Every Android phone brand likes to do its own thing when it comes to the launcher and overall look of its phones. Some (like Xiaomi) opt to make their phones look and feel more like Apple’s iOS, but Samsung has been putting years and years into the development of its One UI.

Like most people, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with One UI. Samsung does fall somewhat into the trap of bloating its phones with gimmick features that no one ends up using. That said, in recent years, One UI has become pretty decent out of the box. However, there are still quite a few things I turn off soon after powering my new Samsung phone on for the first time.

RAM Plus

It’s more like a minus if you ask me

There’s a global RAM crisis right now as I write this, but phones have been a little short on RAM for much longer than that. Android has a heavier overall memory footprint than iOS, because Apple uses some pretty aggressive memory management, but Samsung said “hold my beer” and came up with what amounts to a swap file for your phone.

It’s called “RAM Plus” and it’s on by default. It reserves a portion of your phone’s SSD as extended virtual RAM, but there are problems with this. As our friends over at XDA reported, RAM Plus can slow your phone down. Most people probably don’t even need it if their phones have more than 8GB of RAM.

It won’t hurt your phone in any way to turn RAM Plus off. So try using your phone without it. You might notice it’s snappier, and unless you get low memory warnings or apps complaining about RAM or crashing, then you didn’t need this feature.

To turn it off, go to Settings > Device Care > Memory > RAM Plus and either reduce the amount, or preferably toggle the feature off.

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Customization Service

Tailored spyware just for you

The Samsung Customization Service is a very polite name for a set of “features” on Samsung phones that allow the company to watch and record what you do with your phone, and then use that for direct marketing and other miscellaneous purposes.

It’s easy to “accidentally” activate this during the initial setup of your phone, so there’s a good chance it’s running on your phone. I think this sort of thing as the same as ACR technology spying on TVs. I’d rather the device I paid a lot of money for not collect and share my data.

To turn it off, or at least customize it for your own comfort level, go to Settings > Accounts > Samsung account > Security and privacy > and tap the Customization Service entry.

Change the toggle at the top to turn it all off, then select Stop to confirm. Your phone might warn you that this disables sleep data tracking, which it needs for the battery protection feature. If you really can’t live with that, you can activate the overall service, but scroll down to the bottom of the page and at least disable the direct marketing toggle.

Scene Optimizer in the Camera app

I prefer it au naturale

One of the biggest draws of Samsung Galaxy phones is the excellent camera system. Personally, I love taking macro photos, and most of the time, the automation in Samsung’s camera app is more helpful than annoying. However, one feature I do tend to turn off is the “scene optimizer”, or at least that’s what it used to be called.

On my S25 Ultra, it’s found under Camera Settings > Photo enhancer > Scene detection.

This uses AI to figure out what sort of object or landscape you’re pointing the camera at, and tries to auto-adjust your settings to suit it. If you like the way this makes your photos look, then there’s nothing wrong with it. However, I prefer to tune things myself.

Lift to Wake

My eyes!

There are a few gestural features in Samsung’s phones that can be useful, but I turn off “Lift to wake” because it’s generally more annoying than useful. At least to me.

The idea is simple. When the phone detects that you’re picking it up, it will activate the screen, but in the end, there are many more scenarios where I pick up my phone and don’t need the screen to activate than the reverse. In any event, I use the Always-On Display feature on my phone, which means I don’t need the screen to light up to check the time, for example. I especially don’t need my eyes blinded by my screen lighting up in the dark if I move it.

To turn it off, go to Settings > Advanced Features > Motions and gestures > Lift to wake. Tapping on the option will toggle it on or off.

Edge Panels

Make the little tab go away

In a bid to make access to frequent functions easier, Samsung has added Edge Panels to One UI. These work like a dock or taskbar on a desktop system. There’s a little tab visible on the edge of the screen, and when you swipe on it, it reveals a shortcut menu.

To turn them off, go to Settings > Display > Edge Panels.

While some people might find this genuinely useful, I find the little tab visually annoying, and I never actually use the edge panels. So it just makes sense to turn them off. App folders in the primary quick access bar at the bottom of the screen are more than enough for my needs, and I suspect most people reading this will also be fine.