Most Galaxy phone and tablet owners are still patiently waiting for the One UI 7 stable rollout. This month, Samsung confirmed when it will begin shipping the update. However, the Galaxy S25 series already comes pre-installed with One UI 7, so what’s next? Well, a Samsung Galaxy S25 running Android 16-based One UI 8.0 has been spotted on Geekbench’s database.
This isn’t the first time someone has spotted an early One UI 8.0 build. Early March reports stirred the community, leading to the belief that Samsung was initiating a closed beta program for the update. Even a representative of the One UI dev team had to address the rumors.
Geekbench lists a Samsung Galaxy S25 running Android 16-based One UI 8
Now, a Galaxy S25 running a more recent build of Android 16 (One UI 8) has appeared in the listings of Geekbench, the popular CPU benchmarking platform. It’s interesting that the first Android 16-based builds for Galaxy devices are popping up in March. For reference, the first Android 15-based builds for Galaxy phones appeared in May 2024.
This suggests that Samsung could develop One UI 8.0 much faster than One UI 7.0. However, this would be normal, as One UI 7 brought huge changes to Samsung’s custom skin. The company itself explained the delay in the One UI 7 rollout by saying that the ROM needed a lot of development and testing time. Conversely, the development of One UI 8 will build upon the foundation of One UI 7. Basically, the company would only need to do optimization work and add new features. All the heavy lifting has already been done.
In addition, Google is accelerating the development of future Android versions. It’s not that the company is in a hurry, but rather that they’ve implemented a new development model that allows them to release major Android updates more quickly. The Mountain View giant could officially announce Android 16 in June instead of August or September.
2025-03-30 15:05:10