I got hate for not using the S Pen on my Galaxy S24 Ultra, so I used it for a few weeks

A couple of weeks ago, I penned a long-term review of the Galaxy S24 Ultra and said that Samsung should remove the S Pen. That got you all going. I received many comments telling me how wrong I was, and one even told me I was an iPhone user in disguise. That’s so insulting.

So, over the past couple of weeks, I decided to try and use that S Pen a little bit more every day to see whether the comments were right and I was wrong about the S Pen being a little bit useless.

Here are some of the S Pen features I’ve used over the last few weeks. Some of them are quite good, and some are just not for me.

Off-screen memos

There was already one S Pen feature that I used quite often, and that was off-screen memos. If you have your Galaxy S24 Ultra and want to take a note immediately without unlocking your phone, you can do just that. Just scribble down a few things without unlocking your phone. I mostly used it to play games or just fiddle around, but I didn’t realize how powerful the notes app was here.

If you go into the settings, you can pin that note on your lock screen as an always-on display. It’s a pretty helpful feature if you’re someone who likes to write down shopping lists as you go or add to that note without having to create a new note each time or go into the app and then edit it.

I also really like the fact that you can call or email someone immediately just by hovering over their address or number with that S Pen. You can do this with math equations, too. Very useful.

Air View

Another S Pen feature that I didn’t know existed until I read the comments was Air View. Now, you might know what this is already, but if you don’t, you can hover over any photo or video in the Gallery, and it’ll pop out into a small window, allowing for better previews.

This only works inside the Samsung Gallery app, so it doesn’t work with Google Photos or any other picture app, but I found myself using this feature regularly over the past couple of weeks.

S Pen to text

I am impressed by how accurately Samsung and One UI can determine what I’m writing, so I’ve been using the S Pen to write in search boxes instead of the keyboard.

Even though my writing looks like a five-year-old’s, the device recognizes what I intended to jot down. This was even more impressive when I was trying to take notes in a meeting. When you write something down, you can hover over it and it will convert that scribble to text.

I have so many typos when I’m trying to type quickly, and with the S Pen, it felt like I could just get these notes down a little bit easier. It felt a little bit more natural.

Smart Select

Undoubtedly, my favorite S Pen feature is Smart Select. This is handy for taking screenshots and then annotating those screenshots immediately. I appreciate anything that eliminates steps, and the fact that you can be a bit more accurate using the S Pen to annotate or draw is great.

It allows you to screenshot the exact part that you want to share. Talking of sharing, you can then share that screenshot directly in Smart Select. I really like this functionality.

Photo editing

Now, for the S Pen features that I just don’t think are useful. For example, if you go into the Gallery app and want to edit a photo by drawing around something to eliminate it, you can use the S Pen. However, I feel like that’s an extra step. I can do just as well by drawing around the same subject with a finger.

Translate

Then there’s Translate with the S Pen. If you want to translate a single word, you can just hover over it, or you can translate entire paragraphs and sentences. However, I think Circle to Search has done a much better job, eliminating the need to use that S Pen.

You can actually just use Circle to Search around any of the text in an image or on a website and translate it right from there without having to get the S Pen out. This is the same with Bixby Vision as well. It’s quite powerful. You can draw a box around a subject in an image, and Bixby Vision will provide more info on that image or even find more visuals like it. However, you don’t really need it now because Circle to Search is there. It does a better job. It’s quicker, easier, and more accurate in terms of the information that it’ll give you. So again, the S Pen here is just a little bit redundant.

Magnify

Then you have things like Magnify. It works really well, but do you need it? I don’t see how many people use Magnify that often daily. I’m not going to bash it because, like I said, it is functional, but there are also good magnification options on Android already.

Calendar notes

This brings me to what I think is possibly the most pointless feature of the S Pen: the ability to write inside your calendar.

You can zoom in on your calendar and start writing down certain events and notes with the S Pen. However, it doesn’t create a reminder for the note you just took inside your calendar. You have to then go back into that specific date and re-add a reminder for what you’ve just written — I just don’t see the point.

AR Doodle

There is an app, though, that I’ve probably had the most fun using over the past couple of weeks: AR Doodle.

You can create 3D objects by drawing them with the S Pen, and then once you’re done, you can view these objects as if they exist in the real world. It’s a nifty concept and a fun app. I think it’s probably geared towards children, if anything. I’m not sure how much I would use this outside of testing it just for this article, but I like that it’s there. It’s really powerful and does a really good job.

Pentastic

There’s also Pentastic inside the Good Lock app, and I like that you can customize the S Pen’s smarts a little bit. You can change the menu that pops up every time you open it, the sound of the S Pen, and even the cursor to a little pig if that’s your style. You can also add a double-click on the S Pen button to open any app, which again is useful.

I know there are loads of S Pen features I haven’t tried, and if I did, it would just take hours.

You can unlock your phone with the S Pen, set up routines to control your smart home, which I think is cool, or just use it to zoom in and out of the camera and take pictures. By the way, I found zooming in and out of photos annoying and rigid.

So, is the S Pen actually useful?

I’ve used the S Pen as much as possible in the last couple of weeks, and I do get it. I get why some people love it, but no matter how much I try, I just don’t think it’s for me. I don’t like the added step of using the S Pen.

Having said that, I am actually open to being proven wrong that the S Pen is the best feature of the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Ultra lineup as a whole. If there’s an app you think I should try or a feature with the S Pen, then let me know in the comments below because I would love to give it a go.