The S Pen ought to’ve stayed far-off from the Galaxy S collection for its personal sake

The announcement of the Galaxy S25 has been a bit doom and gloom for followers of the S Pen, most of whom are refugees from the Be aware collection. Samsung determined to downgrade the beloved pencil to take away Bluetooth performance, thus ridding it of any distant performance like getting used as a digicam shutter and for Air Actions. And despite the fact that we had some faux hope for a minute {that a} standalone Bluetooth S Pen may very well be up on the market, Samsung rapidly denied that rumor (which, to be truthful, got here from its personal Insights weblog).

So the S Pen finds its place shifted this 12 months — from the star of the present within the Galaxy S22, S23, and S24 to a mere figurant on the Galaxy S25. It’s not as highly effective because it was, nor as vital. And followers of the S Pen are proper to be anxious: Is that this the start of the tip of the S Pen? Ought to Samsung launch a special-edition Be aware cellphone to appease S Pen followers? I feel the issues are legit, and most significantly, the S Pen ought to’ve by no means come near the Galaxy S collection. It was doomed immediately.

See, I’ve all the time been fascinated by the S Pen and the Be aware collection. The 80s child in me nonetheless desires to seize pens and jot ideas down, scribble, draw, and write issues. It’s one of many causes I like the Kindle Scribe. I by no means owned a Galaxy Be aware, although, as a result of it was too costly, too massive, too overkill. Nevertheless it was the usual I checked out every time I purchased a brand new cellphone, or I noticed one other flagship being introduced. The Galaxy Be aware collection was the last word benchmark for cellphone geeks like me, and the S Pen was the cherry on high of that cake.

As compared, the Galaxy S collection has all the time been the extra mass-market choice — a nice Android cellphone conceived from the begin to accommodate the utmost variety of options that most individuals need, to enchantment to everybody and offend nobody. Galaxy S telephones are an ideal instance of optimizing options versus worth: Each choice or addition that isn’t utilized by the lots or is just too divisive is finally axed. It’s wasted cash on the invoice of supplies and/or the R&D bill. IR blasters? Gone. MST for Samsung Pay? Gone. Notification LED? Coronary heart charge sensor? Gone and gone. (I’m not even mentioning the microSD card reader, headphone jack, or detachable battery, that are grasping, industry-wide strikes, not Samsung-only modifications.)

That’s why the Galaxy S collection is so boring these days. It’s the most secure cellphone Samsung places out yearly and the least controversial. There was a time when the corporate obtained a bit adventurous with its S telephones, however essentially the most daredevil transfer it’s made in the previous couple of years is adopting the S Pen into the Extremely line-up and ditching the Be aware collection.

On the time, this transfer made sense to everybody — even when it angered numerous Galaxy Be aware followers. However you couldn’t deny that having a Galaxy S collection, Galaxy Be aware collection, and two Galaxy Z foldables was a bit a lot, even for a corporation with the in depth sources of Samsung. One needed to give approach, and it couldn’t be the recent new foldables or the mass-market choice. No, the cellphone that appeals to nerds like me needed to go. However to appease these followers, it might merge into the high-end Galaxy S Extremely as a Frankenstein mixture of Galaxy S and Galaxy Be aware.

For a number of years, the S Pen survived on this new world. It even grew to become one of many spotlight options of the Galaxy S Extremely, however on reflection, the clock has all the time been ticking. The Extremely continues to be a Galaxy S cellphone, so it’s nonetheless made for the lots, not for the refugee Be aware and S Pen followers. And the lots don’t use the S Pen, sadly, or a minimum of not as ceaselessly nor as extensively with all of its options. Samsung has the information to show it; in any other case, it wouldn’t have axed Bluetooth performance with the Galaxy S25 Extremely.

This leaves the S Pen in such a state of limbo. It’s sure to occur in some unspecified time in the future: Samsung will take a look at extra knowledge and understand the maths doesn’t add up anymore and that the S Pen is an infrequently-used hindrance for its Galaxy S cellphone. An excessive amount of cash for {hardware} improvement, too many compromises to incorporate it in a contemporary smartphone, and too little return by way of further gross sales. And poof, the S Pen will disappear to the despair of many, me included. (I ended up getting a Galaxy S24 Extremely and loving the S Pen there!)

That’s why I feel I have to revisit my opinion about merging the Galaxy Be aware and S Extremely. It was the logical transfer, however it was the flawed one for Be aware and S Pen followers. In all probability the flawed transfer for Samsung, too. The S Pen was all the time sure to fail on the Galaxy S collection as a result of it’s not a mass-market function, and Samsung couldn’t will its adoption into existence regardless of what number of further options it added.

For its personal sake and its personal survival, the S Pen ought to’ve stayed as far-off from the Galaxy S collection. It had higher possibilities of making it by the years in a “particular version” limited-run collection of telephones exterior of the Galaxy S. Name them Be aware telephones, name them one thing else; it doesn’t matter. What issues is that this area of interest function couldn’t turn into linked with Samsung’s most boring and least adventurous cellphone collection. Area of interest options don’t survive in mass-market telephones.