system versions come to models in lower price ranges, the feature set may vary more. In particular, the AI-based functions are more advanced in Samsung’s more expensive models.
The system version is Android 16, but more important is Samsung’s User Interface. that’s where you’ll find new features when the phone is updated, and the version 8.5 of One UI rolling out now is unusually slow.
In the first part of our review, we covered, among other things, the new AI features to handle incoming phone calls, private photo albums that only you can see, and the ability to watch movies together with each headset thanks to the simplified Auracast menu. In this Part 2, we continue to go over the main new features of Samsung’s user interface.
We have started from the Samsung Galaxy S26 and S25 in the text, as system versions come to models in lower price ranges, the feature set may vary more. In particular, the AI-based functions are more advanced in Samsung’s more expensive models.
More possibilities with AI image editing
With One UI 8.5 and Galaxy AI, Samsung has turned up the possibilities of editing images with AI even further.
The ability to edit images with AI, for example by selecting an object in the image, removing it and having the background filled in, has existed for a couple of years now in Samsung mobiles, and the functions have been continuously improved. Since this requires a lot of computing power in the mobile if it is to be performed locally and not on a server, the functions are usually more advanced in the top models and better in newer ones than in older ones. But at least the Galaxy S25 series has with One UI 8.5 received all the AI functions found in the S26 series.
The main news is that you can now ask the AI to process an image by giving free text commands. For example, I get a picture of my colleague Erik eating a banana with a pair of Meta sunglasses on. I write to the mobile phone to switch places on the glasses and the banana, and get a completely believable interpretation of my instructions.
To edit an image with a text prompt, open the image in the Gallery app, tap the stars that are the AI symbol, and select Create. Then just write a text suggestion.
In addition to removing or moving objects in an image, you can now also cut something out of an image and insert it into another image so that it looks natural.
To do this, select the image you want to paste into, tap the AI icon with the stars, then Create. Next to the text window is an icon for an image. Tap it and you get to choose which image you want to clip the item from. You will get a suggestion of what to copy but if it is wrong you can mark manually.
You then don’t have much influence over how the object is integrated into the existing image, the AI simply creates as believable an attempt as it can, and if it doesn’t work, you can ask it to try again.
You can change an image in quite a few steps with AI, and if you feel like it’s all gone wrong, you might want to go back to an earlier version. There is now therefore a history of the image editing, and you can step backwards and forwards in the changes with arrows at the top, not just reverting the image to its original version.
The mobile phone as a webcam
With One UI 8.5, it has become easy to use the mobile phone as a webcam for the computer..
You have been able to use the mobile phone as a webcam for PC computers before, via the mildly complicated Link to Windows, but with One UI 8.5 it has become much easier. You just connect to the computer with a USB cable.
When you connect the mobile to the computer with a cable, you get a notification that the mobile is charging, but if you press the notification, you get a menu where you can choose which function the connection should have. Select webcam, and the computer uses the mobile phone as its camera. According to information, it should be able to work with both Mac and PC, but we only got it to work with PC.
When you have turned on the webcam mode, you will receive a notification that you can open on your mobile. There you can choose whether you want to use the front or rear camera and which zoom to use. You can also choose resolution with a button in the upper left corner. If you choose high quality, your phone may get hot and draw a lot of power.
Better document scanning
You can now create multi-page PDFs and remove distracting parts of the image when scanning documents.
You’ve been able to scan text with the mobile camera for a long time, but One UI 8.5 has a clearer document scanning function. When you are in the camera and point to a document, it will be detected automatically, and the scanner mode will appear. Do not select the button to scan text located in the upper right corner of the viewfinder, but the button that says scan.
When you press there, the page is photographed and processed to highlight the text. If you want to make a PDF with more than one page, you can press Lt scan (not the best abbreviation in the world), you can take a new image and add to the document you are working on.
By tapping on an image, you can perform processing. This includes, among other things, automatic removal of fingers that have entered the image and folded corners. When you’re done, you can choose to save your document as a PDF, or as images.
Storage sharing between Samsung devices
If you have several mobile phones, tablets or computers from Samsung, you can easily access the content on all of them via the My Files file manager.
Storage sharing works on all Samsung devices where you are logged in with your Samsung account. To see the files, go into the My Files app and scroll down to Storage Sharing. If you press there, you get a list of other devices that are connected.
The first time you want to access the storage on another device, you have to grant it on that device, so you can’t do it remotely. Then you can browse the files on the other drive as if they were on the same drive.
To copy or move a file between two devices, select it by long-pressing it. Then you can choose to copy or move. This works both ways, so you can also copy a file from your current device to another connected device. When you have selected and selected Copy or Move, you will see Internal storage and Storage sharing as options at the top when you choose where you want to move the file.
Improved power saving mode
With One UI 8.5, the Samsung mobile gets more options for customizing the power saving mode.
You will find the settings under Settings/Battery. In One UI 8.5, the battery view has been redesigned here so that it will be clearer how much battery is drawn on average and how long the battery can be expected to last. Under battery saver mode, you can configure how battery saver mode should work when you turn it on.
You can choose between two battery saving modes, Standard and Max. Under Standard, background network usage, syncing and location control are restricted, while Max throttles almost all background activity. Both modes have additional settings you can adjust.
In default mode, there is a list of checkboxes you can toggle on and off to adjust the power saving mode. Here, for example, you can limit the processor speed to a maximum of 70 percent of the capacity, run in dark mode, turn off the always-on display and reduce the brightness by 10 percent. By default, all options are checked. Under Max, you can instead specify exceptions for apps that need to be able to run in the background to function properly.
Change the appearance of the quick panel
With One UI 8.5, you get significantly more flexibility in how the buttons on the quick panel should look.
The quick panel is the field you get when you swipe down from the top right corner of the mobile. Here you will find shortcuts to various functions, brightness control, bluetooth and Wi-Fi and more. For a long time, you have been able to choose to a limited extent which buttons should be included here and in which order. With One UI, you have gained significantly more flexibility in how they should look.
You edit the quick panel by pressing the pen after opening it. As before, there is a minus sign to remove an icon and a menu to add ones that are not included. Now each icon also has a small white highlight. By tapping and dragging it, you can adjust the icon’s size.
Most of the panels can be adjusted in size laterally or vertically. The main requirement is that they follow the invisible grid that the quick panel is based on. For the volume control and brightness control, you can even switch between horizontal and vertical panels. It only works if there’s free space for it, so first you’ll probably have to remove a couple of buttons from the panel. Once you’ve done that, you can drag the slider around so it’s vertical instead of horizontal.
Samsung’s full list of the news in One UI 8.5 in short form can be found here: