Samsung is rumored to have been working on the next One UI release, 8.5, ever since April, and yesterday an early build meant for the Galaxy S25 Ultra was spotted on Samsung’s servers. One UI 8.5 is expected to be the version with which the Galaxy S26 series will launch.
Today we have our first look at One UI 8.5, courtesy of a developer who was able to modify the Galaxy S25 Ultra build to run on a Galaxy S21+. Take a look at the refreshed UI in the images below.
The Settings menu has more compact items without subtitles, while the search bar moved to the bottom where it’s much more easily accessible. There’s an overflow gradient on both top and bottom edges, and drop shadows on all the containers and the search bar. The search page now shows different categories in a three-column grid.
When you enter any specific menu in Settings, the back button floats above the content once you scroll and gets a drop shadow of its own, a look which seems inspired by iOS 26 at least in part. The containers get drop shadows on the top and bottom edges, thus making them seem elevated above the ‘background’, and there’s a gradient overflow effect here too.
If One UI 8.5 is intended to launch alongside the Galaxy S26 family as rumored, then we have plenty of time until January to see many more leaks about it, so stay tuned.
