It sounds... better, but I'm still not happy with what I'm seeing. I may be a minority, but I hated the PS4 UI. It's in desperate need of a complete overhaul. XMB was nice on the PSP ~15 years ago, but they should have ditched that skeleton years ago. It's just a hassle to navigate.

Clean, fast, simple. Give me these 3 things and I'm good.

Good. I loved the XMB evolution from PSX->PSP->PS3->PS4. While the PS4 is by far the smoothest, it's starting to be a bit slow after I fill up the console with games/apps. I hope it will be blazing fast and easy to use on the PS5

I don't have issues with the UI and could even go for an even simpler or barebones.
My problem is with the freezing and lags on the UI of the PS4, mainly on the store and searching games on the library to redownload.

One thing that I remembered was promissed on PS4 was that the console would monitor our habits, twitch, etc and preload games on the console that you would be able to play the demo and if liking just hit the buy button and it would be ready to full play. The most that we got from that was "suggestions" on the PS store.

I was thinking this entire my PS4 was dying because of how laggy the dash is (even crashing). Looks like everybody has that issue.

The UI should be GPU accelerated, it sure is on the Xbox and Switch.

However the consoles need to load UI elements and datasets from mechanical storage... And that my dear watson is the weakest link with the 8th gen hardware.

Any PC gamer that has moved from a mechanical hard drive to a solid state drive will be able to back that up, the difference is night and day using Windows.

I'm expecting major improvements. The PS3 OS was leaps and bounds ahead of the PS4 OS. Much more accessible, faster, and more feature rich. The only thing missing was enough RAM to allow it full functionallity while Games/Apps ran in the background. On top of that, we continued to get User Facing OS updates regularly, even after the PS4 launch, and we didn't even have to pay for PS+.

With PS4, the system launched missing most of the features of the PS3 OS. Over time we saw a return of some features, but when they arrived, they were not as gracefully integrated as they were on PS3. To top that off, we now have to Pay for PS+ for Online Services, yet we have not had any User Facing Improvemnets to the OS/UI to enhance the PSN experience in nearly 4 years.

That said, I am hoping that Sony's OS team has been full force behind the PS5 OS during this time. If they have spent the majority of the last 4 years developing a master class OS/UI for the PS5, then I will not feel like my PS+ money went to waste.

Things I am Hoping For:

-Dramatic reduction in Blue Screen's
-The Store and Internet Browser not running out of available System Memory
-System Stability that Actually makes the system more stable

Now the Features:

-Ability to message people from the Quick Menu without being pulled from the current App
-Ability to fully access Music from the Quick Menu
-Photos, Music, and Video sections like on PS3, Content directly available on the Home Page and Note Behind another App
-Ability to Download Photos, Music, and Movies from PS Store, Amazon Music, Digital Foundry, etc.
-System Wide Voice operation (Call up Youtube Videos, Songs from Spotify/Amazon Music, Search Google/Bing, Message Friends, and More)
-Facial Recognition with PS5 HD Camera for Universal Login across System, Apps, Banking, etc., like on Smart Phones
-Trophy Tracking, Play Time Tracking, More Trophy Data, Better Friend Comparison Data
-Cloud Saves that function as seamlessly as what Microsoft is offering.
-Support for the Track Pad and Universal Mouse/Keyboard Support
-More Accessable and Deeper Share Features (Video Recording, Video Editing, Image Editing, Gif Maker, Streaming Features)
-Ability to Swap between open apps (Pehapps a Quick Double tap of the PS Button brings up open apps similar to PS Vita, iOS, and Android)

That's a good start. I am sure there are some things I am fogretting.

At the end of the day, I want the PS5 to offer the Fastest, Most Accessible, and Feature Rich UI of any PlayStation to Date.

@KBG29 oh dont get me started on running an external HDD and not being able to run soundtracks from deluxe editions on it

ps4 ui is simple and i hope they keep it that way and reduce the lag