I’ve watched many individuals who by no means used an S Pen bemoan Samsung’s choice to take away a few of its area of interest options for the Galaxy S25 Extremely. I exploit my S Pen on daily basis, and I say Samsung made the correct name.

The S Pen Has Gotten Too Difficult

What’s an S Pen? It is a stylus. Particularly, it is a stylus Samsung makes to work with sure telephones and tablets.

Subsequent query: What can we do with styluses? We write and draw with them! Lengthy earlier than styluses grew to become primarily related to digital gadgets, the phrase “stylus” simply referred to a writing utensil.

But the S Pen that got here with the Galaxy Be aware and Galaxy S Extremely has lengthy been in a position to do way over that. Along with writing and drawing, an S Pen can function a mouse-like pointer for navigating your display screen with extra precision. It may be used to spotlight elements of the display screen for options like AI Choose (nonetheless referred to as Sensible Choose on my cellphone operating One UI 6.1). There are an entire slew of options tucked away in an “Air Instructions” menu for S Pen-related perks.

Do not get me incorrect. I love using my stylus in these various ways. They construct on what we count on to do with an S Pen since they contain shifting a stylus throughout the display screen.

It is the options tucked away as “Air Actions” the place issues get extra complicated. These embody the flexibility to make use of your S Pen as a distant shutter button to assist take photos from a distance together with your cellphone. Air Actions additionally allow you to work together together with your cellphone, corresponding to adjusting the quantity or switching between apps, by swiping gestures within the air.

It is these Air Actions that Samsung determined to put off within the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

The Idea Was By no means That Nice

Samsung claimed that fewer than one p.c of individuals truly used these Air Actions options. I do not doubt this (although at Samsung’s scale, one p.c remains to be many 1000’s of individuals). Not solely are these options comparatively tucked away and tough to find, however they’re additionally unintuitive and, in some circumstances, flat-out impractical.

For instance, do I truly wish to take an image remotely with my S Pen? I’ve damaged an S Pen by chance by leaving it mendacity round and by chance crushing it. Contemplating how costly S Pens are, they are not one thing I wish to carry round separate from my cellphone.

hy would I wish to work together with my cellphone utilizing gestures within the air? If my cellphone is shut sufficient to learn, it is shut sufficient to the touch. Apart from, whereas you may make the case that you simply’re utilizing the S Pen to write down within the air, these options make extra sense if we had been utilizing one thing known as an S Wand as an alternative. We’re not. We’re utilizing a pen.

I will not argue that there aren’t those who love this performance. I spent years as a Linux person, starting way back with Ubuntu 8.10, and right now, I do all of my computing from my foldable phone. I am accustomed to being a part of the one p.c, and I’ve felt devastated when options I really like went wayside as a result of I am within the minority. However within the case of the S Pen, these options dilute what an S Pen truly is, and their ongoing upkeep serves as a distraction.

One S Pen to Rule Them All

It is simple for me to not care in regards to the elimination of Air Actions. Like many individuals writing on the topic, I by no means used them both. In my case, it is as a result of I’ve a Fold version S Pen, which lacks the Bluetooth parts wanted for these options. After I dive into the Air Actions part of the Settings app, I am informed I would like to purchase an S Pen Professional.

By eradicating the Bluetooth parts from the S Pen on the Galaxy S25 Extremely, Samsung has made the function set extra frequent throughout each the Extremely and the Z Fold line. I feel that is the correct name. It complicates issues having to elucidate that each cellphone fashions have an S Pen, however one arbitrarily has a number of options the opposite would not, particularly when the latter is the dearer cellphone of the 2.

And I hear you. This appears like a motive so as to add options to the Z Fold telephones, not take away them from the Extremely collection. However eradicating these options helps ever-so-slightly with each weight and value, two issues way more helpful to extra individuals than area of interest options that are not an amazing match for the S Pen to start with. These are additionally each issues Samsung wants much less of if it will get individuals to cease complaining about its foldables in comparison with the competitors.

There Are Higher Methods to Do These Issues

The world has modified since Samsung first launched Air Actions on a Galaxy Be aware. Again then, smartwatches had been area of interest. Now they’re mainstream. Most of what may be carried out with Air Actions can now be carried out with a smartwatch, particularly if you happen to occur to personal a Galaxy Watch.

Media controls are simpler to handle from a watch show than utilizing a stylus from a distance. The display screen permits you to see what’s at the moment enjoying and provides you the choice to change between apps.

Likewise, a smartwatch can be utilized as a distant shutter.

If you do not have a smartwatch, there stay a number of different methods to take an image remotely. The Samsung Digital camera app responds to voice instructions. If you happen to say phrases like “cheese,” “smile,” “seize,” or “shoot,” your cellphone will start a 3-second countdown to take an image. Likewise, you possibly can maintain up your palm to silently start the identical 3-second countdown.

An Superb Solution to Minimize Prices

Qualcomm fees Samsung and different cellphone makers more cash for its faster Snapdragon 8 Elite chip than it did for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which itself value greater than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Samsung bumped costs up in 2024, nevertheless it fortunately didn’t do the identical with the Galaxy S25 Extremely regardless of increased element prices. I used to be completely happy to see this.

If dropping Bluetooth from the S Pen can shave off a couple of dollars, nice. It is one of many higher compromises to make in comparison with sticking with a weaker CPU, cheaping out on the display screen, or lowering the standard of the digicam.

Are there telephones available on the market that supply a Snapdragon 8 Elite and comparable specs for much less cash? Positive, nevertheless it’s straightforward to check specs on paper. These gadgets should be made in the true world, and Samsung telephones are among the many comparatively few that are not made in China, the nation the place it is most cost-effective to supply most of our client tech. There are different prices than simply parts that issue into the equation.

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If it prices actually zero {dollars} to maintain Air Actions, then I would wish to see them keep. That is one of many nice issues about Samsung telephones. Few options are ever really killed. They only get tucked away for power users to find in Good Lock.

But when cash may be saved by emphasizing different methods to do many of the similar issues with know-how already baked into the cellphone, like cameras and voice instructions, this looks like a straightforward name to make. Particularly when most individuals, together with our personal Justin Duino in his review of the Galaxy S25 Ultra, reply to the absence with a large “meh.”