The S Pen has become a quintessential part of Samsung’s brand. It launched with the original Galaxy Note, which was just an enlarged Galaxy S2, in October 2011. Samsung quickly expanded S Pen support with the Note 10.1 tablet in 2012, and today you can find the S Pen in phones like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, tablets, and even laptops.
Many were skeptical about the usefulness of a stylus such as this. That was understandable at the time — until the S Pen came along, people associated a phone stylus with the horrible solid plastic picks you had to use to stab at resistive touchscreens. The S Pen was different, though, and there’s still more Samsung can do with it, especially with foldables.
S Pen support on the Z Fold series is great, but needs to be better
I want to use screen off memos
One of the most useful parts of the S Pen is a feature called screen off memo. On the S24 Ultra, if you remove the S Pen while the screen is off, it launches a new note on the lockscreen for you to quickly jot something down. This can be pinned onto the lockscreen so you don’t forget whatever you write.
Even though Samsung’s foldables don’t store the S Pen within their chassis, you can still use the screen off memo feature by holding the S Pen button and double tapping the screen. So, if this feature is available on the Z Fold series, what’s my complaint? Simple: You can only use the S Pen on the internal folding screen.
The Z Fold 3, 4, 5, and 6 all have S Pen support on the large internal screen, but nothing on the cover display. I know, you probably wouldn’t want to use the S Pen on the cover screen that often because of how narrow it is, but screen off memos are the exception. The whole point is to be able to quickly write something down, but having to unfold the device feels like it’s defeating the purpose.
In fact, the S Pen might be even more useful for navigating the cover screen, giving you better accuracy when interacting with small links or buttons.
Samsung, make the next Galaxy Z Fold thicker, not thinner
No, it’s the children who are wrong
Samsung is expected to release a Galaxy Z Fold 6 Slim in a few countries in the Asian market, but that’s nothing new; the company has released improved versions of its folding phones in these markets for a while. What is new is the focus on making it thinner, whereas previous Asia-specific Folds have differentiated themselves with material choices or increased storage and RAM.
So, how has Samsung made the Z Fold 6 slimmer? By removing one of the best parts of the phone: S Pen support. Perhaps I could excuse this if the phone was significantly less chunky, but the move has reportedly only saved 0.6mm, or 5% of the phone’s total thickness. That difference will be hard to notice, and it’s not worth sacrificing the S Pen.
In fact, I think Samsung should do the opposite and make the next Z Fold thicker.
What is this mad man thinking, I hear you ask? Samsung should double down on the S Pen, instead of removing support to make the phone slimmer. Samsung should add an extra digitizer to the cover screen, as I’ve already said, and it should also thicken the frame and give the S Pen somewhere to live. Yes, S Pen cases have come a long way since the Z Fold 3, but it’s still less useful than storing the stylus inside the device, like the S24 Ultra.
This move would allow S Pen fans to use any case they like, or even forgo one entirely, and add some needed functionality. On the S24 Ultra or the Galaxy Tab S tablets, the S Pen has a small capacitor inside that’s charged when it’s stowed inside the device’s chassis. This also allows the S Pen to have Bluetooth, so it can be used to perform gestures to remotely control the cameras or change media playback.
The S Pen is one of the hallmarks of Samsung’s product portfolio and the company needs to embrace that more. The S Pen is great as is, but hasn’t gotten any new features in what feels like years. Samsung must start to improve it again and a good opening move is bolstering its support in the foldable market.
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