UPDATE: Samsung has issued a statement to Android Police on this whole backward S Pen insertion matter, urging users to follow the instructions in the Note 5’s manual to prevent issues. The user guide tells readers to be sure that they’re inserting the S Pen with the point facing inward. Samsung’s full statement:
“We highly recommend our Galaxy Note5 users follow the instructions in the user guide to ensure there are no issues.”
ORIGINAL: The Galaxy Note 5 features a design that’s quite a bit different from its predecessors, and in general, the new look has been well-received. However, there’s on detail of the new phone that could be a bit problematic.
It’s been discovered that you can insert the Galaxy Note 5’s S Pen stylus into its slot the wrong way just about as easily as you can put it in the correct way. The problem is that if you do insert it with the stylus tip facing away from the phone, when you try to remove it you’ll likely end up damaging the sensor that tells the phone that the S Pen has been removed.
I’ve got a Galaxy Note 5 review unit and can confirm that the S Pen slides into its slot just as easily the wrong way as it does the right way. And while I’m not going to push it all the way in to avoid damaging the phone, the folks at Android Police did just that and ended up not only jamming the S Pen in the slot, but also damaging the pen detection in the process.
While it may seem kind of obvious to some folks that you shouldn’t stick the S Pen stylus in the wrong way, that’s probably not something that everyone realizes. And there may be times when you’re simply not paying attention, or give your phone to someone that doesn’t know better, and end up sticking the S Pen into its slot incorrectly. It’s super easy to damage your phone that way, and it’s kind of crazy that such a design made it into a publicly-available device.
Samsung hasn’t yet commented on this matter, but it’ll be interesting to see how the company reacts. A fat warning sticker on new devices? A new S Pen? We’ll have to wait and see.
