Testing underway for Galaxy S23 series upcoming One UI 6 update containing Android 14

Samsung is expected to push out the first One UI 6 Beta during the third week of this month for the Galaxy S23 line. Yes, we are now in July if for some reason this has slipped past you. And included with the first One UI 6 Beta will be the first Android 14 Beta for Sammy's current flagship smartphone series. Those brave enough to install the first One UI 6 Beta when it arrives will get their first taste of Android 14. However, there is a caveat. Since this will be an early Beta release of Android 14, it will be unstable and not fit for your daily driver.

To see how the first One UI 6 Beta and Android 14 Beta might impact the mighty Galaxy S23 Ultra, the device was benchmarked on Geekbench (via Tarun Vats). Since the version of Android 14 being used is a test version, the single-core score of 1712 and the multi-core score of 3476 is lower than the results that we would expect following the release of the final version of One UI 6 (which will include the final version of Android 14).

That score compares with a recent Geekbench test of the same phone running Android 13 of 1871 and 4942 for the single-core and multi-core results respectively. The device tested is model SM-S918U which is a Galaxy S23 Ultra carrier-locked to AT&T. Not that it matters when discussing a benchmark test but you might want to know that unlocked phones usually receive updates before carrier-locked phones.

While the results really don't tell us anything, the existence of this benchmark test is newsworthy. It means that Samsung is indeed internally testing the One UI 6 Beta and the Android 14 Beta for the Galaxy S23 series. Traditionally, the current flagship models receive the One UI/Android Beta releases before other Galaxy handsets with the previous year's flagship series-in this case the Galaxy S22 line-next in the queue to receive it.

Samsung is hoping to bring its One UI interface and the next build of Android to users of its Galaxy handsets earlier each year. Last year Google released Android 13 for eligible Pixels in the middle of August while the One UI 5/Android 13 update was released to the Galaxy S22 series on October 24th. With Android 14 expected to drop next month for the Pixel 4a (5G) and newer models, Samsung could narrow the gap a little when it releases the final version of One UI 6/Android 14 to the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra. While Samsung works on One UI 6, it also has started pushing out the One UI 5.1.1 beta to the Galaxy Z Fold 4 in Korea.