You no longer need to splurge on a giant Galaxy Note to use a stylus with your Samsung phone. The Galaxy S21 Ultra, which launched in February, is also compatible with Samsung’s S Pen, though you’ll have to buy one and store it separately, because unlike the Note, the S21 Ultra doesn’t have a built-in stylus slot.
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 ton of cool things with your S21 Ultra.
There is no need to pair the stylus with your phone; automatically recognizes the S Pen when you hover over its screen. From there, you can see a host of options by tapping the floating button that appears on the screen.
You can take notes and draw on the Ultra, and in Live Messages you can draw your own emojis, create GIFs, and scribble notes on photos. Selecting AR Doodle allows you to draw with the S Pen in 3D space. Or you can use Smart Select, which allows you to select, crop, and collect images or videos to quickly share with friends.
For now, the S21’s S The Pen can’t do the exact same things as a Galaxy Note, but Samsung is expected to release an even fancier and more expensive S Pen Pro in the future (though the company hasn’t said when). That 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 achieve with the stylus on the Galaxy Note.