Is Samsung Done With The S Pen? I Hope So.

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority

When you eventually get your shiny new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you’ll quickly notice it looks a lot like the Galaxy S24 Ultra (which looked a lot like the S23 Ultra, which looked a lot…you get the idea). However, one thing is substantially different with this year’s Ultra phone: the S Pen. Unlike all previous S Pens found in every other Galaxy S Ultra phone, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra S Pen lacks Bluetooth connectivity.

This doesn’t make the S Pen inert — it’s not like it’s just a plastic stick now. It still has Wacom technology in it, which uses electromagnetic resonance (EMR) to enable the display and stylus to communicate through a faint radio signal. In other words, you can still see the “cursor” of the S Pen on the screen when you hold it close to the display. It still has pressure sensitivity and a button for erasing strokes.

However, without Bluetooth, many other typical S Pen functions will not work out of the box. This includes Samsung’s suite of air gestures and, probably most crucially, the ability to use the S Pen as a remote shutter button.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen does not support Bluetooth connectivity.

When I asked Samsung about why it made this decision, it was pretty blunt: air gestures and other Bluetooth functions of the S Pen simply aren’t that popular. There are also other solutions available for some of the removed features. The remote shutter button, for example, can easily be duplicated using a connected Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch, or even your palm, thanks to the palm gesture.

In other words, Samsung is looking at the removal of Bluetooth support from the S Pen as a form of streamlining and nothing else. However, I can’t help but think that this might be the first step in a long-term plan to do something I have hoped Samsung would do for years now: eliminate the S Pen entirely.

I think the S Pen is a waste of space

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority

I have repeatedly spoken about how I think Samsung should abandon the integrated S Pen. The core of my argument is simple: the S Pen takes up too much space in the phone. This forces the phone to be a certain size (read: enormous) and takes up valuable real estate that could be put towards other, better things (a larger battery, a microSD card reader, a headphone jack, larger camera sensors, etc.). I just don’t think enough people would support the S Pen over those other features if given the choice.

Wouldn’t you be OK with losing the S Pen slot if it meant having a less expensive Galaxy S Ultra with a bigger battery?

The S Pen also makes the phone more expensive. Smartphone manufacturing is all about efficiency in production to keep costs as low as possible, which is why a lot of Galaxy phones look so similar. The S Pen slot on the Galaxy S Ultra line makes it truly unique against all other Samsung phones, requiring extra time, money, and manufacturing materials to produce it. There are also more R&D expenses before the phone even gets made as Samsung’s engineers figure out new ways to work around the S Pen slot when cramming new features into the line. These expenses, of course, are passed on to the consumer. Once again, I am sure the majority of Samsung fans would happily take a Galaxy S Ultra device with no S Pen if it meant the phone would be considerably less expensive.

Regardless of how you feel about the S Pen, the real kicker is that Samsung doesn’t give you a choice on it. If you want the best non-foldable smartphone Samsung makes, then you want a Galaxy S Ultra, and it will come with an S Pen whether you want it or not. This doesn’t sit right with me.

I wish we could buy a top-of-the-line Samsung phone without an S Pen slot, but Samsung doesn’t give us that choice.

For these reasons, I have long thought that Samsung should remove the S Pen slot. In a world without the slot, if someone really wants an S Pen, they could have the option of buying one separately. It’s not like Samsung hasn’t done this before. It has even historically made special protective cases that hold an S Pen should that phone not have a built-in slot — the Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 6 being perfect examples.

In my view, the only ironclad reason the Galaxy S Ultra line should have an S Pen slot is because it is one of the very few things that fully differentiates it from all other phones, including the iPhone. It’s become iconic in its own way, and Samsung probably doesn’t want to lose that brand identity.

But with the removal of Bluetooth from this year’s S Pen, Samsung might be taking baby steps towards leaving the S Pen behind.

Is removing Bluetooth the first step towards the end of the S Pen?

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority

Samsung’s explanation for removing Bluetooth support from the S Pen is that not enough people use those functions. However, it’s undoubtedly true that some people do. Those people are now going to find the S Pen that comes with the phone less useful, making them feel that the S Pen is not as integral as it once was.

If Samsung does this again — if it removes some other function of the S Pen, I mean — then even more people will see it as less of a necessity. If, after making a few changes in this realm, far fewer people end up using the S Pen, Samsung could justify its removal from the line entirely.

I think that’s why Samsung is really nerfing the S Pen. It knows there would be a fan revolt if it suddenly dropped the S Pen out of the blue. But if it can wean fans off the S Pen by methodically removing features here and there, it could then drop it at some point down the road with far less of a backlash.

It’s possible Samsung is planning to slowly wean fans off the S Pen to help soften the blow of its eventual removal.

This is just a theory. I will respect Samsung’s explanation for removing Bluetooth support as the whole story until I hear otherwise. But I can’t help reading a bit between the lines.

Oh, and one other thing: Samsung has a short window of time to fully revamp its smartphone designs across the board. Thanks to an upcoming repairability mandate from the EU, the way a Galaxy phone looks now will not be how it looks after 2026. It is possible — even likely — that this is also influencing Samsung’s decisions regarding the long-term viability of the S Pen.

Ultimately, we’ll need to wait and see how this plays out before we can draw any complete conclusions. But if we start seeing more nerfing of the S Pen over the next year or so, the writing will be on the wall.