S Pen
On the source Galaxy Note, the pen is of
course stronger than the finger. While we cannot firmly state, the first
“phablet” might haven’t succeeded without the help of S Pen, the “don’t call it
a stylus” stylus took full advantage of Note’s Wacom digitizer. Samsung brought
everything up to a new step with the next model, by adding a new Wacom plate
with greater pressure sensitivity and a stylus having much more functionality.
S
Pen
The new S Pen is longer, wider (8mm) and it
is flat at the button side, making you feeling like holding an old-styled
pencil – a feature that many traditional artist will prefer to the first pen. It
also offers a bigger rubber-made head, bringing a similar feeling to you casual
writing tool. The additional levels of pressure sensitivity (1,024, in
comparison with 256) offer a more accurate drawing experience and even allows
for greater change in how light or dark your stroke turns out without the need of
switching brushes every other second.
The
new S Pen is longer, wider (8mm) and it is flat at the button side
Let’s discuss what S Pen can do on the new
Note. The most important feature for the latest phablet is hovering. It will
get acquainted with anyone having used Wacom or Bamboo Pad for years. The phone
can detect when the pen is on it, and it will display this by listing a cursor right
in the place where the pen is hovering. It opens possibilities, most of which is
relevant to Note II’s Air View. You can scroll up/down through lists or
websites when you hover the pen over the screen’s top or bottom; you can point
it into inbox or schedule and a pop-up box will provide more details about that
special email or the list of date you have in a specific day; hovering over an
icon you have never seen and a small box (tool tip) appears showing you what to
do with that button; and you can point the pen into a thumbnail of image or
video and its larger version will turn up. (By the way, Note II’s preview mode
lists GIF-like thumbnails for your entire collection).
You can also you S Pen, while hovering, to
access many features. For instance, you are drawing in S Note app, a
quick-pressing will switch between brushes, pencils and erasers, while
long-pressing brings out Idea Sketch. In this feature, you will write down a
name of a special category (or just browse through the list) and an amount of potential
illustrations will appear for you to choose. When you finish choosing the
proper one, it will be shown in S Note where you can adjust the size and style
of the draft – then you can find inspiration from it, redraw for your own
purpose or just add color into strokes.
There’re
many things you can do with it when the pen is touching the screen
Speaking of button, there’re many things
you can do with it when the pen is touching the screen. Press and hold to
create an adjustable screenshot (quite useful for map, website and other things
you want to add notes or drafts before sending to colleagues). You can also
press and double-tap the screen to bring out Popup Note, or you can add a
specific part of the screen by pressing and rotating around the area you want.
Besides, you may hold the button while gesture-drawing: up button shows the
menu, left button mimics the phone’s back button and skimming the pen over the
screen shows Quick Command. As mentioned before, the most difficult task is
mastering long list of various gestures and commands that S Pen can create.
Quick Command is another useful feature. A
familiar handwriting box turns up, asking you to write a command symbol
followed by a keyword. For example, write "@ Jill" to send an email
to Jill; "? [search term]" to carry out a web search; "#
Robert" to tell the phone to call Robert... This function is nice, viewed
from easy accessibility, but we encountered difficulty finding a good reason to
use it over S Voice, Google voice search or even our own shortcuts. However, that
doesn't mean it's completely useless, in fact, but contrary. The benefit of
this feature is the ability to add user’s own customized gestures, which turns
Quick Command into Samsung’s own versions of Smart Actions or Tasker. For
example, program the phone to turn on Blocking Mode and Wi-Fi while turning off
GPS and Bluetooth concurrently -- by drawing a letter, number or symbol that
you choose.
Quick
Command is another useful feature
In another distinctive addition to the S
Pen experience, the Note II is able to sense when the stylus has been taken out
of its place. It realizes your intent of using the pen, and automatically executes
a special home page featuring several S Pen friendly options. You can also make
the phone activate Popup Note when the pen leaves the place, if desire. Above
all, you can tell the device to sound a notification whenever it senses that
the pen has been too far away from its home.
Before moving on to the next section, we'll
say that the S Pen on T-Mobile's Note II is identical to the global version,
and you won't see any difference in functionality or the way it interacts with
the digitizer. We think the story will be for the other US models, but we'll
update our review after those models arrive at our homes.
