Most of you are open to trading battery life for an S Pen slot

Samsung isn’t offering a new Galaxy Note phone this year, but it has introduced S Pen support for the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 3. Unfortunately, both phones lack an S Pen slot. That means you’ll need to buy a case to keep the pen safe.

The S Pen slot is really handy, but it seems to be at the expense of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra’s battery capacity. The phone is similar in size to other Ultra phones but has a 4,500 mAh battery compared to a 5,000 mAh battery on the S20 Ultra and S21 Ultra. We asked ourselves if readers would like to swap the battery life for an S Pen slot.

Would you swap the battery life for a Samsung phone with an S Pen slot?

Results

After the poll was released on August 30, just over 3,500 votes were cast, and all elections received a significant number of votes. But the winner was the “yes” camp: 45% of the readers surveyed said they would trade the battery life for an S Pen slot. Interestingly, if a phone with an S Pen slot doesn’t arrive, some reader comments suggest ditching Samsung.

Now 29% of readers say it depends on the phone’s final battery capacity. In other words, an S Pen slot is important to these readers, but their dedication to function has limits. This also makes sense as it is one thing to switch from a capacity of 5,000 mAh to 4,500 mAh, but a completely different thing to switch from 4,000 mAh to 3,500 mAh.

Related: The ultimate guide to Samsung’s S Pen

After all, just under 26% of readers say they wouldn’t trade the battery capacity for an S Pen slot at all. This is an understandable choice given that the S Pen is quite a niche feature across the smartphone market as a whole, while battery life is more important to most consumers.

Interestingly, just under three-quarters of the readers surveyed are either willing to trade or, up to a certain point, open to it. Viewed differently, almost 55% of the respondents are open to a certain point or not at all ready to conclude the trade.

Comments

• NightHawk29: I’ve decided I’ll buy the Pixel 6 Pro when it comes out. This is the first time I’ve bought a non-Samsung device in a decade. I’ve honestly gotten fed up with Samsung lately, but Note didn’t seal the deal anymore to move my business elsewhere.
• Shizuma: Yes, without an internal memory slot, phone pens are mostly useless as they will fall / be lost to the bottom of a pocket. Any device I’ve had with a slotted stylus I never end up using because they aren’t readily available, but I’ve used them on the Note series phones I’ve owned.
• Dave Stern: No spens silo in the fold 3 helped me to push the purchase decision over the edge. Hoping they’ll find a way into the crease 4.
• friguy3: For the time being, I am literally leaving Samsung with this in mind. When there is no pen, I go pixels for myself and see what life is like
• Giovanni: When you’re ready to have a slightly thicker phone to make up for this “reduced” battery life.
• Fredrik Seglem: I rebuilt the S21ultra, which I only have with the normal pen
• Juan S: Abraham Lincoln once said a battery that can be charged, a pen that can be lost.
• Jermaul West: It depends on how long the battery life is. Fold 3 is currently on the small side. When you need to lower that just to have the Sp built in. I could pass that on and just carry the Sp in a suitcase.

Thank you for taking our survey and leaving comments. What do you plan to do if Samsung doesn’t offer a Galaxy Note or a phone with a dedicated S Pen slot next year? Let us know below.