When the Galaxy S25 Ultra came out last year, it was heavily criticized among online circles by Samsung users for having lost Bluetooth functionality on the S Pen. Apparently, most of you aren’t fond of the S Pen anymore, but be careful what you wish for: this is precisely why Samsung downgraded the iconic stylus in the first place.
Most of you don’t care for the S Pen
The S Pen on the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the same as the one on the S25 Ultra, at least functionality-wise. Though it looks different, it’s still the same standard stylus pen as before. In a recent poll, we asked you if you were glad that the Galaxy S26 Ultra still has the S Pen. Surprisingly, most of you aren’t.
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Over 66 percent of voters said that the S Pen was now useless without Bluetooth and that Samsung should probably just remove it. A little under 30 percent of respondents were happy that the company hasn’t completely abandoned the S Pen entirely. Meanwhile, around four percent of you don’t care what Samsung does with the S Pen. What about you?
Samsung might just listen to you
The S Pen lost Bluetooth functionality with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. | Image by PhoneArena
When Samsung removed Bluetooth from the S Pen last year, the company said that it did so because of low user engagement. According to Samsung, not nearly enough Galaxy phone owners used the S Pen for presentations, air gestures, remote photo capture, or other Bluetooth functions that it had, making it a pointless addition to manufacturing cost.
If more people stop using the S Pen entirely because of its missing Bluetooth features, we might see a Galaxy S27 Ultra that doesn’t have a stylus at all. With the Galaxy S26 Ultra, at least we still get an S Pen. Right?
We didn’t see any benefit at all
I can understand why Samsung removed the Bluetooth functionality from the S Pen, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. The problem I have is that, despite removing a feature, the consumers did not see that reflected in the phone’s price tag. On the contrary, prices for the new Galaxy flagships went up this year after no change for the Ultra models last year.The Bluetooth-enabled S Pen was a pretty neat feature, even if it wasn’t used much. If removing it made no difference to the retail price, couldn’t Samsung have just left it in anyway?
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