History of Samsung's S Pen and how it defined the Note line

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Brooklyn, NY - One of the defining features of Samsung’s Galaxy Note line has always been the inclusion of the S Pen stylus. When it came out in 2011, the first Galaxy Note (with a whopping 5.3-inch display!) was considered an outlier in the smartphone world.

The Note also featured a stylus, which seemed like a weird throwback to the days of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s). With PalmPilots and similar devices considered obsolete as casualties of the smartphone’s dominance of the gadget market, including a tiny stylus was a head scratcher.

It turns out that the S Pen became a differentiator for Samsung and even started the notion that a pen attracts productivity. A notion answered not just by other phablet makers at the time but also by Microsoft in its Surface line and later on by Apple for its iPad Pro.

The S Pen is proof, however, that Samsung did it first and the S Pen has evolved and been included in various tablet products as well.

Through the years the S Pen has evolved considerably. Samsung’s always optimized hardware and apps to work with the S Pen. We’ve seen pen gestures as well as increase in the pressure sensitivity for more paper and pen-like performance.

For the Note 9, the S Pen gets some new powers and can now control various apps, be programmed for specific functions and is now rechargeable. Docking  the S Pen Stylus for 40 seconds good for 30 minutes use. Since the S Pen is mostly sheathed in the phone, it will always be charged. The new S Pen is also Bluetooth enabled, which means less chances of losing or misplacing it because it can ping the Note 9 if it has been left behind (and you'll presumably have the last known GPS location).

As we get more devices sporting pens, pencils and styluses, Samsung and the Note 9 have the innovator’s advantage since they’ve developed the technology for close to eight years now. The new S Pen