Samsung S Pen Downgrades Have Me Worried

Samsung’s S Pen is one of the few truly unique hardware features in the smartphone business, but something makes me think that the company might be slowly abandoning its stylus.

It all started with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, which landed in late January with a severe new look and a powerful new processor.

Indeed, Samsung’s latest flagship phone is flat out better than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra before it (or at least as good) in all but one notable way: its integrated S Pen stylus.

Reasons to be fearful

As our reviewer Luke Baker noted, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s stylus no longer supports Bluetooth. While you can still sketch away to your heart’s content, it’s no longer possible to use its clicky button as a remote camera shutter.

Nor is it possible to use the stylus to perform air gestures, as you could before.

It’s a minor downgrade, no doubt, and one that’s doubtless been initiated as a means to save space or money – possibly both. But a downgrade is a downgrade, and it’s not something you’d expect of Samsung’s showcase device.

What does it say about Samsung’s long term commitment to the S Pen? Possibly nothing, but a recent piece of news surrounding the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 adds further fuel to the fire.

More S Pen downgrades incoming

Tipster Kro recently claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 would feature a downgraded S Pen. They didn’t specify what this downgrade would be, but presumably it’s a reference to the Bluetooth-deprived Galaxy S25 Ultra stylus.

This may well suggest that Samsung is doing away with Bluetooth functions across its smartphone S Pen range, not just on its Ultra smartphones. There’s a case to be made that it could stick around in the S Pen variants intended for Samsung’s laptops, but this could be it for Bluetooth in the more compact models.

Of course, the S Pen itself is already a niche proposition. We don’t have cold hard figures, but anecdotally among fellow tech journo types, it doesn’t seem to be a feature that many people use day to day on their Galaxy Ultras.

You have to suspect that the S Pen’s Bluetooth functions are used by an even smaller subset of an already small group.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

Why we’d miss the S Pen

It’s not unusual for smartphone manufacturers to remove once-lauded technology when it isn’t being used – Apple’s 3D Touch springs to mind.

If the S Pen is going the same way, however, it would represent a rare rollback on the Galaxy S Ultra’s ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ propositon, and may even mark a fundamental shift in the Galaxy S line-up. Would we really need a stylus-free Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and a Galaxy S26 Plus?

It would also rob us of what has seemed to be the most obvious and even inevitable development since Samsung started releasing foldable phones – a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold with an integrated S Pen. That larger display and body has always seemed better suited to such a tool than even the chunky Ultra series.

There’s every chance Samsung is simply honing its S Pen stylus offering according to what its customers actually want. The aforementioned tipster claims that in downgrading the S Pen, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will be the slimmest Fold yet, which would be a very good thing indeed.

I just hope that Samsung doesn’t end the S Pen stylus experiment altogether. I may not use it all the time, but in an increasingly samey smartphone market I’m glad it exists.