Before it started exploding, the Note 7 was being commended for its S Pen stylus that featured 4,096 levels of pressure, making it “most precise S Pen yet”.
And while it scrambles to deal with the Note 7s battery issues, the company is seemingly making plans for future S Pens innovations.
A patent filing (via PatentlyMobile) from March reveals Sammy’s stylus design ambitions, essentially showcasing an S Pen that comes with a speaker attached.
Why? Well, we’re not entirely sure at this point, and things get even more baffling when you dig deeper.
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Samsung’s idea is to put a speaker on the top of the ‘accessory device’ (read: S Pen), which would act as the smartphone’s speaker when docked in the stylus slot, or ‘accommodation space’.
The stylus would include a speaker system, which would carry sound through the S Pen itself and emit it through the top of the stylus.
Which might leave you wondering how the phone would play sound when the stylus is removed from its docking slot.
Well, it turns out the handset would be capable of funnelling sound through the S Pen slot when the stylus is removed.
This would likely result in poorer sound quality, which raises the question of why you would put a speaker on the top of a removable accessory in the first place.
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Of course, there could be some benefit when it comes to waterproofing future Note phablets, but how much of a difference this design would make remains unclear.
And if there were some way in which the handset could transmit sound to the stylus speaker when it was removed, we might be slightly more impressed with this design idea. Alas, it doesn’t look like that’s part of the plan.
As with all patent filings, the existence of the plans themselves by no means guarantees the hardware will ever make it to market.
Which in this case doesn’t seem like it would be a big loss, unless Samsung has something else up its sleeve for the S Pen speaker design.
WATCH: Galaxy Note 7 Review
Would you like to see an S Pen with a speaker attached? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.