Samsung’s new S Pens stink, literally, compared to the Galaxy Note

Ben Schoon | Mar 22 2024 - 5:15 am PT

The S Pen is one of Samsung’s most iconic smartphone features, but it’s also one that’s change a lot over the years. Nowadays, the legacy of the Galaxy Note’s S Pen lives on through the Galaxy S Ultra series, but the new S Pen’s kinda stink – no, literally.

Samsung’s S Pen has always been a reasonably simple concept. An active stylus that allows for greater input accuracy as well as some additional features, all while being stored inside of its own little silo on your phone. It’s the feature that made the Galaxy Note series so beloved for years.

Samsung seemingly killed the S Pen in 2021, as the Galaxy Note series was discontinued officially, leaving foldables to fill the gap. But just a year later, Samsung revived the feature by basically turning the Galaxy S22 Ultra, its flagship, into a Galaxy Note. That’s continued with each Galaxy S flagship in the time since.

And, with that “reboot,” Samsung didn’t really change the S Pen all that much. The look and feel were very similar, but as it turns out, there’s one slightly off-putting tweak.

It smells.

As pointed out by some Galaxy S24 Ultra owners on Reddit, the S Pen in Samsung’s latest flagship has a certain, unpleasant odor if you smell it. As our Andrew Romero put it, it’s similar to the smell of the rubbery mulch used on playgrounds. It could also be compared to a Sharpie marker (but it’s decidedly worse), or burning plastic.

And, lo and behold, we noticed the same scent is noticeable on the Galaxy S23 Ultra and Galaxy S22 Ultra as well. The scent isn’t noticeable unless you actually get up close to sniff the stylus which, obviously, is not a common thing people do – we can only imagine what happened for someone to discover this in the first place.

But, hilariously, it wasn’t a thing on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Why?

It’s not some wild conspiracy theory. The S Pen that Samsung has been using on its latest releases has a new, rubbery coating which adds more grip to the stylus. The version using on the Note 20 Ultra had more of a glossy finish, which was completely free of the scent. It seems to only be the plastic being different that causes this, as the scent hasn’t faded away on our Galaxy S22 Ultra. Of course, it’s likely the scent would fade away if the stylus was used heavily, but even then, it’s odd that it has stuck around even on a two-year-old device at this point.

Ultimately, this really won’t matter. Unless you’re extremely sensitive to smell, the scent isn’t noticeable in normal use.