Samsung might already have given the Galaxy Z Fold 3 andGalaxy Z Fold 4support for its S Pen stylus, but neither actually have anywhere for you to keep the thing when you aren’t using it. And it doesn’t sound like that will change when the Galaxy Z Fold 5 ships later this year, either.
Rumours of an S Pen silo coming to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 appear to have been somewhat premature based on a new report that saysSamsungwon’t add a feature so many people want.
According to a newETNewsreport Samsung “has decided not to embed an S-pen in its new foldable smartphone, which is scheduled to be released in the second half of the year.”
The report says that while Samsung did take a good look at whether it could make the silo happen, it ultimately decided against it after coming to the conclusion that there simply wouldn’t be enough internal space left over.
Giving a phone a stylus silo goes one of two ways. Either the overall size of the phone increases to make space, or the internal components shrink to accommodate the extra room required by a stylus. In the case of the Galaxy Z Fold 5, neither options are good. Making the phone bigger would be complicated, and the only real way to make more room internally would be to shrink the battery.
Another concern is thickness, the report notes. “The built-in itself is possible, but when you put a pen, the foldable smartphone thickens,” the report says via machine translation. “It’s a conflict with a foldable phone that needs to make the thickness slim when folded.”
One industry insider is said to have suggested that changes to the way the phone is built, including a new hinge, mean that making space for the S Pen is simply too difficult.
The news is of course disappointing, but understandable. Now we wait to see what that new design and hinge both bring to the table when the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is announced later in 2023.
