You no longer have to rely on a giant Galaxy Note to use a stylus with your Samsung phone. The Galaxy S21 Ultra, which was launched in February, also supports Samsung’s S Pen – although you’ll have to buy one and store it separately, because unlike the Note, the S21 Ultra doesn’t have a built-in stylus slot.
But if you decide to buy an S Pen (or if you already have a Wacom compatible stylus on hand), you can use it to do a bunch of interesting things with the S21 Ultra.
No need to pair the stylus with your phone; automatically recognizes the S Pen when you hover your mouse over its screen. From there you can view a number of options by tapping the floating button that appears on the screen.
You can take notes and draw on Ultra, and in Live Messages you can draw your own emojis, create GIFs, and write notes on photos. Selecting AR Doodle allows you to draw with the S Pen in a 3D space. Or you can use Smart Select, which lets you select, crop, and collect pictures or videos to quickly share with your friends.
For now, S21’s S. Pen may not do exactly the same things the Galaxy Note can do, but Samsung is expected to launch an even more expensive and expensive S Pen Pro sometime in the future (although the company didn’t say when). That more advanced pen will allow you to use it as a remote trigger for your phone’s camera and unlock Air Gestures, similar to what you can get with the Galaxy Note pen.