Depending on what phone you have, chances are the emoji on your handset look slightly different when compared to the ones on your friends and family members' phones. A lot of companies have their own unique art style when it comes to emoji, and Samsung is one of them that tended to abuse this trend.
The Samsung Experience 9.0 / Android Oreo update is now rolling out to the Galaxy S8 and S8+, and along with all of the new features and performance optimizations, you'll also find that the emoji for the phones have received a visual overhaul.
Samsung's emoji have always featured a very distinct look, and while beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, stark differences between Samsung's design and the look used by most other companies could often lead to mixed signals when sending messages. For example, Samsung's eye-rolling emoji:
While all of the emoji from Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have the same general design, the one from Samsung Experience 8.5 looks completely different. In Samsung Experience 9.0, it's much more in line with the norm.
There are changes to a lot of other emoji as well, including kissing, smiling, grimacing ones, and more.
Lastly, in addition to updates to existing emoji, Samsung Experience 9.0 also adds a heap of new ones. You can check out the full list here, but some of the highlights include barfing, head-exploding, and start-struck emoji.
The new emoji style will be available on the Galaxy S8/S8+ as part of the Android Oreo and Samsung Experience 9.0 update, and we'll likely see them make an appearance on the Galaxy S9 out-of-the-box following its debut at MWC 2018 later this month.
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Joe Maring was a Senior Editor for Android Central between 2017 and 2021. You can reach him on Twitter at @JoeMaring1.
