Samsung Galaxy Book S Intel
A unique ultraportable that sacrifices all-out power in favour of portability: it’s ridiculously slim and light
SCORE
Range starts at: £791 (£949 inc VAT) Model tested: £833 (£999 inc VAT) from johnlewis.com
This is a laptop like no other. Wafer-thin at 11.8mm, it contains a hybrid Intel Core i5-L16G7 processor based on one
“big” core and four “small” cores. The big one is the same kind of core as found in a normal Core processor – and yes, Intel’s naming convention gets confusing at this point – while the four small cores are based on Atom architecture. The idea being that the more power-hungry Core core is only called into action when it’s required for intensive tasks.
Just to add to the confusion, this is actually the second version of the Galaxy Book S. You may remember our review of this laptop based on a Qualcomm ARM processor in mid-2020 ( see issue 310, p60), which ran Windows on ARM rather than the full-blown Windows 10. This ruled out conventional x86 software, including includi our benchmarks benchmarks, but also meant it was astonishingl astonishingly frugal: the 40Wh battery inside lasted for 14hrs 28mins in our o video-rundown tests. This Intel system kept going for a less astonishing 7hrs 59mins.
It was by no means amazing in our benchmarks either, with an overall score of 34. However, in general use this is a responsive PC; a better gauge of responsiveness is the photo-editing element of our benchmarks, where it scored 70. You can forget about gaming: while it proved competent in the OpenGL GFXBench test, returning 32fps, it crashed out in both Dirt: Showdown and F1 2020, while Metro: Last Light returned a sluggish 14fps.
So this laptop isn’t designed for intense use; in stead, its focus is on mobility. At 950g, it’s the lightest machine here, yet it still feels robust enough to withstand the abuse of a daily commute thanks to a sturdy aluminium alloy chassis. And it doesn’t just build in Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, but also support for 4G: a combo SIM and microSD slot is tucked away on the bottom of the chassis.
Samsung even caters for outdoor users by offering a simple way to bump up the screen brightness. Press the Fn button plus “O” and the screen will jump from its standard peak of around 350cd/m2 (we measured 376cd/m2 in our sample) to 600cd/m 600cd/m2. It may seem like a tiny ny detail, but that’s s the difference between ween a laptop being ng usable outside tside and not.
It’s a pleasant screen too. The mix of a Full HD resolution and 13.3in diagonal are always ays going to give sharp results, and Samsung gets the colour temperature right for conventional office use: whites look as they should, while colours pop off the screen. It covers 95% of the sRGB gamut with an average Delta E of 1.32, and while it isn’t a wide-gamut screen (covering 70% of the DCI-P3 space) we think most people will be very happy.
We’re less positive about the keyboard, which has a mushy feel. That led to occasional missed keystrokes, and while you can get around this by adapting your typing style it’s not ideal. All the keys are large and well delineated, but Samsung has tried to be
“It doesn’t just build in Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, but also support for 4G: a combo SIM and microSD slot is on the bottom"
too clever with the backlighting. This will only activate when the ambient light sensor says it’s dark enough, and it’s so subtle that we still found it difficult to see.
Luckily, Samsung hasn’t tried to do anything clever with the touchpad, which is a large, glass-coated affair that’s pleasant to use. The fingerprint sensor built into the power key works equally well, but there’s no Windows Hello webcam. Nor will this laptop appeal to all-day videoconferencers, with an adequate 720p webcam backed up by a microphone that picks up your voice but adds echo. One surprise: despite the laptops slim dimensions, its speakers are a clear strength, with plenty of volume and definition in music.
If you’d prefer to use a 3.5mm headphones, we have good news: Samsung only found room for three connectors on the Galaxy Book S and that’s one of them. The other two are both USB-C 3.1 ports that can be used for power delivery, video output and data. On which subject, we should point out that Samsung also sells a 256GB version of this laptop, but at only £50 cheaper there is no point in considering it.
There’s plenty of competition if you have £999 to spend, but the Galaxy Book S stands out. We aren’t fans of its keyboard or battery life, yet it has more than enough power for everyday use and is so light that you won’t even notice it on your travels. An added bonus? The supplied 25W power adapter is tiny too.