I can not assist be really feel like Samsung’s S Pen is on its manner out

When Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 7, one of many foldable’s key lacking options was overshadowed by every part the corporate obtained proper. For the primary time, the tech big has managed to make a folding smartphone that has the dimensions of a normal smartphone while it’s closed. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 just isn’t solely thinner and lighter than the corporate’s previous foldables, but additionally contains bigger shows, in and out. These radical design modifications did not come with no value, although, and within the case of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, it is the foldable’s lack of S Pen help.

Samsung launched help for its S Pen stylus on its bigger folding telephone beginning with the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in 2021. The characteristic is outwardly lacking from the brand new mannequin due to the corporate’s choice to concentrate on thinness. The additional layer essential to detect a stylus would get in the way in which of shaving off just a few additional millimeters. Taken with the opposite methods, Samsung has opted to degrade the S Pen expertise on its telephones, although it suggests the stylus is on its manner out — slowly maybe, but it surely’s positively occurring.

The S Pen retains the dream of the PDA alive

Earlier than there have been smartphones, there have been issues like them that used styluses

The primary Samsung system that used the S Pen was the Galaxy Note, a premium smartphone that riffed on older concepts about how productiveness gadgets ought to work. Within the case of the Be aware, that was pairing smartphone performance with stylus enter for drawing and taking notes, not in contrast to basic PDAs just like the Palm Pilot.

The corporate launched a number of generations of the Galaxy Be aware beginning in 2011, persevering with via the disastrous launch of the Galaxy Note 7 — notable for having a battery that will burst in flames — and ending with the Galaxy Note 20 in 2020. Samsung added features to the S Pen the entire time, making the stylus able to navigating menus even when it is simply hovering over the display screen, and letting you click on the top of the stylus to seize a photograph. That is much more than the Apple Pencil can do at this level.

S Pen help got here to the traditional Galaxy S lineup with the Galaxy S21 Ultra in 2021 and continued via this 12 months. At this level, supporting stylus enter turned a premium characteristic, making it honest sport for Samsung’s foldables, too. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 used a modified model of the S Pen for taking notes. The corporate needed to tweak the stylus and provides it a softer tip that performs good with the Fold’s versatile show, but it surely works. Not everybody can afford to get an Extremely or a Fold, so tying S Pen help to them made the stylus extra area of interest, but it surely additionally appears to replicate one thing true in regards to the curiosity in stylus help.

Curiosity within the S Pen is shrinking

Samsung claims it is nonetheless dedicated, but it surely’s not clear what number of followers there are

In 2022, two years after the discharge of the Galaxy Be aware 20, Samsung lastly confirmed that the Galaxy Note line was discontinued and that help for the S Pen would reside on within the Galaxy S Extremely and later the Fold. Samsung attributed the choice to the similarities between the Be aware line and its (new on the time) Extremely gadgets, and a need to concentrate on its foldables.

That is nice on its face, but it surely was adopted just a few years later by a regression in what the S Pen can really do. With the Galaxy S25 Extremely, Samsung removed all the S Pen’s Bluetooth-enabled features — issues just like the stylus’ potential to regulate your smartphone remotely — as a result of the corporate stated that folks did not use them. If anybody knew, it might be Samsung, however that does not actually recommend that issues are trending in a constructive path for the corporate’s stylus. Add within the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s lack of an S Pen, and it looks like eradicating help for the stylus would not be all that catastrophic for Samsung’s backside line.

When the corporate’s first response to any design impediment is to chop a characteristic to maintain prices down, at a sure level, why wouldn’t it hassle to supply help for that characteristic in any respect? It actually calls the S Pen’s long-term longevity into query.

Smartphones with styluses are going the way in which of the BlackBerry

Fingers received as an enter technique

It is doable we’ll see a Galaxy Z Fold 8 with an S Pen subsequent 12 months. It is also simply as possible that Samsung will launch just a few extra Galaxy S Extremely fashions with a built-in stylus earlier than the accent is relegated to an add-on buy for the Galaxy Tab. The trajectory feels not in contrast to the BlackBerry. After the discharge of the iPhone, smartphones with bodily keyboards turned more and more area of interest till proudly owning a smaller or thicker telephone with a keyboard was an issue quite than a novelty. The identical factor appears to be occurring for the S Pen — and the concept of a smartphone stylus generally — on a smaller scale.

Model

Samsung

SoC

Snapdragon 8 Elite

Show

6.9-inch

RAM

12GB

Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Extremely includes a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, an enormous show, and help for a restricted variety of S Pen use-cases.

You should buy an adjunct like Clicks if you’d like an expertise that will get near a BlackBerry keyboard, however one thing like that does not but exist for the S Pen. That is to not say that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a foul telephone due to its diminished stylus expertise; it is simply not the main focus.

​​​​​​​