It's official: the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 will replace the Galaxy Note as the Korean company's mid-year flagship smartphone. This means game over for the Samsung Galaxy Note 21, at least for this year.

This is coming from TM Roh, Samsung's president and head of mobile communications, who noted that the Galaxy Note is basically off the books. In a blog post, Roh said, "Instead of launching a new Galaxy Note this time around, we will extend the beloved Note's capabilities to even more Samsung Galaxy devices."

Given rumors that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 will support the S Pen and S Pen Pro, custom stylus compatibility is likely to be the main Note feature to be spread to other Samsung devices.

Interestingly, we expect to see an S Pen designed specifically for foldable phones. Its contents are not clear, but we can expect input sensitivity tuned for foldable displays, which have softer surfaces than non-foldable phones.

Roh also explained how Samsung will work to make foldable phones more mainstream devices, not just expensive ones, although we don't expect the Galaxy Z Fold 3, or Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 3, to fall below the $1,000 mark.

"We are also working with Google to enrich our foldable ecosystem with popular apps and services. With the third generation Galaxy Z phone, we have lined up more partner apps that take full advantage of the versatile foldable format," Roh said. From hands-free, optimized video calling with Google Duo and watching videos in Flex mode on YouTube to multitasking in Microsoft Teams, our foldable ecosystem offers a seamless, optimized, and rich experience."

The Galaxy Note line will close the curtain, at least for now, as Samsung looks to build an ecosystem of folding devices. This will be sad for some Note fans who enjoyed having a big phone with all the latest and greatest Samsung mobile tech. But that role has essentially been transferred to the Galaxy S21 Ultra, especially given its rich camera, the aforementioned S Pen support, powerful specs, and brilliant large display.

What is a bit sad here is that the blocky rectangular design of the Galaxy Note phone may become Samsung's technological antique. Hopefully this design will return in Samsung's Galaxy S22.