One UI 4.0 is here. It's out as a stable update for the Galaxy S21 series in dozens of countries around the globe and is currently in testing for other Galaxy flagships, including the company's foldables and last year's Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 lineups.
Based on Android 12, One UI 4.0 brings a crazy number of small yet useful enhancements and a few major new features, but it's not perfect. Since this is version 4.0 of One UI we're talking about, we decided to pick exactly four things that we dislike about it. We've detailed them here and in our new SamMobile TV video that you can watch below.
Performance ranges from stupid fast to beta-like lag
If you used the One UI 4.0 beta on your Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, or Galaxy S21 Ultra, you will know that one of its biggest issues throughout the test period was a high degree of stutter and lag. That's to be expected from beta software in general, but it's something you would expect to be fixed for the stable, public release.
And the final version of One UI 4.0 certainly does fix it, or it does so for the most part. When our Galaxy S21 smartphones are running well on One UI 4.0, they feel like the fastest and smoothest phones we've used from Samsung, ever. The performance enhancement over One UI 3.x is palpable as you navigate the user interface and jump in and out of apps, and we love it.
However, things don't hold up so well all of the time. On at least one of our Galaxy S21 Ultras, there are times when performance starts to drag as if the phone is still on beta software. All of a sudden the phone starts stuttering when performing actions like going to the home screen or opening the notification shade, and it can be quite jarring.
This performance drop persists for a few minutes before the phone goes back to running normally again, and while this could be more of a Galaxy S21 thing rather than a general issue with One UI 4.0, it's something Samsung needs to fix.
Note: Our performance issues are different from the one that some users are facing, wherein the variable refresh rate of the screen introduces too much stutter when scrolling inside apps by constantly switching between 60Hz and 120Hz mode. More details about that issue here.
That virtual RAM feature can't be disabled or customized
Samsung introduced RAM Plus, a virtual RAM feature, to its smartphones a couple of months back. RAM Plus dedicates 4GB of onboard storage for use as virtual random access memory for when the device's actual RAM runs out, and while it was initially being added to Galaxy phones randomly, One UI 4.0 seems to make it a standard feature for all.
The problem, however, is that RAM Plus in its current state is too limiting. First, you can't turn it off. Once you install One UI 4.0, RAM Plus is turned on by default and will eat up 4GB of your phone's internal storage. Second, RAM Plus is not customizable. You only get to use 4GB of storage as virtual RAM. Let's hope this is addressed in future updates, or perhaps with One UI 4.1 that's bound to debut on the Galaxy S22 series next year.
The wallpaper-based color themes don't apply to Google apps
Samsung Galaxy phones have supported system-wide theming support since before One UI was even a thing, but One UI 4.0 still manages to excite on this front thanks to Android 12's wallpaper-based theming system that lets you change accents and app icons across the user interface based on colors picked from your wallpaper.
Samsung, however, hasn't implemented it as well as we would have liked: those custom colors do not currently apply to Google apps. For now, only Samsung's apps are affected by the feature. This is something we had hoped would be fixed by the time the final version of One UI 4.0 rolled out, but that isn't the case. Here's hoping Samsung doesn't take too long to make it happen.
Video call effects don't work with stills, app support still limited
The One UI 4.0 betas made the video call effects feature introduced in One UI 3.1 much more useful by allowing you to blur out the background or use other background effects when taking pictures inside apps like Instagram and WhatsApp. Sadly, the final version of Android 12 and One UI 4.0 for the Galaxy S21 series doesn't let you do that.
Video call effects can only be applied to video calling apps and don't work with stills. But even the list of video calling apps that the feature supports hasn't been expanded with One UI 4.0. You can't enable background effects when making calls in WhatsApp, for example. It makes sense that video call effects aren't applied to pictures, but can we at least have support for them in more third-party apps, Samsung? Pretty please?
What is it about One UI 4.0 that you dislike and what improvements would you like to see? Let us know down in the comments!
