Summary
- One UI 8 is set to bring Android 16 to compatible Samsung Galaxy devices via an over-the-air (OTA) software update.
- A new report from Sammy Fans indicates that Samsung is internally testing One UI 8 builds across a number of its Galaxy phones and tablets.
- Hopefully, the release cadence for One UI 8 will be an improvement over the sluggish rollout of last year’s One UI 7.
According to a new report from Sammy Fans, Samsung is internally testing its all-new One UI 8 software update across a number of its existing handsets and tablets. Using the free CheckFirm app from the Google Play Store, which details official Samsung firmware across compatible Galaxy models — Sammy Fans found that the following devices are actively being tested with in-progress builds of the OS update:
- Galaxy S23 series
- Galaxy S22 series
- Galaxy S21 FE
- Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5
- Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4
- Galaxy A56, A55, A54, A36, A35, A26, A73, A33
- Galaxy Tab S10 series
- Galaxy Tab S9 series
- Galaxy Tab Active 5 Pro
- Galaxy M34
Some of these hardware products have been flagged as having internal and beta builds, while others have surfaced via the Geekbench benchmarking service. For the time being, this is all still speculative, as Samsung has yet to confirm any official One UI 8 update roadmap.
Of course, it’s impossible to confirm whether this list of compatible Samsung devices is wholly accurate, but it sure does check out: the Galaxy S20 series missed out on One UI 7, setting the precedent for the Galaxy S21 series to sit out on the One UI 8 update. These older devices were only promised four years of platform updates, as opposed to the seven years on newer Galaxy models starting with the S24 series.
One UI 8 is set to launch Android 16 into the Galaxy
Let’s hope One UI 8’s launch cadence is an improvement over last year’s release
Currently, One UI 8 is available out of the box in stable form on Samsung’s all-new Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 foldable phones, with public beta program builds available for both the S24 and the S25 lineups. The company has confirmed that additional beta builds will roll out to further devices “in the following month.”
When One UI 8 does finally land on existing devices, it’ll bring with it many or all of the platform improvements introduced in Google’s Android 16 release, which reached stability back in June. Modern Pixel phones have been enjoying Android 16 for some time now, but Samsung and other Android hardware makers have the perennial job of needing to adapt their proprietary software skins to the latest operating system release.
If you have an eligible Galaxy device and would like to test out One UI 8 via Samsung’s public beta program, Pocket-lint has a dedicated tutorial outlining the steps required to do so.
Sometimes, this process of applying software skins like One UI takes only a few short months post-launch of a new version of Android, while other times the delay is substantially longer. Infamously, last year’s Android 15-based One UI 7 was marred by rollout delays, leading to frustration from Samsung fans the world (er, Galaxy) over.
Compared to One UI 7, which overhauled a number of user interface elements across the board, One UI 8 is more of an iterative software release. As such, I’d expect to see it land across the entire Galaxy ecosystem without too much delay, assuming no show-stopping bugs show up to thwart Samsung’s internal plans.
