One UI 7 unofficially makes its way to the ancient Galaxy S8

One UI 7 is the latest update to Samsung’s UX skin, but the company has been surprisingly lethargic in rolling out the update to more phones. You can use One UI 7 only on the new Galaxy S25 series and the One UI 7 beta on the Galaxy S24 series. Samsung hasn’t even announced when other phones in its lineup would receive the update. Some users are tired of the wait, and they’ve taken matters into their own hands and installed One UI 7 on the Galaxy S8…wait, what?

Redditor SaidBl1 has shared a video of One UI 7 running on a Galaxy S8, and it looks to be running okay on a phone that was launched seven years ago!

The user shows off the About phone section, reiterating that the phone is running One UI 7 based on Android 15. We are then shown the various features of the new update, such as Circle to Search, the Quick Settings toggles, the new Now Bar manifesting as an active notification and on the lock screen, the new charging animation on the Now Bar, and a few online Galaxy AI features. All of these are highlights of Samsung’s newest flagships, and seeing them on its flagship from 2017 is truly impressive.

So, what’s the catch here, you ask? The catch is that the user is running a custom ROM.

Even though Samsung offers some of the longest update promises in the industry, going as high as seven major Android updates for its latest flagships, it cannot afford to keep updating all of its phones forever. The cut-off for receiving One UI 7 based on Android 15 is likely to be the Galaxy S21 series from 2021, which was launched with Android 11 and is promised at least four Android updates (i.e., up to Android 15). The Galaxy S8 is simply too old to receive an official One UI 7 update.

For such older devices, third-party hobbyist developers attempt to port the update from recent flagships. A developer did so for the Samsung Galaxy S8, too, but we could not locate their original post. Other enthusiasts have seemingly mirrored the download files and reposted the custom ROM. So, if you consider yourself an Android expert, you can install it on your Galaxy S8 at your own risk.

We do not recommend installing the custom ROM on your Galaxy S8. Custom ROMs are inherently risky to install, and they contain bugs. The list of bugs on this one includes a broken camera, flashlight, Face Unlock, Smart View, DeX, random reboots, and wonky behavior for Wi-Fi, hotspots, biometrics, and more. It’s clearly not meant to be installed on your daily driver, though we reckon very few people are using the Galaxy S8 as their primary phone these days. Given the age of the phone, I’m also not surprised how quickly the phone battery drains in the video.

Installing the custom ROM is also a fairly tricky matter. Again, if this is the first time you’ve heard the words “custom ROM,” you shouldn’t install it, as you’ll likely brick your phone because of the complicated installation process.

Still, I am very impressed that the hobbyist community is still keeping phones like the legendary Galaxy S8 alive — major props to the original developer for their One UI 7 porting effort. I hope users across more Samsung phones get to experience the new One UI 7 update, officially or otherwise.