Samsung One UI Beta 2 for Galaxy S9/S9+ Overview! [Android 9.0 Pie]

Here’s a quick overview of Samsung One UI Beta 2 for the Galaxy S9/S9+. You can sign up for Samsung One UI on most Galaxy S9/S9+/Note 9 devices or you can also install the Pie Beta ROM on any rooted Exynos model of Galaxy S9/S9+.

Night mode(Dark mode/dark theme) is now available that will allow you to get black background for many of system UI including quick toggles, settings, or any apps that support it.  This will save you some battery life since AMOLED screens used on Samsung Galaxy smartphones do not use any energy when displaying black.  I would leave it on during the day also.

Portrait Mode/Auto-Rotate – With Android 9.0 Pie, it is default to use “Portrait Mode” where the screen stays locked in Portrait or Landscape until the user presses the button to rotate.  This can come in handy when using the phone in awkward positions such as lying down sideaways and you don’t want the screen to rotate automatically.

Check Fingerprints – You can now check your fingerprints and see which finger is registered.  Samsung may be working on multi-fingerprint log-in feature like used on a lot of Huawei/Xiaomi phones.

Baby crying detector and doorbell detector could come in handy for making sure your baby is sleeping peacefully or never miss your UPS guy when they ring the doorbell.

Always On Display has new clock options and slightly different layouts.

Keyboard now defaults to dark mode(even when Night Mode is turned off) which I really like as it should save some battery life and also new floating keyboard is available.

You can now use Android 9.0 Pie navigation gestures(similar to one find on Pixel 3 smartphones) where you can switch between apps by swiping from Home button to the right.  Samsung has left the Recents button on the left which is now since you have multiple options.

You can also enable Full Screen gestures where you can use the buttons by swiping up from the bottom.  I am not a fan of this as it is missing a method to switch between apps quickly.

Camera UI has changed slightly along with new features like Screen optimizer(which is basically AI) and also added support for remembering the last camera mode.

Overall Samsung One UI experience has been very snappy with great battery life.  There are subtle changes along with added Android 9.0 Pie baked in and hopefully this will be much better than what we have seen with older Samsung UI.

 

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Max Lee

Max Lee is the founder of HighOnAndroid.com. Max makes Android tutorials and review videos for people who want to get high on Android over at his YouTube channel and Korean YouTube channel.