Samsung Universe: We tried One UI 3.0

For most high-end devices, One UI 3.0, based on Android 11, is now available, bringing very smart and thoughtful features to users.

As early as December last year, Samsung made Android UI version 3.0 available for some members of the Galaxy S20 family, but most devices will only receive the new major Android version and the fresh user interface we’ve been using for some time, so in this article we also summarize our experiences. Of course, the most important question for many is what devices and when the novelty can be downloaded, so it is worth starting with the planned roadmap, which includes a couple of devices not available in Hungary:

• 2020. december: Galaxy S20, S20+, S20 Ultra
• 2021. január: Galaxy Note 20, Note 20 Ultra, Note 10, Note 10+, S20 FE, S10, S10+, S10 Lite, Z Fold 2, Z Flip
• February 2021: Galaxy Fold
• March 2021: Galaxy Note 10 Lite, Galaxy Tab S7, Galaxy A51, M10, M30s, M21
• April 2021: Galaxy A50, M51
• May 2021: Galaxy Tab S6, S6 Lite, Galaxy A80, A71, A70, A31, A21s
• 2021. június: Galaxy Tab A, Galaxy A11, A01, A01 Core, M11
• July 2021: Galaxy Tab S5e, A30
• August 2021: Galaxy Tab Active Pro, A 10.1, Galaxy A10s, A20s, A20, A10s, A10

So the manufacturer will first release the new system for current high-end devices, which will be quickly followed by previous-generation flagships and mid-range devices, and most A-Series members will also receive the package in the spring and summer. The list of innovations is relatively long, but overall we can talk about a well-thought-out wrinkle stitching rather than a completely new user interface. So no one should expect that when you upgrade from One UI 2.5 to 3.0, you will feel like you are holding a new device in your hand. In listing the recent features, we will focus primarily on those implemented by the Korean manufacturer, but there will also be elements that came with Android 11 that are important to the user.

Home and lock screens

The most notable change has to do with the way widgets are handled. If you long press and hold the icon of an application with a widget, the option to place it immediately appears. And if you have several widgets for a given application (let’s say you can think of the weather here, which can be placed in several sizes), you can no longer see the different variants side by side, but you can scroll through them. This is an advantage in that we can admire them at least in full size, but there are certainly those who make it easier to choose if they see all the possibilities at once.

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A home screen double-tapping an empty area can now lock the devices: the feature can of course be turned off, but since it’s useful, not many people will probably do that. On the lock screen, the wallpapers are divided into categories, from which even more can be selected.

Notifications

The notification bar has changed the most, but it’s partly a dowry for Android 11. The round icons are retained, but on the first tap, the panel slides completely to the bottom of the screen. At the message center, the grouping of different notifications by type has been migrated from Google, which is probably one of the features that each vendor will implement in its unique user interface. The end result has been a slightly more transparent and much more space-saving surface.

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Design changes

The icons in the settings have changed, the look has become more modern and uniform, and the transparency has also improved, as the lists detailing each menu item are no longer separated by commas, but by dots. The various captions have been varied in several places, for example, the time that appears after the second flick in the notifications is already centered, which has a more aesthetic effect than the previous caption pushed to the left. All in all, this can be said about the whole system, the design changes are not intrusive, the designers approached things subtly, as a result of which the overall picture became much more uniform and a bit more modern.

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Volume control

It may seem like a trifle, but they’ve improved a lot on the volume control. Pressing the physical button gives you a different slider with a more modern design, which is also right where the physical buttons are, so you don’t have to go anywhere else because of it. Touching the top of the slider brings up different volume categories, the sliders can be moved vertically, but there are no captions, just pictograms, at least until you press on the gear, which takes you to a similar surface with captions.

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Trivia

There have been a lot of minor changes, without claiming completeness: Samsung DeX allows you to connect to supported TVs wirelessly, the new virtual touchpad with new gestures, the always on display can be more easily personalized, there is a trash in the message manager, duplicates can be easily deleted from the contacts list, up to 99 tabs can be kept open in the Samsung browser, the order of which can be fixed, web pages can be blocked to be redirected after pressing the button, and in the camera management software, focusing on the area has been given a much better interface. From Android 11, Samsung has not taken control of Google Home devices, instead it can control SmartThings widgets within the control center.

In summary, OneUI 3.0 is a very pleasant update that, while not bringing grandiose innovations, is still a positive opinion of it. The user interface has become more transparent, aesthetic, faster and more manageable, and the innovations listed above will also make it even more convenient to use. We definitely recommend installing it on devices that are already available.