The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen just got a tech downgrade

• The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s S Pen doesn’t have Bluetooth
• This means you can’t use it to take photos or control music, among other things
• However, this also makes it lighter, and Samsung claims these features weren’t used by most people anyway

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has finally landed, and while it’s an upgrade in some ways, its S Pen is arguably a downgrade on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s. That’s because – just as had been rumored – the S25 Ultra’s S Pen lacks Bluetooth.

So what does that mean for its functionality? Well, you can no longer use Air actions, which means you can no longer use gestures or a button on the pen to do things like launching apps, controlling music, scrolling through photos, or using the S Pen as a remote camera shutter to take pictures or record videos.

So that’s quite a lot of missing features, but Samsung claims that most people weren’t really using these features anyway, which is apparently a big part of the company’s decision to ditch them.

Some of these tools, such as taking pictures, can be done with a connected Samsung Galaxy Watch or even a Samsung Galaxy Ring too, so there are other ways to accomplish some of what’s absent here.

A lighter stylus

And there are upsides to ditching Bluetooth. It means there’s no battery, so you don’t need to worry about the S Pen being charged, and the lack of a battery and other components that enabled Bluetooth means the S Pen is lighter too, which contributes to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s overall weight being 15g less than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s.

So while it can always feel disappointing when features are removed, it’s likely that this will be a good change for most people – though of course not for anyone who was making regular use of the Bluetooth features.

As for what the S Pen can still do. Well, it can be used to draw, to write, and to use Circle to Search, as well as to bring up the Air command menu, which is a customizable menu of shortcuts.

Where the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra has been upgraded is primarily in its AI features, which there are a lot more of than on its predecessor. This phone also has a bigger screen, a new 50MP ultra-wide camera, tweaks to its design, a powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and tougher Gorilla Armor 2 to protect it from drops and scratches.

To learn more about this flagship powerhouse, check out our hands-on Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review. We’ve also got a hands-on Samsung Galaxy S25 review and a hands-on Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus review.