Samsung’s been offering Galaxy Note smartphones and tablets with a digital pen called the S Pen for writing or drawing for a few years, and the company keeps adding new features that makes the pen more useful, such as the ability to use it to capture screenshots, scrub video, and more.

Now Samsung is introducing an even more powerful version of its digital pen. It’s called the Advanced S Pen, and Samsung says it offers twice the sensitivity of the pen that comes with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

advanced s pen

The Advanced S Pen will be able to work with the Galaxy Note 4 or Galaxy Note Edge and in addition to more levels of pressure sensitivity the pen will work with the phones to recognize speed, tilt and rotation.

Samsung will offer a new S Pen SDK so app developers can create software that takes advantage of the new features for editing, screen capture, and handwriting recognition, among other things.

via TNW

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14 replies on “Samsung introduces “Advanced S Pen” for Galaxy Note phones”

  1. If you can up the sensitivity just by upgrading from the stock pen, is there a digitizer limitation on the Note 3 that prevents you from, say, getting 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity just by using the Note 4’s stylus on a Note 3?

    Or alternatively, does this mean that Samsung was artificially limiting Note 4’s pen sensitivity by bundling it with a 2048-level pen instead of this 4096-level pen?

    1. That’s the most likely version. Sell the phone first, then make the pen it comes with obsolete.
      Good cash grab…

  2. Does the pen activate mouse hover elements in Chrome and Firefox browsers?

    1. I just tried it with the stock stylus on my Note 4.

      On Chrome for Android, I can hover the pen over those “Share” buttons and the colors will change accordingly. However, I don’t get the tooltip popup that I do on desktop Chrome. Likely a mobile vs. desktop browser difference.

      So yes, it does appear the pen can hover elements, but the implementation and effects depend on the browser.

      1. Thanks. That’s the main reason I want a pen: activating mouse hover stuff on sites (ie. I want a mouse pointer on my phone).

  3. This would be perfect for the sketchbook apps. Especially if they come out with a new note pro 12.2 that’s compatible.

    1. The original S Pen was already perfect for Sketchbook. I will bet $1 trillion dollars that you can’t tell the difference between 1024 and 2048 levels of sensitivity. I can’t even tell the difference between 20 levels of sensitivity.

      1. I was referring to the orientation and angle (mostly the orientation). Many of the brushes are not round so the orientation let’s you use them as you see fit. They are nearly useless without that level of control.

        1. Ah, I must have skimmed the article too fast. You’re right, that will be a great feature.

      2. The original S Pen had only 256 levels of pressure sensitivity. For drawing I consider 1024 to be the minimum. 20 is absurd, and would make even writing uncomfortable.

  4. Samsung has always used Wacom’s “Bamboo” type of pen, with 1024 levels of of sensitivity. I wonder if they are simply switching to Wacom’s “Intuos” model of pen?

      1. Ah, I wasnt aware of the Note 4 having the 2048 levels. The Note 1,2,3 all had 1024

        1. Note 1 was 512 levels
          I preordered that phone. When I picked it up I asked myself, what have I done, this thing is huge.
          an hour later I was fine.

Comments are closed.