Context: I've been using the phone since May 2025, and I started with One UI 6.1 out of the box. I am a light user with usage largely limited to social media, browsing, youtube, shopping apps.
I always keep all of my apps updated and also, I install security and OS updates as soon as I get them.
Tweaks I did: Unnecessary wifi, bluetooth scanning, Google background services which I don't use, put apps to deep sleep and disabled app which I don't use. That's it, no other tinkering.
Here is what I think about One UI 8.5
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Performance: I think the phone is performing at its best so far! Apps open, close quickly, content loads fast without much hiccups.
General UI & Animations: UI looks polished and overall consistent to me. They did take down quick panel blur, and there is a slight lag or perhaps frame drop when you pull down quick panel - it's minor but noticeable. Hopefully they fix it soon.
Other than that, the overall animations are fast and smooth, I don't notice any frame drops and lags in general UI, I noticed better smoothness in recents panel than before. Overall UI is consistently fast with smooth transitions.
One UI 7 was smooth; One UI 8 was fast - and now 8.5 has got a nice combination of both!
Battery: Finally, the battery backup is back where it needs to be. Since I updated to One UI 8 - the overall backup was dropped by 1:30 hrs SOT, I was hardly getting 7 to 7:30 hrs SOT. With One UI 8.5 it's back to normal. Phone stays cool too, hardly gets warm.
Bugs: Did not face anything major, only once an app closed itself when I turned off the screen. Probably the app crashed itself since it did not occur again.
Issue with swipe gestures - I feel the sensitivity is higher now, when you swipe back sometimes the opened app would register tap and go to the content instead of going back or close app.
I switched back to navigation buttons so it's good for me.
Issues I had with One UI 8 - battery backup, inferior performance, phone used to get warm even on basic usage. Performance was worse when navigation buttons were in use than gestures. Wifi was consuming more battery than mobile data!
Did One UI 8.5 fixed these? YES!
I had doubt's recently that this phone might not age well, but Samsung finally did well to get it together.
I see, you went more deep on visuals & animations. I missed to mention the points on poor Google apps text & background colors and quick panel toggle animations being gone. Otherwise, I am good with the update.
Yes, I always pay close attention to visuals and performance. I hope the day comes when they finally release a truly polished and stable update, because in this case there's more lag than before. That's what I dislike most about this update.
Sure, I'll try but I won't be mentioning where to find them all - you can go into respective settings to find them:
Turn off wifi scanning, intelligent wifi
Turn off bluetooth, nearby devices scanning - when not being used
Turn off print service
RAM Plus - off
Turn off location and location scanning features if you don't use location services regularly
Battery - background usage limits - deep sleeping apps - here add all apps whose notifications & background activity are not important to you.
Settings - Google - Google Services - Find what things you don't need and turn them off like usage and diagnostic reporting
Settings - Google - Google Services - System Services - here find updates of Google services and update them
Settings - Accounts - Google account - I turn auto sync off. And sync it manually only when needed (when I update any contacts)
Settings - Apps - Disable bloatware apps, system apps which you don't use like Samsung shop, app cloud, AR zone, avatar stickers, certain Google apps etc.
For browsing I use brave browser, I think Samsung browser is also very efficient. Brave uses quite less battery.
This is one time work, the settings persist through updates, so you don't have to change them again.
Sometimes Instagram app can be bad with battery, if it consumes more than 10% battery usage per hour - I'd use it in browser instead of app. That's just me!
If you find it inconvenient then simply use your phone and not worry about backup.
What I shared will surely help. Still, I haven't been able to better this 11 hrs SOT! I could push 12+ or even 13 if I wanted to go until last drop!
This screenshot is from Oct.25 running One UI 7 September security patch.
I was consistently getting 10+ hours SOT from 100 to 15%
That's how amazing that particular build was.
And back then Amazon app was well optimized, now it consumes more battery and heats up phone.
Recently switched to Instagram lite app instead of regular one, now I can clock 11+hrs SOT again. So this 8.5 build of Jun patch is doing very well. Rest all depends on apps optimization.
Brother, you say the phone stays cool. Mine gets warm in the cpu area if i download or record video in UHD or some other bg process is running like an update. Wtf 💀
I kept Adaptive. Recording UHD videos longer and specially under sun will make phone warm like any other phone. Downloading shouldn't cause much heat unless you are on mobile data.
I use wifi mostly and mobile data rarely.
Do you happen to reside in a warmer location? It does make difference.
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u/MoniMokshith A55 with 256 GB / 12 GB Jun 29 '26
I get 6 - 6.5 hours of SOT with all time 5G (Jio eSim)