You no longer need to enjoy a giant Galaxy Note to use a stylus with your Samsung phone. The Galaxy S21 Ultra, which launched in February, also supports Samsung’s S Pen, though you’ll have to buy one and store it separately, because unlike the Note, the S21 Ultra has no slot for built-in pencil.
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 lot of interesting things with your S21 Ultra.
You don’t need to pair the pencil with your phone; automatically recognizes the S Pen when you hover your cursor over the screen. From there, you can see a lot of options by tapping the floating button that appears on the screen.
You can take notes and draw in Ultra, and in Live Messages, you can draw your own emojis, create GIFs, and scan notes in photos. If you select Doodle AR, you can draw with the S Pen in a 3D space. You can also use Smart Select, which lets you select, crop, and collect pictures or videos to quickly share with friends.
For now, the S of the S21 Pen may not do exactly the same things as a Galaxy Note, but Samsung is expected to launch an even more sleek and expensive S Pen Pro at some point in the future (though the company hasn’t said when). This more advanced stylus will allow you to use it as a remote shutter for your phone’s camera and unlock Air Gestures, similar to what you can get with the Galaxy Note stylus.