Samsung Galaxy Book 10.6in

A Surface without the Pro

We’re used to Samsungung Galaxy smartphones and tablets blets running Android, butut the Galaxy Book is a laptop-top-tablet running Windows 10. It’s the successor to the Tabpropro S (see Issue 475, page 29) andd competes with Microsoft’s osoft’s Surface Pro as a ‘two in one’ – a tablet that replaces es a laptop.

Samsung’s big move ve is to offer two sizes. The 12in, a direct rival to the 12.3in Surface Pro (see Issue 508, page 21), has a high dynamic rangege ( HDR) AMOLED screen, but its resolutiontion is modest, at 2160x1440 pixels, comparedmpared with the Surface Pro’s 2736x1824.824. But the 10.6in model we tested is Fullull HD, 1920x1080. We’ve seen more pixelsls on phones with much smaller screens, but by laptop standards it’s adequate, letting you squeeze in a full-size desktop or use Windows 10’s scaling to make things more readable.

The larger Galaxy Book starts at £1,099 with an i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 128GB of storage. That’s £120 more than the equivalent Surface Pro, but the Surface Pro’s £979 price tag is deceptive: the essential Type Cover keyboard is £125 extra, while the Surface Pen stylus adds another £100. By contrast, both of Samsung’s Galaxy Books include a keyboard and stylus.

A couple of corners have been cut. Although it looks like aluminium, the Galaxy Book’s case is plastic. There’s a webcam on the front, but no rear camera, and just one port, USB Type-c. The keyboard folds up to prop the screenscreen, a much fiddlier solution than the Surface Pro’s kick stand. The keys themselves, though, have a lovely clicky action, and despite the reduced size we found it OK to type on. The small touchpad works well as does the included S-pen stylus, which doesn’t need a battery.

The screen has good accurate colours, and decent brightness and contrast. Intel’s low-power m3 processor dawdled way behind the i5 in our performance tests, but narrowly beat the cheapest £799 Surface Pro, making Windows 10 feel smooth in basic tasks. At seven hours and 18 minutes in our video playback test, the battery can’t match the Surface Pro’s 11-plus hours but it beats the Lenovo Miix 510’s five-anda-half hours (see Issue 509, page 25).

It’s not perfect, but the Galaxy Book undercuts the Surface Pro. Until 26 October, Currys is offering a £50 cashback, making it an even better deal.

It’s not perfect, but it comes in two sizes, and has lovely keys and a good screen

VERDICT: A decent colour laser printer, but if speed isn’t critical a cheaper inkjet printer could save you money over time

★★★☆☆

ALTERNATIVE: Kyocera Ecosys P5026cdn £253 This colour laser printer lacks Wi-fi and isn’t quite as fast, but running costs are a little lower because you won’t need to fork out for XL cartridges