This One UI 7 update just made my Galaxy S25 Ultra way more fun - Related to ui, massive, bluetooth, waterproof, just

How I fell in love with the massive Galaxy Watch Ultra

Table of Contents Table of Contents I missed the other Ultra Such a statement What about functionality? One to buy in 2025?

I put the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra back on when I started reviewing the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and it has mostly stayed on my wrist since then. I did so as a way to test Galaxy AI’s Now Brief feature, but have come out the other side head-over-heels in love with Samsung’s biggest, maddest smartwatch. Here’s what happened.

Upon accepting my newfound love of the Galaxy Watch Ultra, I tried to understand where my infatuation came from, and remembered a pivotal moment. When I bought my titanium Apple Watch Series 10, I used the original Apple Watch Ultra as a trade-in to offset the eye-watering cost. I knew I’d miss the Apple Watch Ultra when I traded it in, but the brilliant Apple Watch Series 10 made me forget any angst quite quickly.

Although I wore the Galaxy Watch Ultra for a period in mid-2024, I was mostly taken with the wonderful Ultra Analog watch face, and didn’t really think that deeply about the watch itself. Looking back, I wonder if the reason was I still had the Apple Watch Ultra to hand if I wanted a big, bold, slightly crazy smartwatch to wear. Today, it’s simply not the case.

There’s another contributing factor. At the end of last year I purchased a new strap for my Oris Aquis GMT watch, and the one I chose happened to be orange. It transformed the watch, and I adore the bright orange strap. My Galaxy Watch Ultra is equipped with Samsung’s orange Marine Band, and I’ve taken every opportunity to show it off. My affinity for the Galaxy Watch Ultra was definitely helped by the Oris. It all means several things aligned to make sure this time when I put the Galaxy Watch Ultra on, it would be hard to resist.

I like watches that make a statement. It’s why I love Casio G-Shock watches, in particular brightly colored Frogman dive watches, and was so enamored with the Apple Watch Ultra in the first place. The Galaxy Watch Ultra is a statement maker. You probably already know it’s a big smartwatch, but the numbers — 47mm wide and [website] thick — don’t tell the whole story.

Last time I wore the Galaxy Watch Ultra it was summer, but now I’m wearing it in winter and thus equipped with hoodies and jackets. Any watch I wear needs to fit under the cuffs without being a pain. The Watch Ultra wants to make a statement, and isn’t happy being hidden away like this, and you’ll see and feel its presence all the time. It’s not always very comfortable as the rubber strap holds on to your clothing, twisting everything around as you move.

But the thing is, I haven’t cared. I’ve worn it proudly with my cuff pushed back behind the substantial case, and reveled in its size and color. When I first wore the Galaxy Watch Ultra I likened the circle-in-a-square shape to some of watchmaker Bell & Ross’s designs, and this is as close as I’ve got to one of its pilot’s watches, so I’m absolutely going to make the most of its bold looks.

It’s all very well being so taken with the design, but what about how it works? The One UI Watch [website] software has a logical, easy to learn format that’s unique to Samsung’s smartwatches, but it’s very complex and requires plenty of attention for the first few days of use, whether that’s making sure it’s tracking all your health stats, installing different apps on your phone, or setting up apps like WhatsApp on the watch itself.

Even when you do spend time setting everything up, it’s not always guaranteed to work. Sleep tracking worked for a start, but then simply stopped and I’ve no idea why. I still haven’t been able to get it working again. It’s not a big problem as although the Galaxy Watch Ultra can be worn overnight, the size makes it quite noticeable. Notifications are also unreliable, but this is a problem with Google’s Wear OS software in general, rather than something wrong with the Galaxy Watch Ultra specifically.

The Ultra is made for sports enthusiasts and while I don’t stretch its ability, I appreciate capabilities like the very effective automatic workout tracking. It connects to Samsung Health on your phone, and although the app is nicely designed it doesn’t feel like it caters for hardcore sports people, who may be looking at it over a Garmin smartwatch. For me as a casual (at best) exerciser, it does the job well.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra is Samsung’s top smartwatch at the moment, and we don’t expect it to be replaced until later in 2025. Exactly what Samsung will replace it with is another matter, as the brand hasn’t stuck to a plan for its more expensive smartwatch line, giving us a Pro, Classic, and Ultra model over the last few years. What it will do this year is anyone’s guess, and shouldn’t put you off buying the Ultra for fear of an Ultra 2 coming soon.

The $650 price is steep though. I have fallen for the Galaxy Watch Ultra and really enjoy wearing it, but in terms of functionality and general daily wearability, the excellent Galaxy Watch 7 — in either size — is far improved value. But if someone handed me the Titanium White Galaxy Watch Ultra with the orange Marine Band and mentioned, “here Andy, wear this instead,” I’d swoon and it’d be on my wrist in the blink of an eye.

I want to feel that way about every watch I own, and although I didn’t pick up on that feeling with the Galaxy Watch Ultra before, I absolutely have now.

Acer unveiled two new Predator gaming laptops today at the Intel Extreme Masters esports event in Katowice, Poland.

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This One UI 7 update just made my Galaxy S25 Ultra way more fun

Table of Contents Table of Contents What’s this new Home Up upgrade about What else can you do with Home Up The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra isn’t so boring, after all.

I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra for 10 days now, and the best and worst part about the new Galaxy flagship is its familiarity. The familiar form is good because Samsung delivered much-needed experiential upgrades such as improved battery life, advanced skin color temperature in cameras, and more without substantially changing the hardware.

But Samsung played it a little too safe with the Galaxy S25 Ultra instead of experimenting and trying new things. It was starting to feel like just another stale incremental improvement–until I installed One UI 7’s latest Home Up improvement. It brought new, customizable ways to interact with the phone and truly personalize it to your liking.

One of the first things I recommend doing on your new Samsung flagship is installing the Good Lock app. It brings a plethora of customizations with downloadable modules to your new Galaxy smartphone.

It’s critical because, unlike yesteryear’s TouchWiz platform, One UI is light, fast, and snappy but doesn’t feature the same flexibility with customizations out of the box. It’s great for most consumers since most people need a fast and stable experience. Not everybody wants to go deep and adjust the overall look with customizable animations, icons, etc.

But Samsung hasn’t abandoned power individuals; it has just moved the customization suite to a new app called Good Lock. It elements different modules like Camera Assistant to improve the shutter speed, One Hand Operation+ to add enhanced one-hand usability, and more. One of these modules is Home Up, which has received a major upgrade on One UI 7. The new Home Up app brings granular controls to make your Galaxy S25 experience more fun.

If you are someone who used to root your phones back in the day to make the most of the hardware, the new Home Up improvement is for you. This Good Lock module is supercharged after the new improvement. It can help tune the animations to make your phone feel faster or slower—depending on what you like.

The updated Home gesture animations and free app grid settings bring more personalization to your Galaxy smartphones. The former allows tuning the menu by offering four presets alongside a slider and Advanced tuning to further modify them. Go to Settings > Home screen settings > More customizations > Gesture settings > Home gesture animation tuning to get to the new animation adjustment settings.

The Classic option is what you’ll find applied by default to One UI; Elegance adds a bounce effect to the icons while slightly slowing down the animation; Dynamic makes it faster and feels like it’s set to [website]; Sweet slows down the animations. There’s a slider below these presets that can help adjust the animations to feel faster or slower.

If you’re still not satisfied with the output, you can jump into Advanced Tuning for more granular controls. It allows you to adjust the icon scale, position, and more. The Icon scale adjustment includes options for damping, stiffness, friction, and interpolator. You can also modify the wallpaper with the Wallpaper Interpolator under Advanced Tuning. It lets you edit the wallpaper scale, duration, interpolator, and blur with sliders.

Go to Settings > Home screen settings > More customizations and you’ll get to the new Home Up module. Now, tap on Home screen > DIY Home screen, which opens a plethora of opportunities to design your home screen. You can add stickers, adjust their size and orientation, and move items freely to make the most of the modern big displays.

By default, you get two options with a swipe pull-down on the home screen to choose from the quick panel or the notification panel. But you can tap on Finder access from Home Up > Home screen to enable an iPhone-like Finder for search. You can also further adjust the icon grid count, folder size, control the background blur, and more.

Home Up gives you six setting modules: Home screen (explained above), Back up and restore, Task changer, Gesture settings, Edge panel, and Share Manager. You can toggle the Back up and restore option to save the Home Up settings at regular intervals of one day or one week.

Coming to Task changer, it gives you the option to adjust the recent apps layout. You can choose from Tilt stack, Grid, Vertical list, and Slim list for new ways to show the active apps when you swipe up and hold. I’ve also added labels and toggled the Mini mode to show the recent app list at the bottom half of the screen to access it without adjusting my grip on the phone.

Apart from adjusting the aforementioned animation speed, the Gesture animation tuning module gives you more options like allowing bottom gestures in full-screen mode, modifying Home gesture vibration, and more.

The Edge panel setting in Home Up lets you add two columns to the edge panel and scroll through the recent apps section to see more apps inside this panel. Last but not least, Share Manager allows you to modify the options on the share menu. You can toggle it to show Quick Share devices and Direct Share options.

These Home Up settings allow you to not only modify the look and feel of your home screen but also personalize several overlays like the Edge Panel and share menus.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra isn’t so boring, after all.

I’m almost 10 days into using the Galaxy S25 Ultra and had resorted to calling it a boring upgrade, but this Good Lock Home Up modification has changed my mind. I have enough room to experiment and explore, thanks to One UI 7 and Good Lock.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra may not have felt groundbreaking at first, but One UI 7’s Home Up modification changed that. This level of customization is something you won’t get from Google, Apple, or any other Android brand. While the new modification is likely to make its way to last year’s Galaxy S24 series, I expect the new processor tuning to give enhanced results on the latest flagship. I like having these settings on the new phone enhanced because of the slightly bigger and enhanced screen. You also get slimmer bezels on the new flagship phone for a more intuitive look.

My experience with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is evolving as I use the device. Good Lock’s One Hand Operation+ module has helped me rely on back gesture swipes to access the quick panel and notification panel without adjusting my grip on the phone. One UI 7 has me hooked, and I keep finding new ways to make my Galaxy S25 Ultra superior.

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This waterproof Bluetooth speaker is on sale for just $60

You can do a lot of things with a Bluetooth speaker, especially when the product in question is weather-resistant. Having a strong IP rating guarantees you’ll be able to listen to your favorite tunes and podcasts through your new speaker, even when it’s raining outside. Waterproof speakers can even withstand an accidental dunk in the pool! To that end, we thought we’d share this great offer we came across while vetting through Bluetooth speaker deals:

For a limited time, when you purchase the Treblab HD77 Portable Bluetooth Speaker through Amazon or Walmart, you’ll only wind up paying $60. The full MSRP on this model is $70.

Why you should buy the Treblab HD77 Portable Bluetooth Speaker.

Available in black, gray, and blue colorways, the Treblab HD77 is the kind of Bluetooth speaker you’ll be able to listen to year-round, indoors or outdoors. Thanks to its IPX7 IP rating, the speaker is essentially waterproof, so no worries about trekking through the woods with it on a rainy day. Its rugged chassis does a stellar job of protecting against drops and dings, too.

Delivering up to 30 watts at max power, the HD77 gets plenty loud, but those extra decibels don’t break up the sound quality in any negative fashion. In fact, you can expect rich and balanced audio from the speaker, along with plenty of bass, making it an ideal choice for rap, hip-hop, and electronic music fans. And thanks to the HD77’s TWS feature, you’ll even be able to pair with a second HD77 for an enhanced soundstage!

20 hours of battery life, an Ambient RGB light mode, and a built-in speakerphone function round out the Treblab HD77’s impressive specs, and if you like what you’re reading, we recommend buying ASAP. Own the Treblab HD77 Portable Bluetooth Speaker for $60 when you purchase it today. We also recommend having a look at our lists of the best Amazon deals, and best Walmart deals for even more discounts on top tech!

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