Samsung Galaxy Book S
Samsung’s Galaxy Book S is thin – both in terms of form-factor and usability.
On paper, Samsung’s Galaxy Book S comes across as a very attractive proposition – it’s both impressively-thin (11.8mm) and ultralightweight (961g) for a clamshell notebook that runs Windows 10, making it seem like an ideal option for those who often take their work on the road. That said, the fact that it’s powered by an ARM-based processor will undoubtedly present a number of performance and compatibility issues for those who want to do more on their machine than run productivity apps and browse the web.
From a design standpoint, there’s no denying that the Galaxy Book S is gorgeous. Minimalism is the word of the day here, with the notebook’s lid curving towards the hinge and sporting an anodised aluminium finish that’s complemented by a small and shiny embossed Samsung logo. On the sides, it’s got two USB Type-C ports (neither are Thunderbolt, unfortunately) and a 3.5mm headphone jack, so you’ll have to rely on dongles for anything else. Additionally, there’s a microSD slot on the laptop’s underside, giving users the option of expanding on the 256GB of storage that’s already onboard.
When opened, the Galaxy Book S reveals a 1080p touch display (a surprising step down from the first Galaxy Book’s 1440p screen) with minimal bezels along its top and side edges (and a significantly larger one below), along with a chiclet-style keyboard and decently-sized trackpad. The design is not without its flaws, though – the combination of a light body and stiff hinge make it extremely tricky to open the Galaxy Book S onehanded, and while the keyboard is fairly satisfying to type on, we’re disappointed by its lack of backlighting. Still, we love the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner on the keyboard’s power button, with the notebook’s instanton functionality allowing for lightning-fast sign-ins.
The Galaxy Book S’s sleek design is made possible by the ARM-based Snapdragon 8cx processor that powers it. While it’s essentially a beefed-up mobile chipset, it’s able to run Windows 10 Home in a fairly snappy manner – and with the added bonus of built-in LTE connectivity. Regrettably, that same processor is also the main source of the Galaxy Book S’s shortcomings. For starters, it’ll only run 32-bit applications, or those which have been ported over to ARM64. Because of this, we weren’t even able to run the majority of our usual benchmark programs. Geekbench was one of the apps that did work, however. Our results were wildly inconsistent with what we’ve seen on a number of benchmarking websites – in our CPU benchmark tests, the Galaxy Book S achieved single/multi core scores of 2071/6461, placing it above last year’s ARM-based HP Envy but well below the likes of Microsoft’s Intel Core i5-powered Surface Laptop 3. Of course, one benchmark alone hardly paints an accurate portrait of what the Galaxy Book S is capable of. More concerning is that the notebook seemed to struggle while switching between multiple Google Sheets in Chrome. Where the Galaxy Book does outclass the competition is in its battery life, providing just under 12 hours of juice in our intense battery draining test.