Samsung will be unveiling its most powerful Galaxy in two weeks but that won't be a smartphone as some might have hoped. Samsung's most powerful Galaxy phone, however, might come earlier in July but it's already proving to be a mixed bag. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 will, of course, be interesting because of its expected support for the S Pen but it might not have a silo similar to the Galaxy Note it will replace this year.
In the earliest days of the iPad Pro, some developers have found ways to take advantage of the Apple Pencil and turn the tablet into something like a Wacom Cintiq for Macs and even some for Windows. With Apple's introduction of its own Sidecar utility, the likes of Duet Display and Astropad were almost threatened to become redundant but the latter has now made itself even more relevant by target another audience, ones that own an iPad but use a Windows PC instead of a Mac.
There's a lot to talk about the Galaxy S21 series, mostly because of how much Samsung packed into the phones. That includes price tags that are almost too good to be true if you know Samsung. That said, there are also things that Samsung removed, the most notorious of them being the charger in the box as well as the microSD card slot. That's not the end of the story, of course, and Samsung still had a lot to reveal off-stage.
Samsung has brought the S Pen to the Galaxy S21 Ultra, but you'd be forgiven for being confused as to just how stylus and smartphone work together. Familiar from the Galaxy Note series, the S Pen isn't being bundled with the new S21 Ultra, and nor indeed is it the same stylus we're familiar with. In fact, if you're coming from a recent Note, there may be some features you miss.
One of the arguments often thrown against using a stylus on a phone is the smaller screen size compared even to the smallest tablets. While smartphones these days are huge compared to the very first iPhones that were used to mock the first Galaxy Note, writing much less drawing on them even with a stick can still be a cramped experience. One solution would be to actually make the phone larger and that seems to be the strategy Motorola will be using for this year's Moto G Stylus successor.
The phone stylus is back in the news thanks to rumors and expectations that the Galaxy S21, or at least the Galaxy S21 Ultra, will support one. While Samsung is pretty much the most well-known manufacturer that still clings to the input device, it isn't the only one. That said, LG's Stylo line, which has undergone one or two name changes, isn't exactly that remarkable in comparison but it seems that its 2021 iteration could have at least one upgrade that makes it a little more interesting.
One of the concepts associated with a phone that can unfold like a notebook is the ability to use it almost like a notebook, including the ability to write on it with a stylus. Due to the limitations of early flexible screens, that wasn't exactly possible or even advisable. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 is rumored to be the first of its kind to be strong enough to use a stylus on. Everything, however, has a price and the Galaxy Z Fold 3 will be paying for it more than just literally.
It's not that easy to keep track of Motorola's G family, especially when it went beyond numbers and suffixed words to its name. Sure, some like "Power" easily describe the powerful batteries that some models pack but the likes of "Play" and "Plus" are harder to differentiate. And then came the Moto G Stylus earlier this year, bringing along with it a passive stick for note-takers and doodlers. That might have been a relatively successful endeavor because Motorola is apparently following it up with a 2021 upgrade.
Samsung's set of three devices leaked in a few ways over the past several days, and today we've collected the lot. The Samsung Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and Galaxy S21 Ultra will likely be released in the first couple of months of the year 2021 with a whole new design. The frontside bezels will be thinner, the punch hole will be smaller, and the back will have a camera array industrial design that takes the line out a whole new door.
The Wacom VR Pen was revealed here at the tail end of 2020 with creative intent. This piece of equipment was created to work in a virtual reality environment, but also works on 2D surfaces, as it's made with much of the same tech as an otherwise non-VR Wacom stylus. This pen works with its own "independent tracking system that works with major Head-Mounted Displays."
There is no shortage of talk about the death of the Galaxy Note line next year and most of those revolve around one or two "facts". Samsung is undoubtedly grooming the Galaxy Z Fold series to eventually take its place but perhaps more significant is how the Galaxy S21 will reportedly gain its signature feature, the Wacom-powered S Pen. That will naturally raise questions on whether the stylus is still relevant today, enough to justify the added cost of a digitizer for what most might consider an esoteric feature. There are actually a few things that Samsung can do to make sure it actually gets the message across this time.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Galaxy Note, it tolls for thee! Another set of sources delivered bad news for fans of the main Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone lineup this week. Earlier whispers of the demise of the Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone appear to have been corroborated, with a "sharp drop in demand for high-end smartphones due to the coronavirus pandemic" as a main factor in the equation.