Samsung phones ship with their own app for almost everything Google covers. For years, I stuck with Google’s lineup and treated Samsung’s widgets as decoration, something to fill a gap on the home screen, maybe glance at once, then forget about. Checking my schedule or task list meant opening an app, waiting for it to load, and scrolling to find what I needed.
After updating to One UI 9, I pinned a few Samsung widgets just to see what had changed. Within a week, I’d stopped opening those Google apps entirely. The widgets were already showing me everything, right there. So I kept swapping, and those old apps never made it back.
Your full month at a glance, no app needed
Google Calendar has been on my home screen for years. Every morning, I tap the icon, wait for it to load, and scroll through the day. Samsung’s Calendar widget puts all of that on the home screen. The full-size variant shows a monthly grid with events and Reminder tasks marked right on their dates. I can see that Thursday has a team call and Friday has a dentist appointment, all on the same grid. Tap a date to highlight it, tap again, and the event details open from the widget itself.
The app behind the widget held up just as well. Type Team meeting every Tuesday at 10 AM into the quick-entry bar at the bottom, and the recurring event appears with every field already filled in. Google Calendar takes multiple screens for the same thing. Reminder tasks were already on the calendar widget too, which made my separate task app harder to justify.
Overdue tasks stay visible until you handle them
Another widget knocked Google Tasks off my phone. Whenever I needed to do something, I had to open the app, tap the plus button, and start filling in fields. Type a name, set the date, pick a time, choose a repeat schedule. By the time I finished entering a task to pick up groceries, I could have just driven to the store. The app was adding work to the work I already had.
The Reminder widget sorts tasks into Past, Today, and Next, with overdue items pinned at the top where you can’t scroll past them. I check my phone in the morning and immediately know what needs attention. Google Tasks needed me to open the app and scroll through a flat list to get that same picture.
The real difference is clearing tasks off. When I finish something, I tap the circle right on the widget. There’s a quick haptic click, and the task disappears from the screen. Google Tasks still makes you open the app, find the item, and check it off inside a full window.
A pinned note replaced Google Keep
Pin the notes you need, skip the scroll
I had dozens of notes in Google Keep, but the few I needed every day always took the longest to find. The app treats every note the same way, so my shopping list sat in the same flat pile as old meeting notes and half-finished ideas from months ago.
Samsung Notes keeps things in folders and subfolders, with a fingerprint lock for anything sensitive. But I don’t even need to open the app most days. I pin my shopping list to the home screen, and the widget shows my list right there, items and all.
For everything else, a note list widget sits below it on the home screen. I can see Monday’s meeting notes with a thumbnail of what’s inside, and a packing list from the weekend right under it. Google Keep has a widget too, but it just shows every note at once and expects you to scroll through all of them.
Bixby earned its spot over Google Assistant
It controls the phone, not just web search
Google Assistant always handled my voice commands, but only for things like alarms, timers, and quick texts. Anything deeper and it couldn’t keep up. I added the Bixby widget alongside the others to see if Samsung’s assistant did any better. The widget puts a text bar and mic right on the home screen. Tapping the mic opens Bixby right away, but One UI 9 also added gesture wake-up. Hold the phone near your mouth and Bixby starts listening, no wake phrase needed.
Asking it to take a selfie in five seconds opened the front camera with a countdown running. Then I told it to open Chrome and Messages in split screen, and both apps appeared side by side. I even set a reminder tied to opening Amazon, and it popped up every time the app launched. Google Assistant searches the web, but Bixby actually controls the phone.
It’s time to go Samsung
I spent years downloading productivity apps, and the tools that worked were already on my phone. Samsung’s widgets didn’t change what I do every day. They just cut out the tapping and scrolling that kept getting in the way, which is why I’m sticking with Samsung now.
8.5/10
- SoC
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Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
- Display
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6.9-inch Dynamic Super AMOLED 2X
- RAM
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12 or 16 GB
- Storage
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256GB, 512GB, or 1TB
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra isn’t a massive leap in specs compared to the previous generation Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, but it boasts improvements in every aspect. The major differentiators are two features that will appeal to power users and content creators, called Privacy Display and Horizon Lock.