[Android] Galaxy Note 5's stylus-gate

Public service announcement: inserting the S-Pen into its silo backwards-end first, even gently, can permanently damage the Note 5 (either jamming the stylus in the silo or breaking the device that detects stylus removal and activates AirCommand). Unlike previous Notes, the stylus does not have a flared or textured back-end to the stylus that prevents backwards insertion:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08/24/video-probable-note-5-design-flaw-can-cause-s-pen-to-break-pen-detection-when-inserted-backward-or-get-hopelessly-stuck/

Samsung knew about this issue with the device and shipped it anyway, as evidenced by a warning buried in the owner's manual:



And it gets worse. That user's manual with the oh-so-important warning? It doesn't actually ship with the phone itself. Either in hard copy format or PDF format.

 

Well that seals it for me. I have been debating with myself between the note 4 and note 5. Note 4 it is! Thank you for posting this.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

lol god PSA alert everyone! On my Galaxy Note 10.1" tablet the pen cannot go in backwards, it has to go in tip first.

 

What a glaring oversight on Samsung's part... We have had phones that came with styli since all the way back in the early 2000s, never could you insert one wrong...

 

I still don't get how someone could put the pen in the wrong way?

But there are also ways to remove the pen if put in backwards.

I love my note 5 so far, but of course I'm coming from a Nexus 4, so it's a huge jump in performance, screen size, screen quality, and battery life!

 

How could it happen? Dark lecture halls or young relatives borrowing your phone.

How do you remove the stylus if it gets stuck?

 

I'm assuming using like a thin probe and trying to force it out. It is likely you would scratch the pen or the hole where the pen fits into.

 

The problem is is that the little spring-loaded peg that determines when the pen is pulled out of the silo gets stuck in that groove on the back end of pen. Yanking out the pen snaps off the peg, which means the device can no longer detect stylus insertion and removal.

The problem isn't that you can't get the stylus out; the problem is that you can't get the stylus out without damaging the stylus-removal mechanism.

 

Hrm...then that's a poor design. I guess you'd have to RMA it to Samsung? That sounds pretty crappy. But like I said earlier, Samsung had designed the older style S-Pen's to only go in 1 way, there was no way unless you REALLY force it in (then you win the Darwin award).

 

Samsung would make you pay for the RMA. This is just another really poor design decision on their part. Seriously, even my old resistive panel touch screens came with a stylus that only went in one way and they didn't have sensors for when the stylus was removed for use!