The innovative stylus detection feature means a great deal for Samsung. While quickly taking notes when the phone’s screen is turned off and the automatic access to the S Pen’s radial menu admittedly are amazing perks to have, there is one giant oversight that we have no one but Samsung to blame for.
Apparently, this feature is extremely sensitive – if you were to try and insert the stylus pen the wrong way, you could be looking at a permanently disabled detection feature, a thing the new Galaxy Note 5 prides itself on. This unfortunate oversight also disables features like the popular lock screen memo, a thing Samsung’s been advertising, and frankly, quite a cool feature in our opinion.
You might think that inserting the pen the wrong way is a ridiculous thing to do and that one would have to be a real brute to push it hard enough to break the device, but this is a misconception. Turns out, inserting the S-pen the wrong way is not all that difficult. In fact, the Stylus can be inserted into the new Galaxy wrong way round just as easily as doing it the right way.
Samsung has a lot to answer for. There simply is no warning for the user in terms of physical resistance. Even if the user was careful enough never to insert the pen in the wrong way, this seemingly minor flaw does tend to cause a feeling of constant uncertainty and is one more thing to think about and be wary of, something that just adds one more problem to the platter of having an expensive piece of gadgetry.
This tiny, yet somewhat damaging a design failure is quite unlike Samsung, especially when it comes to their pride and joy – the Galaxy Note series. How this has squeezed its way through the Samsung’s thorough testing still remains a mystery.
Unfortunately, having this feature broken is not the worst thing that might happen. There have been reports of users and reviewers not being able to so much as unjam the S-pen. So not only is the Stylus detection feature sensitive, to say the least, but, in addition, inserting the pen the wrong way might cause it to jam, rendering you unable to so much as even use it.
So is this a design flaw or user error? Well, quality things are always made to withstand human error. As we all know it, we are far from perfect and chances that you will never drop your phone are slim at best. This is why the modern devices are made with damage hazard in mind. While a person can break almost any device, if they are tenacious enough, damaging the new Galaxy’s Stylus feature is far too easy to be deemed a user’s oversight. Therefore, it is a no-brainer for us to deem this unfortunate drawback an error in design. With this in mind, be extra careful, or wait until the next model is released, which certainly won’t suffer from this defect, not with all the Internet hype it has been rightfully subjected to.
