Everything that I've read, the Samsung sPen is a Wacom designed product.

Agreed, well done Samsung, but please now finish what you started, give us the one mobile device to rule them all. That means a screen as large as possible while still being ultraportable. The bigger the screen the better for reading, surfing, gaming, watching videos.
For women, that just means baggable, so only weight matters, say 220g. For men, that means pocketable, the inside pocket or side pocket of a jacket, or thigh pocket of trousers. That allows a screen of 16cm x 10cm, about 7.3 inch diagonal, and overall size of 19cm x 11cm.
Otherwise like a Note, especially the S-pen and being able to change batteries. Maybe the ability to choose to install Android or Windows 10.

What a pity it never sold, compared to 75million iphones sold in the last quarter. Invention, Innovation and Execution is what drives product development but products also need sizzle and Samsung just don't have it. Sure they have market share but then if you make >1200 models you could reasonably expect to have market share. The hard lesson is though that it is profits that make companies successful not market share. Apples profit last quarter was $18billion yes billion while the mobile division of Samsung made a loss of $4billion.

@Bob .... Samsung own ~10% of Wacom...

Hmmm...
Styluses and handwriting recognition eh?
I still have a 1992 IBM Thinkpad running Windows for Pen Computing V1.0.
It worked remarkably well after a bit of training, and was wonderful for playing Solitaire.
My daughter used it for years, and got along very well with it.

I think a stylus hardly qualifies as an innovation. As you point out, this technology has been around for ages. There are dozens of these available for iPads and other tablets, both passive and active designs. Apple has something like 20 patents in this area as do many other companies.
There are many productivity apps for both iOS and Android. Now IBM is designing dedicated iOS productivity apps for a host of industries.
The Note 4 suffered from poor build quality. There were many reports about the large gap between the case and the glass surface. It is no wonder that sales were so poor.
It wouldn't be surprising to see Samsung exit the phone business in a few years. They can't compete with Apple at the high end and they are being eaten alive by Xiaomi and others at the low end.

Hmm.. Seems as though we're all forgetting that HP had the then innovative idea of adding a GSM phone into their PDA's, creating the first true smartphones about 10 years before Samsung had their ideas - and nothing but refinement has occurred since the iPAQ ruled. Also, the iPAQ preceded anything Apple made with a "i" in front of it's name, so to be fair, HP are far more deserving of Gizmag's adoration as innovators than either Samsung or Apple are.....
I guess the writers for Gizmag are probably too young to remember the HP innovations of the early 2000's LOL {:o)

That's the great innovation? Just making a rip off copy of the iPhone with a bigger screen? That is hardly an innovation.
Apple had a stylus handheld device called a Newton that recognised hand writing so many years ago that cellphones didn't even exist at the time.

It's the best smartphone out there period. More people buy other phone doesn't mean better phone, for them a smartphone itself is too much they don't even want try out the what S-pen can do, so as new operating system just same old boring gridlock app placement look they like but some it's a torture can't do customization years after years. As here someone said it works well if learn how to write, there is no specific ways to write, just write anyway you want as you do real note on paper. If anyone of you don't like the note that's your single opinion but it's as good as any devices up to date.

@FrankR
I am guessing that most of the readers may not even heard about iPaq let alone seen one. Except for the fact that it was quite expensive for me to justify I would have loved to own one. I certainly have used my friend's. What I loved about it was the fact that it integrated with MS Office suite on the desktop flawlessly.
I am not sure if iPaq was introduced before or after HP took over Compaq. What I really miss though is the transfletive LCD as used in iPaq with Win CE 4.0. Unless one roots the phone and installs "Invert" absolutely all screens are unreadable outdoors.