First Android Pie beta for Samsung Galaxy S9 rolls out soon, here’s our hands-on

We may earn a commission for purchases made using our links.

The Android Pie beta for Samsung’s latest Galaxy S and Note phones is coming up. We have already seen the alpha builds and gone hands-on with them on the Galaxy S9. Now, we have gotten a copy of a beta build. This is an early copy of the official beta which will be released very soon. This beta is now more stable than ever and with more features than we have seen in previous alphas. Samsung has finally fixed their design quirks and the night theme. The great news is that we also have a matching alpha build for the Galaxy Note 9, so some of these screenshots are from the Note, but they look the same on both devices.

In this update, Samsung has finally fixed the night theme. This means that instead of having white cards on top of a black background, we now have white cards on an off-white background. When you enable the switch it will show the UI that is all so familiar. The night theme now has gray cards on a pure black background. Night theme will be easier on the eyes at night and save battery at the same time. Many users use apps like Swift Installer and Substratum along with the built-in theme engine to turn their backgrounds black, but now Samsung has added this to natively into Samsung Experience 10. Don’t worry though, in early tests it seems as though Substratum and Swift Installer both still work.

The older betas had gestures in settings, but there was an issue where they wouldn’t actually work. All they would do is show the gesture hints or the settings. Now, on the latest update, gestures actually work. You just swipe up in the position of the button on the nav bar and it works. When using this mode it will fully hide the navbar and push apps all the way to the bottom of the screen. The newest Samsung A9 was actually released with these in Android Oreo. A new feature in the older betas, but one worth mentioning again, is “raise to wake.” This has been in many other phones and Samsung has finally added it to their own device. It shows the lock screen to check notifications when you lift the phone.

We know that this is the beta that will be released because the app has Samsung Members and the Samsung Beta Services. While looking through both apps, we were not able to find a way to sign up early, but installing this update still gets you the beta. When the beta is released officially, users will be able to sign up for the beta through the Samsung+ app in the US, Samsung Members in Korea, and the UK. Members of the beta program will have access to beta forums, beta feedback, and beta notice.

Beta notices are messages about the beta. These are messages about new updates, features, and the beta in general. Beta feedback is where you provide private feedback and bug logs for anything you might encounter. The beta forums are for all the members to come together and discuss their issues and recommendations of what should come in future updates. We were able to find the FAQ and EULA for the beta which was updated to Android Pie. It has now been reverted back to the Oreo beta but it is saved on Wayback Machine with the Android Pie information as shown in the screenshot.

This beta has some new features for the Galaxy S9 users coming back from the Galaxy Note 9. The Galaxy S9 will now get scene recognition and flaw detection in the camera, which was once exclusive Note 9 features. Samsung is bringing back some features to try to match the feature set between the two devices. With the Android Pie updates coming soon, be prepared for it to be released. We will be updating our install tutorials with the newest updates soon, so be on the lookout for that if you want to install it for yourself. Currently, it’s only available for the Snapdragon Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+ and Note 9.