This one change almost ruined the Galaxy S25 Ultra for me

While I'm writing this, I've had my Galaxy S25 Ultra review unit for less than 24 hours. Much of that time has been spent getting everything set up, along with running a few benchmarks before settling in.

Once the benchmarks were completed, I started downloading and setting up apps, meaning the onslaught of notifications arrived. It wasn't long before the thought popped into my head that something about my notifications was different, and it wasn't just going from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold to the S25 Ultra.

Despite having notifications ping and vibrating the phone, I would pull it out of my pocket, and there would be nothing on the lock screen. It was like I was getting those annoying "phantom" notifications, but en masse.

The first thing that I checked was to see if Notification Categories was enabled. This was something I noticed with the Galaxy S24, but it seems that Samsung listened to feedback and now has that turned off by default. Then I figured something might have been messed up when I started trying to customize the Lock Screen settings. Nope.

As it turns out, I'm not the only one who realized that something was "off" with notifications. If he weren't a Bills fan, and we weren't hundreds of miles apart, I'd probably try to give this individual a big ole' hug. Will Sattelberg, Phones Editor for Android Police, published a piece that solved all of my problems. While catching up on my RSS feeds, I also noticed that Ben Schoon, Senior Editor at 9to5Google, also ran into the same issues with his Galaxy S25 Ultra review unit.

So, what's actually going on with notifications?

For some reason, Samsung decided to change the "Default Lock Screen Notification Style." Traditionally, lock screen notifications would appear as a banner, making them easily identifiable without thinking twice. With One UI 7, that's no longer the case, as the default option is set to "Icons," which does nothing more than show a tiny notification before throwing the app icon into your status bar.

It completely removes the ability to just glance down at your phone to read the notifications before determining whether it needs immediate action. Instead, many will unbox and set up their Galaxy S25, only to potentially have the same frustrations.

However, this isn't something limited to just the Galaxy S25, as I also checked the Galaxy S24 Ultra I have on hand that is running the One UI 7 beta. Sure enough, lock screen notifications are set to "Icons," meaning that you'll need to change this yourself if you actually want to see notifications when they arrive.

I understand Samsung's desire to try and clean up the lock screen in order to put more focus on the Now Bar. However, it's not like you can even use the Now Bar on the lock screen to view any of your notifications. I'm not sure if this is something that Samsung is cooking up for a future One UI 7 update, but that would make a lot more sense.

Instead, relegating the app icons to the status bar just isn't the experience I would have expected. It might not be a problem if you only get a few notifications every day, but as soon as you end up with more than three or four notifications, everything breaks down.

Okay, so enough complaining. Thankfully, getting things back to "normal" is pretty easy:

1. Open the Settings app.

2. Tap Notifications.

3. Tap Lock screen notifications.

4. Under Notification style, select Cards.

And that's it! Now, when notifications arrive, you'll actually be able to read them without worrying about the icons in your status bar.

It's entirely possible that Samsung will release a "day one" software patch that's available as soon as you take the S25 out of the box. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Samsung just left things as they currently are, at least for the time being. However, I do think there will be quite a few people who take to Reddit and support forums wondering how in the heck they can get their notifications back. And if there's enough pushback, then perhaps Samsung will revert the changes with One UI 7.1 or something.

What I don't understand is why Samsung decided this would be the best way to handle notifications. Again, maybe it plans to integrate notifications into the Now Bar, and even if that's the case, then it should've waited until those changes were ready for prime time. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of an uncluttered lock screen, but I don't want these kinds of decisions being made for me.