The Samsung S Pen is still better than the Apple Pencil

Who needs a stylus? OK, let’s not bring that joke back. A lot of us do, especially if they are as nice as the Samsung S Pen or the Apple Pencil!

Samsung, specifically, has been working on its stylus for years, ever since the first Galaxy Note launched way back when.. And, while it wasn’t amazing back then, it quickly became better, more awesome, and for some people — irreplaceable.

Some years after, Apple also launched a very good stylus in the form of the Apple Pencil. Then, the Apple Pencil Gen 2. Now, the Apple Pencil Pro.

And while it’s quite good and impressive and very well engineered… I still think the Samsung S Pen is better.

The S Pen feels better out of the box

Years ago, Samsung had the foresight of giving the S Pen a small, rubberized tip (to be fair, it had the foresight to partner up with Wacom, who are experts in making these things). This makes it super-precise, like an actual pen, makes it easy to replace tips if you ever need to, and makes it feel better when writing or drawing across a screen.

What do I mean by that?

Well, we are used to our pens or pencils having a certain friction against the paper notepads we are used to writing on. We have the muscle memory of adding extra pressure and force to our strokes – not a lot, but enough to get the ink to stick to the paper. The rubber tip of the S Pen provides a similar experience. Not exactly the same, but close, and there’s little acclimation time needed before you can use it freely.

The Apple Pencil, for some reason, has a plastic tip. It’s still replaceable, with a pack of 4 costing almost twice a 5-pack of S Pen nibs. But that’s fine, it’s the experience that we are talking about. Glossy plastic on glossy screen is just not a good experience. It slides across with no resistance, which you will quickly learn, ruins your accuracy.

To top it off, the Apple Pencil’s tip is large and bulbous, and it makes it hard to figure out where your precision strokes are landing. Only with the iPad Pro (2022) models and above did Apple finally add a hover feature, which shows you a tiny cursor before the Pencil lands on the screen.

To be fair, some artists have learned to use it as is. Others apply solutions like a matte (Paperlike or competitor) screen protector that makes the iPad display feel much better for writing or drawing. Though, a matte protector — no matter how good — will degrade image quality even by a little. So, again, out of the box, the S Pen is better.

Bonus: since the S Pen is the product of a Wacom partnership, it is fully compatible with Wacom pen nibs. This is a nice bonus because they actually come in different flavors — softer or harder, depending on your preference.

S Pen comes included

Speaking on “out of the box” we can’t ignore the fact that devices meant for the S Pen, come with the S Pen. Those being the Galaxy S Ultra phones (the direct successors of the Galaxy Note series), or the Galaxy Tab S tablets. The phones have a silo inside of them, which holds a thin, click-in S Pen. Easy to reach for whenever you need to jot down notes. The Tab S comes with a thicker S Pen that feels more comfortable to use for prolonged sessions.

Granted, phones like the Z Fold do need you to make a separate purchase if you want to use an S Pen with them, but the core devices that are meant to be used with the stylus come with it, which is a huge plus. If you see it in the marketing material, it comes with it.

Apple, on the other hand, loves to market its iPads as these super-cool notepad machines for students or professionals, with the Apple Pencil present in every marketing material. But oh-oh, that’s an extra investment of $79 or $129, depending on whether you want the “simple” Apple Pencil or the Apple Pencil Pro.

Not a magnificently huge asking price to cry over, but it’s still a bit weird when a $2K iPad Pro with 1 TB will not offer you at least the base Apple Pencil as a freebie.

Oh, and also — the Apple Pencil will only work on iPads, period.

S Pen works across multiple Samsung devices

You can grab an S Pen from a Galaxy Tab and use it on a Galaxy S24 Ultra. You can do the reverse. However, you can’t use it on a Z Fold, since those require softer S Pen models.

That’s why Samsung has the S Pen Pro — one stylus that is spring-loaded and can be set to work with either the Galaxy Z Fold 6, or your Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, or your Galaxy S24 Ultra. Oh, and the Galaxy Book laptops!

Note: I will not neglect to mention that users have reported the S Pen Pro’s tip can easily break, since it’s softer, made to be gentle for the Galaxy Z Fold screen. I can not share any such experience, but the reports are there.

All of those are equipped with the Wacom digitizers that make handwriting and drawing fast, responsive, accurate.

It’s not a huge deal, but you can definitely better justify the purchase of a stylus accessory when you know you can use it across a range of your devices, no?

Samsung incorporates S Pen uses across its entire interface

Apple’s Notes do work fantastically well with the Apple Pencil, and so do other graphic design apps, no qualms there. But Samsung adds an extra step in integrating the S Pen with its devices.

Over the years, Samsung threw a lot of stuff at the wall, to see what will stick. Granted, some of those experiments were not great — there was a time when you could select an area of your screen to be screen-recorded only if you had an S Pen. Yeah, that wasn’t cool.

But, still, what came out of this are some simple, yet pretty useful features. Lately, I’ve been loving the ability to scribble right on top of my Calendar app. It just adds more visibility, and it’s easier to mark important dates by circling them or crossing them over, instead of creating small event blocks.

When your phone is in standby, and you pull the S Pen out — you can instantly jot down a note. It appears as white ink on the black screen, and auto-saves when you put the pen back in. The Apple Pencil does do that, when you tap with it over the sleeping iPad’s screen. But that’s the extent of it.

The Screen Write feature in Samsung’s One UI automatically takes a screenshot and puts you in writing mode, so you can draw a circle around the thing you are trying to show whoever you are chatting with. And the S Pen has helped me sign many-a documents thanks to how quick and easy it is to access.

The S Pen’s button can double as a media controller for your phone or tablet. Or a shortcut — hold the button and double-tap on the screen to instantly start a new note. Or you can use the S Pen button as a remote shutter for hands-free selfies, which has been useful once or twice.

I will not mention the Air Action features, where you wave the S Pen around the air to activate customizable actions. It’s kind of bad.

The Apple Pencil Pro does have a new squeeze controller, which feels really nice, and responsive, and over-engineered, tuned to perfection in a typical Apple fashion. But it only works when writing or drawing within an app, whereas the S Pen uses its one button across the entire Samsung interface.

In the end

Is the Apple Pencil terrible? Not at all, there’s a reason why it’s being used by millions of people (estimated units sold since 2015 – 42 million). But I feel that, through all the marketing and popularity contests, the Samsung S Pen is kind of an unsung hero. Even if it was first to arrive to the party. Even if Samsung worked with Wacom to perfect the product. And even though it literally ships with one of the most coveted Android smartphones, a lot of users tend to even forget that it’s there.

All the while, it is a pristine piece of tech that not only rivals but outdoes the ultra-popular Apple Pencil, in a number of ways described above. So, here we go — an ode to the S Pen!