Leaked One UI 8 Beta Internal Build Shows Off A Bunch Of New Features

Contents

New animations, updated settings page, and more

Summary

Samsung is nearing completion of its One UI 7 stable update rollout by the end of July and is simultaneously testing the Android 16-based One UI 8.
Leaks from an internal One UI 8 beta build (ZYEF) suggest potential new features like smoother animations for notifications and Quick Panel, and a new “Listen Brief” audio feature (though with robotic voice quality).
The One UI 8 update may also include a redesigned Security and Privacy settings page with a more compact layout.

Samsung has started pushing the One UI 7 Stable update to all its supported Galaxy smartphones and tablets. The company is expected to complete the One UI 7 rollout by the end of July this year for all its supported devices, but on top of that, the South Korean tech giant will also be busy testing its upcoming Android 16-based One UI 8 update.

The first One UI 8 beta update is expected this month, with no specific details about when it’ll be available for beta testers. However, that didn’t stop famed leaker @DevOfIpos from giving us a glimpse of what new features we might see in One UI 8.

Now Bar showing Google Maps on the Galaxy S25+

New animations, updated settings page, and more

The tipster seems to have managed to get access to one of the internal One UI 8 beta (ZYEF) builds, the firmware of which is around 1GB in size. Fortunately for all of us, they posted a bunch of posts on X (formerly known as Twitter), showcasing what new features Samsung may introduce in the One UI 8 update.

Based on what we saw in their X posts, it looks like Samsung has plans to improve the animation, especially for opening notifications and Quick Panel toggle menus (via @tarunvats33). In both these cases, the animation feels smoother, faster, and more refined, which suggests that this is more like a quality-of-life improvement.

Moreover, @DevOfIpos also showed us what the new audio version of Now Brief, simply known as “Listen Brief,” sounds like. The UI suggests that users will be able to pause, resume, or stop the Listen Brief entirely at their convenience. These options appear in the top right corner. While all these features sound exciting if you’re a fan of text-to-speech, the voice quality doesn’t sound great and is more robotic than natural.

Moreover, the internal One UI 8 beta build suggests that Samsung is planning to introduce a redesigned Security and Privacy page. The new design features a lot less blank space than the current version. Another subtle change that we can observe is that the security remark now appears in a pill-shaped UI element at the top.

These are mostly UI-related improvements, except for the Listen Brief feature, and as we progress more towards its stable release, we’ll get to see more new features, hopefully a lot more impactful than UI changes. In the meantime, you can learn One UI settings you didn’t know you needed.