No ™️ spen, no thanks!

[facu1ty]

Samsung really are pulling the wool over people's eyes. After saying they were reading usage reports, only 1% use the Bluetooth function on the spen. Apparently that equates to 160000 people which is a lot. Am I being thick or do they get these usage reports when we opt into it when setting up the phone? How many people turn off usage reports when setting up their phone? I know I do. I smell a rat with Samsung. Air gestures are so much fun. The most composed Selfies I find is by using the spen. This was the ultras signature ™️ that should never have been up for debate. It's a great bit of tech. The S25 ultra has lost it's id. It's looking like the IPhone now. IPhone/moto g stylus vibes. No thanks. Get back to the drawing board and start giving us S10 model vibes again when you were flexing muscles globally. But losing handy hardware and copying apple seems the way forward. 🤮

[facu1ty]

Fair point mate, but where does it stop? If keeping handy hardware means keeping costs up, then so be it no matter the costs. You simply can not keep taking stuff away to justify it. Look how much they're selling for. Some customers have gone that far paying over a grand, so an extra £50 won't really be breaking the bank.

[Joeeye]

The issue here is you seem to think you're entitled to exchange your last product for a brand new one. Once you break away from this false sense of entitlement, you'll realise that the price tag on these phones are the same each year. No one is forcing you to buy the latest from Samsung or even saying they are genuinely great deals, even after trade in. That value lies solely on the consumer, their wants and needs and priorities. Your opinion on this matter has no sway in what another individual decides.

As for the performance upgrades, I agree in most cases you won't notice it, but when has that ever stopped gamers from buying CPUs with 5% incremental performance upgrades?

Things I've seen consistently repeated, the S25 has a better battery life than the S24 (big plus), the camera has improved both photography and videography, performance naturally a lot better. So from just those metrics alone, how is the S25 inferior to the S24?

[Paul LeBon]

It has no Bluetooth S-pen. That alone makes it inferior. The S pen is the only thing that kept me buying Samsung flagship phones year after year. Now with it effectively crippled, I'm going to do what the rest of the world does and by the flagship promax version of the iPhone.

[facu1ty]

My old S105g, which I still use for work, cost £1200 new. It has a 6.7" screen. It weighs only 197g. It has tremendous tof sensors on the front and back cameras. It has a headphone jack. It has a quad hd screen. It has great speakers. Wireless and reverse wireless charging. I'm sure Samsung can do this again. With a 6.9" screen.? Useful functions shouldn't be taken away. Functions like the ir blaster would be very welcome again. I still believe the ultra should be the best of the best with every tech possible. Give customers the options through surveys rather than taking them away without consultation.

[Joeeye]

Well personally I think I'll notice the performance improvement over the loss of Bluetooth functionality from the S-Pen. But we all have our own opinions.

[TheRealDarren]

So you are cancelling your phone because it's pen has no Bluetooth. And moving to new environment and loosing all your previous purchases on Android to get a phone that does not have a pen. My god Samsung will have to bring it back now 🤦‍♂️

[facu1ty]

What are you on about entitled? How can anyone possibly change their old device for a new one for free? I'm a paying customer like you and will point out issues like this debate we're having. You seem to be talking like the people who enjoyed the Bluetooth function spen should just shut up and disappear. Not cool. And you're opinion surely has no sway in what other paying customers decides 🙄

[Paul LeBon]

It's a nonstarter. Apple iOS has a huge software advantage I've Android. Android apps are basically ***** versions of their iOS counterparts. For example, Microsoft OneNote. iOS devices also connect more cohesively to the overall Apple ecosystem than anything by Samsung or Android overall. Hardware advancements on a phone with ***** software is not something that appeals to me. The only reason that I continued to buy s model Galaxy phones as long as I did was because I use the S-Pen all day. Without a fully functional S pen Samsung ceases to remain a viable option. It's just another android phone on a crowd. I'd just as doon buy an Honor, OnePlus, red magic or some other generic Android phone.  

[Joeeye]

I'm not downplaying your complaints at all. I just think poking holes in Samsung reasoning for removing said function is silly. Whatever the reasons, they made it, and all likelihood it's economics. It is what it is, but like I said all along, no one forces you to buy it. For most people, it isn't a big deal, but obviously for some like yourself it seems a deal breaker. Ofcourse you did predict the S25 was doomed to fail and sales were terrible despite it not being released yet. I'm sure that overreaction is shared by most customers...

[Greenmum1]

What is an Ultra though? The Ultra didn't even exist until recently when it evolved from the amalgamation of the Note series and the S series, people. @Joeeye kind of took the words from my mouth, what do you want them to do, shoot their load in 1 go?! What then, you spend the next 5 years complaining that they haven't changed a thing and you're bored with your phone?! They are constantly changing things and evolving so the experience is different each time and people continue to buy, if they took away the spen, then I would question it, but if they do, do I want the phone that does all those other things I love, yeh, so I buy it, no? Then I don't, but it's without doubt that whatever they do, it won't please everyone and I understand it's all foing to change again next year, gird ya loins