I love how stable Samsung’s beta One UI updates tend to be these days
Beta software often sends people running from fear of having to deal with bugs and issues that get in the way of their day-to-day life. And that’s normal, because in this day and age when everyone wants their computers and mobile devices to “just work” (a saying Apple made famous a long time back), not many are interested in giving beta software a try.
That is perhaps why Samsung doesn’t do worldwide testing of new versions of Android and One UI, especially for all the devices except its latest flagships, and makes do with the number of beta testers they do manage to get into the fold. Naturally, we here at SamMobile tend to test those betas out, and in my opinion, Samsung’s beta software is nothing to be scared of.
I’ve used pretty much every new Android and One UI version’s beta version on a Galaxy flagship that I get to use as my daily driver every year as part of my job description. And in the last two or three years, in my user experience, even the initial beta updates have been pretty stable for day-to-day use.
Samsung’s beta One UI releases are mostly just threatened by performance issues
It’s mostly performance issues that tend to be the biggest offenders, such as rough animations and the device becoming slow at times as the memory fills up and doesn’t clear as it is supposed to. But as far as app crashes and other such bugs are concerned, I rarely — if ever — have problems anymore.
The same is true for the Galaxy S22 series’ Android 13 and One UI 5.0 beta. While the initial beta releases were missing some of the software features (like all that new lockscreen customization), they ran pretty well. In fact, I don’t think I even had any of the usual performance issues on my Galaxy S22 Ultra, even though animations etc. still felt a little unrefined at times (something everyone has noticed).
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that Samsung’s beta Android and One UI releases are nothing to be scared of. Sure, if push comes to shove you might have to reset your phone and go back to the previous version of Android, but then again, if that’s something you’re not prepared to do when testing out beta software, then perhaps you shouldn’t dabble in it anyway.
As for those who do want to test Samsung’s betas but aren’t residing in countries where the beta programs are released, well, tough luck. Samsung has shown no interest in increasing the number of countries where it holds new Android and One UI beta programs, so all one can do is wait and hope the company will change that in the coming years.
