Samsung is still lacking smoothness in phone UI but Huawei no longer

Huawei and Samsung are great tech vendors in the smartphone industry but when it comes to UI smoothness, the former is two steps ahead. In the race for a unique, personalized, and easy user interface, Huawei is leading while Samsung is lagging.

Samsung has been ruling the Android world with its high-profile Galaxy S series for years. Even though the company didn’t make dynamic shifts in the design, it kept upgrading the device with powerful Qualcomm and its self-developed Exynos chips.

The South Korean firm used AI features as another weapon to maintain its position in the global smartphone market. Galaxy S24 series is the latest example of smart AI features. It’s something that Huawei lacks in its overseas smartphone units.

But one thing where Samsung lags far behind Huawei is software and UI smoothness. While the former is still struggling to make its One UI more efficient and fluent, the latter seems to have mastered the field. How so? Let’s find it out in detail.

Samsung has been trying to improve its UI animations for the past three years. The company was said to enhance its software smoothness with One UI 5.0 (Android 13).

Test: HarmonyOS 3.0 vs One UI 5.0

Although Huawei pushed off the company in this race with HarmonyOS 3.0. The software dynamically responded to swipe-up gestures and other animation scenarios over One UI 5.0 during a test. It even surpassed the iOS 16 operating system.

On the other hand, One UI 5.0 gave sluggish UI outcomes with slow and non-fluent animations. Even though the company tried to improve this problem with One UI 6 and other versions, it persisted even on flagship phones like the Galaxy S series.

Comparison of HarmonyOS 3.0, One UI 5.0, and iOS 16 UI (Image Credits: Ice Universe/X)

Animation Issues with Flagship Devices:

Users of Galaxy S23 handsets reported last year that they continue to face jittery animations on several third-party apps. The UI isn’t smooth enough and often lags while performing quick gestures or other important operations on the device.

“…All I’m seeing is micro stutters all over. Even YouTube is doing it for me now, so not only 3rd party apps. I came from an iPhone 11 Pro Max, due to 60Hz it definitely wasn’t as smooth. But it was ‘smoother’ since there were no weird lag issues like S23.” – said a Reddit user.

The problem continues…

A reliable tipster @UniverseIce recently said that Samsung is the only brand unable to achieve trouble-free system animations. While scrolling or swiping on One UI 6, the animation either cuts off in the middle or the app icons suddenly disappear.

Many users facing similar issues agreed with the tipster’s point. Despite AI features and sky-touching priced phones, Samsung disappointed users with UI smoothness. The problem might not have affected every Samsung phone user, yet it is there.

Samsung One UI animation issue (Image Credits: Ice Universe/X)

Huawei EMUI software and UI

Huawei, on the flip side, is making huge leaps in UI customizations and smoother animations. Whether we talk about EMUI 14 or HarmonyOS 4.2 the company has made its software much more fluent than any other OS in the current scenario.

A huge credit goes to Huawei’s self-developed Ark Engine. The tech giant has used a beneficial component that significantly reduces lagging and enhances smoothness. Compared to One UI, the latest EMUI 14.2 build offers faster image loading, smoother motions, and quicker app launches in Huawei smartphones.

Regardless of numerous apps running in the background, the software responds to the user’s operation in no time, without ruining the visual experience.

HarmonyOS NEXT vs One UI 7

Huawei is now focusing on HarmonyOS NEXT. The stable version is yet to be released. But ahead of that, many tipsters exploring the testing builds said that HarmonyOS NEXT is far smoother than other OS like One UI, iOS, and more.

Samsung is also working on improving the animation part with One UI 7. But whether it will be able to resolve the previous issues completely is still a question.

Not only the software, but Huawei is bringing smoothness to the next level with HarmonyOS native apps. Compared to other Android apps, these applications will be 20-30% smoother. Thus, Huawei seems ready to raise the competition for Samsung in UI smoothness.