The S-Pen is Mightier than the Sword: Express Your Ideas Even with Messages

The S Pen is the hallmark feature of Samsung’s Galaxy Note smartphones. It made its controversial debut back in 2011 when the industry was moving away from styluses (styli); instead the industry was moving towards navigating with a more natural alternative: fingers. Since then we’ve seen the S-Pen evolve into a must have feature for Galaxy Note Users.

The S Pen wasn’t always the feature rich peripheral it is now. It grew and evolved adding features along the way. Some of them brought a more narrow focus to productivity while others allowed users to become more expressive and artsy.

Live Messages: Express Yourself Better

The one feature that made it on the S-Pen in 2017 with the Note8. The feature allows users to send animated messages in the form of GIFs to their peers. Gone are the days when you have to tediously explain in words what you mean. You can simply draw it out in a picture or GIF for the person you are talking to.

If drawing is too passé, you can even write in your own hand and send it over. It’s all a matter of a single click of a button and you’ll be able to let your creativity flow.

Screen Off Memo: Grab Inspiration as it Comes

Screen off memo, while not new, is still one of the best features on the Galaxy Note9. Starting with the Galaxy Note5, the ability to just pop the S Pen out of the device and immediately start noting your thoughts made the Galaxy Note even more compelling. With the Galaxy Note9, Screen off memo doesn’t just come in drab black and white; instead, it now comes with a signature colour for each colour of the Note9. The Metallic Copper comes with bronze, the Midnight Black comes with a grey, the Lavender Purple comes with lavender while the Ocean blue comes with yellow (just like its S Pen). Not only are you able to take down your thoughts immediately, if you are feeling a tad bit bored, you’ll be able to doodle in the signature colour. These masterpieces and musings will be saved into your notes app like any other notes.

Whoever said productivity and creativity are mutually exclusive definitely didn’t meet the Galaxy Note series and the S Pen. With its unique S Pen the Note series has, over the years, married the two “mutually exclusive” things into a very compelling device.

Originally published at techENT.