- The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is rumored to drop Bluetooth support for the S Pen
- This would leave the S Pen unable to control the S25 Ultra via gestures
- Samsung Galaxy Unpacked is scheduled for January 22 and we expect official news about the S25 Ultra at this event
It’s almost time for Samsung’s annual Galaxy Unpacked event, where we’ll almost certainly see the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra unveiled.
Among other upgrades and improvements, we expect the S25 Ultra to replace the S24 Ultra as the only flagship phone on the market to come with a stylus, specifically the S-Pen. However, a new rumor suggests that the S25 Ultra’s S Pen may not be as powerful as the one that comes with Samsung’s current generation Ultra phone.
Tipster Ishan Agarwal has shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) that says the S25 Ultra’s S Pen will lose Bluetooth connectivity to the pen that comes with the S24 Ultra, citing unspecified “retail sources.”
Exclusive: The S Pen on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will no longer have Bluetooth, according to retail sources!Which means you’ll lose certain features like gestures and remote control. How do you feel about this downgrade? #GalaxyS25Ultra pic.twitter.com/ASDKB06nsx10 January 2025
As Agarwal notes, a lack of Bluetooth support would mean the S Pen loses gesture support and the ability to remotely control phone functions. The S24 Ultra lets you take photos and videos, open apps, and navigate through the user interface with S Pen gestures.
Dropping Bluetooth could signal that the S Pen is becoming less of a priority for Samsung, which would certainly be a shame for some. With the release of the S23 Ultra just two years ago, TechRadar’s US phone editor Philip Berne wrote that the S Pen had “finally excelled enough to earn its name”.
Personally, I think the S Pen’s Bluetooth support helps justify its inclusion in the Ultra series. Sure, by plugging into the phone’s chassis, the S Pen takes up a lot of internal space that could otherwise be used for cooling or for a larger battery, but Bluetooth allows the average user to get something out of the S Pen through the supported gestures .
This latest rumor is contrary to most of the recent predictions of Samsung Galaxy S25 specs, in that it assumes a direct downgrade, albeit a niche one, for Samsung’s new premium handset. Without Bluetooth, the S Pen would only function as a drawing or writing tool (which of course may be fine for some users), but having the added gesture support gives the average user something to do with Samsung’s stylus.
Other S25 Ultra rumors have focused on hardware upgrades – for example, we’ve heard that the phone may launch with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, an improved camera system with a 50MP ultra-wide camera and a slightly larger screen than its predecessor.
With Galaxy Unpacked scheduled for January 22, we won’t have to wait long before we hear official information about Samsung’s new phones. Be sure to stay tuned to our Samsung phone coverage for the latest updates.
