Yesterday, Apple introduced its first tablet with a stylus, before that Microsoft did the same, and even before that, devices with stylus began to release Samsung. Let's see how some styluses differ from others.

Galaxy Note

S-Pens for smartphones and Samsung tablets produces Wacom. They have a rather complex electronic filling, but despite this, they are passive, that is, they do not require power from electricity. How is this possible?

In the design of the S-Pen stylus, you can find an inductor and an oscillatory circuit with a variable resonant frequency. A receiver is built into the screen of Galaxy Note tablets and smartphones, which responds to changes in the inductance in the stylus coil depending on how hard the tip is pressed against the surface.

The "fourth generation" S-Pen used in the Galaxy Note 5 is the most advanced. It can emulate gestures, and you can draw with it even when the screen is off, and when you push the stylus back into your smartphone, the note is automatically saved. The stylus from the original Galaxy Note perceived pressing with 256 gradations of force, in the Galaxy Note 2 and 3 the number of gradations was increased to 1024, and in the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note 5 it doubled to 2048.

Samsung does not sell styluses separately, they are included as standard with the Galaxy Note series devices.

Surface Pro

The stylus for Surface Pro is powered by an AAAA battery and communicates with the tablet via Bluetooth.

This stylus was specially created for Surface Pro tablets, so it is equipped with three additional buttons - for erasing written or drawn, for simulating pressing right button mouse and to launch OneNote or save a screenshot. The sensitivity of the stylus is adjusted through a special application.

Surface Pro styluses are manufactured by N-trig, which was acquired by Microsoft last winter. While the first two generations of Surface styluses supported 1024 pressure levels, the Surface Pro 3 uses a 256-stop stylus. For professional artists and designers, even this is more than enough, according to Microsoft.

A stylus is included as standard on Surface Pro tablets, but it's also sold separately on Microsoft's website for $50.

iPad Pro

The Apple Pencil for iPad Pro is battery powered and charges via the Lightning port. One charge is enough for 12 hours of work with it.

Apple does not disclose either the manufacturer of this stylus or its technical parameters (such as the number of gradations of pressing force), apparently believing that ordinary consumers do not need to go into such subtleties at all. Just watch the video, which shows what masterpieces you can create with this stylus, and look at its tip in the section.

It looks really nice, much better than any capacitors, coils and AAAA batteries. Something like an expensive fountain pen.

The Apple Pencil is not included with the iPad Pro and is available separately for $99.

As you can see, companies have a completely different approach. The Samsung pens are given free to Galaxy Note users and are compatible with all devices that work with Wacom products. Microsoft has created a proprietary stylus and is giving it away to its tablet buyers, and Apple is back in its repertoire - its stylus must be purchased separately and is not compatible with anything other than the iPad Pro.

The Samsung S-Pen is one of the most recognizable smartphone accessories in the world. Have you ever wondered what he is capable of? The most in front of you complete guide, from which you will learn what the S-Pen is capable of.

Galaxy Note series smartphones from Samsung are among the most popular and productive Android devices. At the moment, eight generations of the smartphone have already been released, the latest model of which is Note 9. Samsung skipped the Galaxy Note 6 immediately switched from Note 5 to Note 7. Each phone came with a proprietary S-Pen stylus, and software support was implemented in the smartphone itself .

This is an unusual stylus. Each new generation was replenished with functionality. Thus, we focused primarily on the S-Pen Galaxy smartphone Note 9. Most of this material will also be relevant for previous devices in the Note series. Well, let's start.

Clicking on the stylus not only helps to remove it from the smartphone.

Let's take a quick look at the key features of the Galaxy Note 9 S-Pen. Some of these features are carried over from previous generations, and some are completely new. Of course, we expect the Galaxy Note 10 stylus to come with improvements as well.

The new S-Pen connects to your phone via Bluetooth, a feature introduced in 2018. The stylus is still inside the case, unlike most competitors.

It is powered by a supercapacitor instead of the classic lithium-ion battery solutions like the Microsoft Surface Pen or Apple Pencil. Samsung claims that a full charge only takes 40 seconds.

A full charge allows you to use the stylus for up to 30 minutes or 200 button presses. Users are notified when the stylus battery is at 20 percent.

The S-Pen uses wireless charging while in the body of the device. This method is different from wirelessly charging the Note 9 itself. As such, you cannot charge the S-Pen wirelessly. charger smartphone.

According to Samsung, the stylus requires 0.5 mAh of current to fully charge. In other words, the S-Pen should not impact battery life, even if the supercapacitors slowly lose charge over time. For reference, 0.5 mAh is only 1/8000th of the 4000 mAh battery installed in Note 9.

The S-pen will still work without charging, it just can't be used as a remote control until the next charge.

The stylus tip is 0.7mm thick. It registers up to 4096 pressure levels. This is equivalent to the Microsoft Surface Pen 2 and most Wacom device styluses.

The 2018 S-Pen is available in yellow, ocean blue, lavender, black and brown. Follow these links to check their availability on Amazon. They range in price, from $40 to $50. They are also responsible for your main letter color, but we will talk about this later.

The range of the stylus when using Bluetooth is approximately 9 meters.

A little-known feature of the S-Pen is its many nibs. Each of the recent Galaxy Note devices comes with a small tool that you can use to pop out the stylus tip. By default, the stylus has a soft rubber tip, but you can change it to a hard plastic one. The puller must be in the box of your Galaxy Note smartphone.

Main functions

Air View feature allows remote control Google browser Chrome.

An example of direct S-Pen input. Direct Writing is a direct input function that fully justifies its name.

Notes on the turned off faucet can later be saved as regular notes or left for later use.

The S-Pen comes with various features. They are enabled by default and you can manage them in the settings menu.

air view- Air View allows you to collect quick information by pointing the stylus at various elements. The feature works best in the calendar and gallery. We don't know how the stylus will work with third party apps like Google Calendar or Google Drive.

Direct Writing Input– Direct input, which allows you to fill in text fields, in fact by hand. Just hover over an empty text field, click on it, and you can start handwriting.

Screen Off Memo- the classic note-taking feature. You can take notes on your device without unlocking the screen. Simply remove the S-Pen when the screen is off and follow the instructions on the screen. You can save these notes in the app Samsung Note, make multiple entries, erase, and even change the digital ink thickness.

PENUP- it's kind of social network for Samsung owners note. You can create drawings, color in existing art, and share your work with other members of the community. The app is installed by default and you can uninstall it if you don't need it. PENUP is also available on the Google Play Store.

Changing the color of the S-Pen- you can, in fact, change the color of the digital ink of the stylus. Unfortunately, there are only two options - this is the actual, physical color and the white color of the pen itself. If necessary, you can buy additional styluses in different colors. Applications themselves do not allow you to change colors, for example, in the Screen-off memo function there is no such possibility. You can change colors in Samsung Notes, just like most other apps that support a stylus. This is a minus, but not so noticeable.

Visible Pointer- the pointer displayed when the S-Pen is close enough to the screen. This is an old feature and is enabled by default.

Air Command Features

Press this button in the Air Command menu for quick access to S-Pen settings.

Air Command is the main interface for most of the S-Pen's functions.

Screen Write takes a screenshot and then lets you write notes on it.

S-Pen Translate translates when Google help Translate, and it's very convenient.

Air Command is the interface for using all the various functions of the stylus. It is displayed by default when the S-Pen is removed from the device. A circle appears on which you can see all the available options. You can turn this off in the settings, you don't need it. The interface does not interfere and is not displayed anywhere else.

notes– Of course, you can take notes in Galaxy Note. There are two features from Air Command for taking notes. The first creates a new note, and the second opens samsung app Notes to view previous entries. Notes are synced between devices via account Samsung, this is useful if you decide to upgrade to a new one. Note device in future.

smart select is our favorite way to take a screenshot. You can use the S-Pen to mark an area anywhere on the screen and the smartphone will take a screenshot of that area. This is much better than taking huge screenshots and then cropping them when you just need to save certain information. There is also the option to capture animation in a specific area. Smart Select can make GIFs. A very handy feature.

Interpreter is a useful but unremarkable feature. You hover your S-Pen over a word in a foreign language and you'll get a translation of it. The option uses Google Translate, and we appreciate Samsung using proven options. You can also listen to the translation.

The zoom function is very useful for visually impaired people.

Live Message creates GIFs. Not very productive, but we like it.

Bixby Vision when using S-Pen.

magnifying glass- This is another useful, but again completely unremarkable feature. Point at something and get a magnification that makes it easy to read or see something small. It is very convenient. You can enlarge items by 150%, 200%, 250% and 300%. There is also a switch that changes the zoom type, however we didn't see much of a difference.

Glance is a great multitasking tool that allows you to enable picture-in-picture mode for applications. Open the app, turn on Glance and it will shrink into a small window. Hover over it to open the app in full screen again. Simply move the S-Pen area to return the app to Glance mode.

Bixby Vision is a slightly controversial feature that can identify various elements on the device screen and show information about them. It can be seen that the option is made somehow and frankly, it does not work well. It is best used to extract text from an image using OCR technology or to scan a QR code. The rest of the features are just not polished enough yet.

Adding Applications- Air Command allows you to add your own applications to the interface. We recommend adding apps that you use frequently with the stylus. For testing purposes, we even added the Draw Something game since we often use the stylus with it.

Accessing S-Pen settings- After opening the Air Command interface, you can click on the wheel on the top left to access all the different S-Pen settings. This is the fastest way.

Hardware Features

S-Pen Menu - the best place to check the battery level of the stylus.

If the S-Pen disconnects from the Note, get ready to see this screen.

Many applications have separate S-Pen functions for remote control.

With the S-Pen, you can open any application by holding the remote control button.

There are also additional small hardware features. Usually, this section is rather boring. However, the addition of battery, Bluetooth, and remote control capabilities brought a lot more stuff into this category along with samsung galaxy Note 9.

Loss alarm- a hardware feature that came from older versions of the S-Pen. When the stylus is removed from the device and carried over a long distance, Galaxy Note will constantly remind you that it is missing until you return it. it good way don't lose it, it's still such an expensive accessory.

Power saving mode- enabled by default. The Galaxy Note will not try to detect the presence of the S-Pen while it is in the phone. This saves valuable battery life. The option can be disabled.

Sound and vibration- you can set your Galaxy Note to give sonic sound and vibrated slightly when removing the S-Pen. Both of these options are enabled by default.

Unlock with S-Pen- you can set up your device to unlock with S-Pen instead of PIN, password, fingerprint reader and so on. This is an interesting way, but we do not recommend it. Keeping the key in the lock is, shall we say, not a good idea.

Alarm mode and power saving options for S-Pen.

You can unlock your smartphone with S-Pen. However, we believe that keeping the key in the lock is a bad idea.

Remote control options– Galaxy Note 9 with S-Pen introduced remote control capabilities. This can be used in two ways. The first allows the S-Pen to perform tasks within certain applications. It works with many applications such as Microsoft Office, Google Chrome and many others. The available controls can be viewed in the Settings menu. They will automatically show up for any application that might be using them.

Changing remote control settings- you can also set up any application that uses the remote control. Each app can have up to two functions, single and double press of the S-Pen button. Popular examples include flipping through slides. I use this feature with Google Chrome.

Remote opening of applications- you can also set the stylus to open the application with a long press on the button. Unlike the real remote feature, you can open any app you want, but only one at a time. The camera starts by default.

Controls are not limited to just one app– any program that can use the remote control function is running. You can switch from the camera app to PowerPoint and then to Chrome. All S-Pen compatible apps will work unless you turn off the option.

Remote control– With the stylus, you can control the camera and music playback. The option should work in all applications with camera or music playback functionality. You can, for example, take pictures in Snapchat.

Music playback remote control worked in every music and podcast app I tried (Samsung Music, Pulsar, Google Play Music, YouTube and even Pocket Casts). You can customize the feature, but it doesn't have many options.

S-Pen has always been relevant. The stylus is still adored by people. It can do a bunch of useful things and we can't wait to see what Samsung has in store for the future.

If we missed any features, tell us about them in the comments!

You can use the S Pen in a variety of situations on the Galaxy Note 3, from purely business tasks like creating spreadsheets to gaming and other fun like opening a YouTube video in a window while drawing in the editor. But it's precisely this variety of S Pen settings and features that can put many off, especially if you're new to the Galaxy Note series.

That is why we decided to talk about Galaxy functionality Note 3 with S Pen to learn how to get the most out of your smartwatch.

First things first: settings

You can set your smartwatch to detect when the S Pen is removed from its slot and play a sound, automatically open the Air Command menu, or any other application. If you want to extend battery life, you can disable S Pen detection.

Basics

Now that you've customized the S Pen to your liking, it's time to take a look at it directly.

The stylus is more symmetrical and more angular than the Galaxy Note 2's S Pen, so the new stylus can be inserted into its slot in any position.

The S Pen has retained some of the features found on the Galaxy Note 2 and even more so that are available on the original Galaxy Note. However, we now have a very serious change - now gestures are no longer available and attempting to write on the screen results in copying text or media data from the screen.

Pressing the button while hovering the S Pen on the screen will open Air Command, a new menu that consists of 5 groups of the most useful features.

When you hover the stylus on individual elements of the interface, the screen displays context menu or a contextual action is performed, such as displaying the contents of a folder or previewing a gallery.

Finally, if you place the stylus on a text field, such as in a text message input field, you will be able to handwrite text, and the Galaxy Note 3 will self-learn with recognition to make your scribbles more understandable. It's simple enough that you'll find this option very useful.

Productivity vs Creativity

Two apps specifically designed for use with the S Pen and preinstalled on the Galaxy Note 3 are S Note and Sketchbook. The redesigned S Note lets you jot down your ideas and reminders, but it's actually much more than that. You can fill your notes with charts, images, videos, voice memos or even maps, turning it into a powerful little tool.

Sketchbook is the tool you need to unleash your creativity. It's basically a drawing app, so if you can draw, you'll probably be using Sketchbook on a daily basis.

Air Command

Back to Air Command, which is the biggest addition to the Galaxy Note 3's S Pen functionality. And there are 5 menu items here:

Action Memo - perhaps the most useful item on the menu, which allows you to use handwriting in almost any case. You can even write an address by hand and it will open in the maps application in an instant; you can write a number mobile phone and immediately call him; enter url address Email, contact names, tasks and all this will be recognized correctly with access to characteristic functions.

Scrapbook - for those moments when you need to save any little thing: let's say you saw an interesting lot in an online store, or found an interesting quote in the text, or even just need to save the entire web page. Scrapbook just is the best tool to save and store any metadata like URLs and the like.

screenwriter - takes a screenshot and allows you to leave a comment on it.
S Finder is a powerful search tool that looks through all materials, including handwritten notes. The S Finder also has many tags that you can use to narrow down your search later.

Pen Window - to some extent, this is similar to Small Apps from Sony, since the Pen Window allows you to outline a window in any part of the screen in which you can launch an application - a calculator, or youtube app, or Hangouts so you don't get distracted from another app. This is the easiest way to present multitasking, but the list of supported applications is still too limited.

These are some of the most useful ways to use the S Pen on the Galaxy Note 3. As you can see for yourself, the S Pen adds so many unique features and is more than just a tapping tool.

Of course, if you don't like the stylus, you can just ignore it and the Galaxy Note 3 will still be one of the most functional devices. However, we advise you to immediately try out the work with the stylus before you think that the stylus is no longer needed for smartphones.