Samsung’s One UI 5.1 update is causing weird bugs and hurting battery life for some

Ben Schoon | Feb 18 2023 - 8:57 am PT

Samsung launched its One UI 5.1 update this month and rolled it out to several devices in record time, but the update seems to be causing a lot of problems for some users, as it is riddled with bugs and hurting battery life on older Galaxy smartphones.

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One UI 5.1 first launched on the Galaxy S23 series, but is already available for older Galaxy devices such as the Galaxy S22, Galaxy Z Fold 4, and many others. The update contains a few new features, but is a relatively minor update on the whole, and still based on Android 13.

In the time since Samsung has launched One UI 5.1, the update has been causing issues with battery life and also breaking features and functionality for more than a few Galaxy owners.

A growing thread on Samsung’s community forums shows a few Galaxy S22 owners who have seen a major impact on battery life since installing the update, and the same has been noticed on Reddit. The problem may stem from increased battery usage by Samsung’s own keyboard app, though for others the increased battery drain has no clear culprit. Some Galaxy Z Fold 4 owners are seeing the same.

Beyond that, there are quite a lot of ongoing bugs in One UI 5.1. Several users report that Bixby Routines have broken following the update, while others are having issues with Samsung’s take on Material You, called Color Palette. At least one user spotted a weird bug with their device name being changed to a lengthy list of letters and numbers, but that seems to be an isolated incident.

Samsung will likely issue fixes for these various issues in the weeks to come, but if you have yet to update, it might be worth holding off for a bit.