Samsung TVs will get new One UI software to match its phones, and we have mixed feelings about it

Samsung is bringing its One UI to TVs from 2025, and that’s probably good news… probably

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Samsunghas big news for TV buyers. From 2025, it will be unifying all of its product lines, including itsbest TVs, under the banner of One UI. If you’re not familiar with Samsung’s Android phones, One UI is its flavor of Android: this design sits on top of the operating system to give every phone a distinctive Samsung personality.

If you are familiar with Samsung’s Android phones, though, you may understand why we have distinctly mixed feelings about this announcement.

One UI on Samsung TVs: the good

We have reviewed endless models of Samsung TVs over the years, and while Samsung makes really good televisions we’re less enthusiastic about its TVoperating system. Tizen.

We’ve put together anin-depth comparison of the various TV operating systems here, but the short version is that Tizen is the weakest link in Samsung’s televisions: it’s fine in terms of what it does, but what it does isn’t done as quite as nicely or in as user-friendly a way as some of its rival operating systems, especially webOS orRoku.

According to Samsung (viaFlatpanelsHD), with the move to One UI you’ll get a “cohesive product experience” across your various Samsung devices as well as “software upgrades for seven years”.

It’s important to note that One UI isn’t an operating system but an overlay, so it’s entirely likely that it’ll sit atop Tizen rather than Samsung switching to Android TV. But whatever’s underneath, One UI should deliver a very different and hopefully better TV experience. And it could beverydifferent: Samsung says One UI 7.0 will have a “brand new UX [User Experience] design”.

One UI on Samsung TVs: the not so good

We like One UI. We really do. But we don’t always like what Samsung does with it. In our reviews of theSamsung Galaxy S24andSamsung Galaxy S24 FE, we noted that Samsung has a tendency to hide important features and to be a little over-complicated: system settings in particular could be “tough to track down”. In our Galaxy S24 review we scored its software just two out of a possible five due to problems that “were starting to feel like laziness” in an operating system that was “pushing me to do more, to buy more, and use more” when we just wanted simplicity.

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Hence the mixed feelings. One UI can be great, but Samsung can also make it not-so-great – so while we’re absolutely on board with the idea of an improved interface on Samsung TVs, we’ll reserve final judgement until we see what Samsung actually delivers.

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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.

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