Rumored Galaxy S26 Ultra S Pen changes could have major fallout

Modern smartphones may have the PDAs of yesteryear in their DNA, but over the past couple decades we’ve seen advancement after advancement take this hardware to a level all its own. But even in an era of folding screens, a few companies have held on tenaciously to a few of those PDA features, and there’s probably none more prominent than the input stylus. Motorola and its Moto G Stylus represent an affordable option there, but for stylus fans who want flagship quality, the conversation has really begun and ended with Samsung.

Even with the Galaxy Note family retired, Samsung’s commitment to its S Pen stylus has endured, but that doesn’t mean it can just keep on coasting like always. We’ve already heard that Samsung could be seriously changing up its approach to the S Pen with this summer’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7, and now a new report claims the Galaxy S26 Ultra could be in for the very same fate — albeit with a possible silver lining.

We’re looking a rumor shared today by leaker PandaFlash on X, claiming that Samsung is removing its traditional digitizer from the S26 Ultra.

There are a number of ways to implement a stylus input system, and the one that Samsung favored with the S Pen involves an unpowered stylus that interacts with a field produced by a digitizer panel embedded in the phone’s display package. And while that’s very convenient, resulting in a tiny stylus that’s easy to store, it’s not without its trade-offs.

In further replies, the leaker attempts to confirm that Samsung would instead switch to the same tech it’s employing on the Z Fold 7 for the S26 Ultra. The key difference there is that it would be an active, powered pen, which makes it unlikely it would pop out of a built-in slot on the phone, and instead would have to be carried separately, as is already the case for Samsung’s foldables.

PandaFlash identifies reducing phone thickness as the priority here, which would be a consequence of removing the need for that digitizer layer. Now, we’re not sure if this last part here is based on evidence, is a rumor, or could just be speculation, but it’s maybe the most exciting part of this report.

Supposedly, this change could empower Samsung to build the S26 Ultra with the sort of embedded magnetic ring that supports Qi2 wireless charging. With the S25 series, users have been stuck turning to third-party cases to implement the needed magnets, and baking those in to the S26 Ultra itself would be a big step forward. We’re just not at all sure yet how serious we should be taking it. Samsung has warned about magnets interfering with the S Pen, so we can at least see the roots of where this theory makes sense.

We’ve still got months to go before we’re likely to know anything concrete about Samsung Galaxy S26 plans, but between this and rumors of an advanced new SoC, there’s already good reason to be excited.