Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360: A beautiful thin-and-light PC
Samsung’s new notebook ranks among the best thin-and-light convertible notebooks we’ve ever reviewed.
Even in an era of progressively lighter notebooks ( go. pcworld.com/prlt), larger thin-and-light laptop options like the 15-inch Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 are relatively rare. Sure, you might buy it because it simply won’t break your back. But a stunning multimedia experience and shocking all-day battery life demand additional praise.
Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 lends credence to Intel’s Evo program ( go.pcworld. com/iev0), from which this laptop graduated. Thin-and-light laptop keyboards can be iffy, though, and this laptop suffers accordingly. Samsung also loads up the Book Pro 360 with
apps for just about everything. Nevertheless, we’ve awarded this laptop our Editor’s Choice award. Read on for why.
BASIC FEATURES
Samsung offers the Galaxy Book Pro 360 in either a 13.3-inch or a 15.6-inch configuration. Prices start at $1,199 (the minimal 13-inch spec: Core I7/8GB RAM/256GB SSD) and $1,299 for the cheapest 15-inch configuration with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. It’s worth highlighting that our review unit and price includes a 1TB SSD, a luxury in an era of 256GB and 512GB notebooks.
Note that all of the Galaxy Book Pro 360 models ship with a Samsung S Pen ( go. pcworld.com/amsm) in the box, which would normally cost about $32 on Amazon. At press time, Samsung.com ( go.pcworld. com/smsm) was the only source for the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360.
If those prices are still too expensive, consider the similar Samsung Galaxy Book
Pro ( go.pcworld.com/ sgbp), a traditional clamshell with a few differences: the lack of an included S Pen, for example, as well as a non-touch display. The Book Pro also includes a USB Type A port. Otherwise, the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 we’re reviewing requires purchasing one of our recommended USB-C hubs ( go.pcworld. com/hsbu) to connect to devices with a USB-A connector.
Processor: Intel Core i7-1165g7
Display: 13.3-inch or 15.5-inch (as tested): 1920x1080 (AMOLED, touch)
Memory: 8GB/16GB LPDDR4X (16GB as tested)
Storage: 256GB/512GB/1TB SSD (as tested)
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
Ports: 1 USB-C (Thunderbolt 4); 2 USB-C, microsd, 3.5mm jack
Security: Fingerprint reader
Camera: 720p (user-facing)
Battery: 67.0Wh (design), 68.0Wh (reported)
Wireless: Wifi 6E Gig+ (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1
Operating system: Windows 10 Home
Dimensions: 13.97 x 8.98 x 0.47in.
Weight: 3.02lb, 3.38lb with charger (as weighed)
Colors: Mystic Bronze, Mystic Navy (as tested)
Prices: $1,499 as tested (Samsung.com [ go.pcworld.com/14ts]); otherwise $1,199 and up
CONSTRUCTION
Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 proudly proclaims itself a member of Intel’s flagship Evo lineup via a small sticker on its keyboard deck, and it deserves it. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 is a beautiful piece of engineering, very much in the mold of the Surface Laptop ( go. pcworld.com/msf4): all cool, glossy metal
and minimalist ports. We received our review unit in the Mystic Navy color scheme, and the blue hue is virtually indistinguishable from black in most lighting.
It’s also the first laptop in a very long while that’s persuaded me to care about how thin it is, especially when folded back flat. Remember, this is a 360-degree convertible, which can be reclined all the way back into tablet mode. The Book Pro 360’s hinge holds the display true even when almost fully reclined, though it oscillates back and forth before settling in.
Less obvious but equally profound is the weight—this is a notebook that you can easily pick up by a corner and set down somewhere else. Samsung used aluminum to construct the Galaxy Book Pro 360, but it felt absolutely stable with no give in the keyboard or to the chassis. While you can theoretically open the laptop with a single finger, its light weight and the slick, stubby feet beneath it nearly caused me to push it off my test stand when I tried.
As many notebooks do, the Samsung Galaxy Pro 360 pulls cool air from the bottom of the notebook and vents it out the back through a grille hidden within the hinge. Samsung shipped the notebook set to the middle “better performance” tier in the Windows power/performance slider. Under load, the fan noise increases to a moderate
but not annoying hiss, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly the fan turned off, about fifteen seconds after exiting out of a computationally intensive application.
Samsung’s thin, light aesthetic extends to its port choices, which include a pair of USB-C ports and a third USB-C port that includes Thunderbolt 4 capabilities. Which one is which? Good luck trying to tell. There’s a virtually indistinguishable “lightning bolt” logo that signals that the front left USB-C port is Thunderbolt enabled, and a blue LED next to it. Otherwise, you’ll be left trying to figure out which port is which.
We’d recommend connecting the 65W cellular-style charger to one of the other USB-C ports and dedicating the Thunderbolt port to one of our recommended
Thunderbolt docks ( go.pcworld.com/rctd) instead. Alternatively, you can buy a cheaper, slower USB-C hub ( go.pcworld.com/hsbu) to connect to older devices that use a USB Type A connector. Samsung also includes a microsd card slot on the Galaxy Book Pro 360, allowing you to “sneakernet” a microsd card from a Samsung Galaxy Phone if you don’t want to use one of the installed wireless apps like Galaxy Share that comes preinstalled on the notebook.
DISPLAY AND AUDIO
Samsung has a well-deserved reputation for its dramatic OLED screens on its TVS, tablets and phones, and its Super AMOLED display (an OLED screen ( go.pcworld.com/oled) with an active matrix and touchscreen on top of it) certainly doesn’t disappoint. If you’re a content creator, you can be assured that Samsung is nearly perfect in satisfying the various color gamuts. In part, that’s because Samsung offers several color options. There’s a general AMOLED color profile, but also separate display profiles within the Windows 10 Settings menu, each tuned to the Adobergb, P3, or SRGB color space.
By default, the general AMOLED profile covers 100 percent of SRGB, 98 percent of Adobergb, and 99% of P3. Unfortunately, the Adobergb profile didn’t really increase the Adobergb coverage—it remained unchanged at 98 percent. The P3 profile produced 100 percent of SRGB coverage and 91 percent of Adobergb, and covered 99 percent of the P3 color gamut. Enabling the SRGB profile covered the SRGB color space by 100 percent as well, but decreased Adobergb coverage to 77 percent and P3 coverage to 78 percent. All of these measurements were recorded by Datacolor’s Spyderx Elite colorimeter, which also measured the display’s luminosity at a maximum of 295 nits—far less than the rated 370 nits that Samsung claims. That’s still fine for working in even a well-lit room, however.
The extreme width of the display (measuring 19.5mm high by 34.5mm long, a roughly 1.77 display ratio) also calls into question Samsung’s choice of 1080p resolution rather than a 4K option. As you might imagine, video played back looks bright and vivid, but there’s a hint of graininess to it that might go away with a higher-resolution option. The screen is quite glossy, too, with reflections often creeping into your peripheral vision.
That’s objective criticism. Subjectively, you might wonder whether the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 might replace your television. You don’t really realize how deeply dark an OLED display can be until the black letterboxes surrounding a video are indistinguishable from the thin (about 5mm) black bezels that wrap around the corners of the screen. It’s truly revelatory, especially when the Book Pro 360’s audio is layered on top.
Samsung shipped the Galaxy Book Pro 360 with a pair of 4-watt Akg-tuned speakers underneath, which sound all right by themselves. Of course, the flat laptop speakers can only do so much—there’s no way to manufacture the bass you’ll receive from a large, physical speaker. But there’s a Dolby Access app hidden within the Start menu, which is off by default. Enable it, flip the Book Pro 360 back into tent mode, and enjoy a superb entertainment experience.
I have more mixed feelings about the Galaxy Book Pro 360’s fingerprint reader, which began as the worst I’ve ever used, by far. Normally, you simply touch the sensor several times to establish an “authorized” fingerprint. However, the notebook’s tiny “strip”-style fingerprint reader nestled in the upper right corner of the keyboard failed to recognize that my finger had actually touched it probably two out of every three times during the setup process. I gave up in disgust.
But near the tail end of the review, I decided to once again use Samsung’s Samsung Update utility to search out new drivers. Voila! A new fingerprint reader driver
downloaded, and the reader worked flawlessly for the last days of our review.
TYPING EXPERIENCE AND WEBCAM
If there’s anything that should give you pause about the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360, it’s the keyboard. A thin-and-light PC must inevitably make some sacrifices—and my goodness, the Book Pro 360 is thin, especially when unfolded flat along a desk or table. Samsung claims that its reengineered keyboard includes a scissor mechanism that, combined with rubber keypad domes, provides a “satisfying” 1mm in key travel in near silence. Nope. That amount of key travel simply feels too shallow to be truly comfortable. But—i say this reluctantly, because I don’t want laptop makers to think we’re encouraging this—it wasn’t that bad, offering more cushion than I expected. Fortunately, keyboards are subjective experiences, and your fingers may find it more welcoming.
Samsung provides keyboard controls for three levels of backlighting, though you also have the option of entering the built-in Samsung Settings app and manually adjusting the backlighting via a slider control.
There’s one aspect to the keyboard that partially redeems it: the presence of a narrow but otherwise fullfeatured number pad to the right side of the keyboard, thanks to the extended width of the 15-inch laptop. Number pads are not only excellent for data entry, but they also provide left-handers an alternative to the WASD key layout for games, too.
The dimensions of the keyboard also allow the Galaxy Book Pro 360 to sport a gargantuan precision touchpad that takes up much of the remaining space on the chassis, allowing your wrists to rest on either side. Gestures worked well, and you’ll find plenty of clickable space.
Samsung includes a fairly generic 720p user-facing webcam on top of the display, with no privacy shutter. As you might expect from a 720p camera, your image will be somewhat soft, as opposed to a cheap but good standalone 1080p webcam ( go.pcworld. com/18pw). I honestly didn’t like the resulting image quality, though Samsung’s
“beauty” options seemed to knock a few pounds off my pandemic pudge. On the other hand, 720p webcams are the norm for laptops, so the graininess probably won’t be called out.
Samsung doesn’t include a cubby or holder for the S Pen that it includes in the Galaxy Book Pro 360 box. Instead, the pen can be magnetically attached to the top of the notebook, though that’s not really secure in the slightest. The stylus does exhibit a bit of lag while inking. It also includes a single button, which when double-clicked triggers a menu that launches a number of pen-enabled apps.
SAMSUNG HAS A UTILITY FOR NEARLY EVERYTHING
Fortunately, Samsung doesn’t particularly overload the Galaxy Book Pro 360 with numerous third-party “crapware” apps. Still, Samsung adds tons of its own Samsung- or Galaxy-branded apps—some of which, it should be said, are quite good.
Samsung reserves pride of place on the Windows taskbar for Amazon’s Alexa app, and adds a Quick Search and Quick Share app shortcut to the taskbar, too. The latter apps reflect both of Samsung’s approaches to PC software: replace or enhance
Windows’ own apps or functions, or tie the Galaxy Book Pro 360 to Samsung’s ecosystem of phones and tablets. Quick Search doesn’t do that much more than Windows’ own search bar. Quick Share is like the Windows Your Phone app. It will find nearby devices and share files, texts, and photos, provided both are signed into a Samsung account.
Here’s just some of the apps Samsung reserves for the Start menu: the Galaxy Book Smart Switch app, for porting over data
from an earlier Galaxy PC; the PENUP drawing app; Samsung’s DEX app for connecting your Samsung phone to your PC; the Samsung TV Plus link to a Tv-like collection of video streams; the Samsung Update service for updating drivers; and even the ability to control your Samsung Smartthings smart home via a dedicated app. Spotify also comes preloaded, as does Booking.com.
The only three must-open apps are Samsung Update, Settings, and Security. Samsung Settings provides granular controls you won’t find elsewhere, such as the ability to enable USB charging when your laptop is otherwise asleep, or fine-grained control of the keyboard backlighting.
Samsung Security combines four interesting features. One grants the ability to “obscure” your screen by making the current window semitransparent and allowing a wandering eye to confuse it with other apps. Another provides the option to manually disable your webcam and mic via software; a third creates a “security cam” that snaps a photo of anyone who tries to log into your PC and fails. The fourth feature, “Privacy Folder,” creates a hidden folder that is kept hidden from Windows File Explorer and is locked with your PC’S password when discovered. It’s like Onedrive’s Personal Vault ( go. pcworld.com/1dpv), but on your PC.
PERFORMANCE
Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 straddles the dividing line between an entertainment and productivity PC, with a thin-and-light bent. As noted above, it’s absolutely superb for watching movies and streamed video, and the performance is good enough for both. One of my checks involves streaming 4K Youtube video at 60fps and noting any stutters. It dropped an imperceptible three frames out of a sample size of about 10,000.
Likewise, Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 can’t truly be called a gaming PC, but as CPU and GPU capabilities steadily improve, you’ll
find a broader range of games that offer playable frame rates. We ran the built-in “battle” benchmark of the strategy game A Total War Saga: Troy and achieved playable frame rates (39.5 fps average) at the laptop’s native 1080p resolution, on Medium graphics settings. We also used the built-in benchmark within the open-world driving game Forza Horizon 4 and achieved playable frame rates at 1080p resolution, too.
Samsung’s notebook will slow itself down under load to prevent overheating, however. We noted a 6 percent drop in CPU performance using the prolonged Cinebench R23 throttling test. GPU performance was uneven too. 3Dmark’s looped Time Spy stress test found that the notebook could maintain a consistent frame rate 90.2 percent of the time. A perfectly thermally managed notebook should be able to maintain a consistent 100 percent frame rate; UL considers above 96 percent acceptable.
Many thin-and-light PCS emphasize the smaller 13-inch or 14-inch size to save on weight, so it’s rarer to find a larger 15-inch thin-and-light laptop. (Many 15-inch notebooks are simply designed for gaming.) We compared the Galaxy Book Pro 360 to several competing laptops for comparison, but the majority of these are 14-inch offerings. Still, thin-and-light convertibles are generally slower than their more full-featured cousins, so we were eager to see how the Galaxy
Book Pro 360 performed.
In the charts below, it’s worth comparing the 15.6-inch, $1,499 Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 to the 15-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 ( go.pcworld.com/msf4; $1,469 at press time) as well as our May 2021 choices for best thin-and-light laptop ( go.pcworld. com/tnlt): the 14-inch HP Spectre x360 ( go. pcworld.com/hspc; $1,269 at press time) and 2020’s 14-inch Acer Swift 5 ( go.pcworld. com/asw5; $1,299 at the time of this review). The 14-inch Acer Swift 3X ( go.pcworld.com/ asfx; $1,199) certainly ranks highly, too. At 13.4 inches, Dell’s XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 ( go. pcworld.com/del9) is both a little smaller and a little more expensive at $1,449. The 14-inch
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 ( go.pcworld. com/14az; $1,450 at press time) is a little heavier at 3.5 pounds, but it’s a strong performer, too.
UL’S Pcmark 10 offers a solid overall benchmark for measuring day-to-day office work (Web browsing, spreadsheets, video calls) as well as light gaming, video transcoding, and even some CAD work. Once the benchmark has completed its battalion of tests, it generates a score. We consider a score in the 4,000 range pretty good, with anything above 5,000 considered exceptional. The Galaxy Book
Pro 360 lands in the upper echelon with its 5,204 score.
The Maxon Cinebench score uses a rendering engine to construct a 2D image. Cinebench R15 is the older test, and most notebooks chew through it fast with their turbo modes enabled. That’s fine—it’s a good test to see how well the Galaxy Book Pro 360 will handle somewhat short, Cpu-intensive tasks. Samsung’s laptop falls in the middle of the pack, an unsurprising result given its extremely slim nature.
Handbrake, meanwhile, is a prolonged test that still taps that majority of CPU cores.
Handbrake is a real-world app that transcodes video (we use a full-length Hollywood movie) into another format. Not only does it ask the laptop to run flat out for a half hour or more, but the Handbrake benchmark helps gauge the laptop’s cooling mechanisms—a poorly cooled laptop won’t be able to run as fast, prolonging the transcoding time. Here, smaller numbers are better. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 delivers good but unspectacular results.
In terms of performance, our final benchmark is UL’S 3Dmark, specifically the more advanced “Time Spy” test. Again, we don’t consider the Samsung Galaxy Book
Pro 360 to be a gaming machine, but the real-world games we played and our scores in our benchmark argue that you’ll be able to sneak in a bit of fun. Remember, this configuration of this laptop ships with a terabyte of SSD storage, which is an unusually high capacity.
But then we come to battery life, and whoa. Wow. Normally, all-day battery life is reserved for battery-sipping Qualcomm Snapdragon processors or thick, chunky notebooks that pack the chassis full to the brim with a massive lithium-ion battery. Yes, there’s a big battery squished flat within the Pro 360’s chassis—68 watt-hours—but about
16 hours of battery life should be a major factor when considering the purchase of the chart-topping (by far) Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360.
BOTTOM LINE
If it’s performance you’re after, Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 does fairly well in our roundup of comparable laptops. But it isn’t the reason to buy the Samsung’s massive, svelte laptop. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 truly shines as a multimedia machine, with battery life that’s an unexpected delight.
I’m not a fan of the keyboard. Samsung’s app designers also need to be told a stern no when they ask to write and bundle more apps. There’s reason to integrate the Galaxy
Book Pro 360 with the ecosystem of Samsung phones, but the company hasn’t yet found an efficient way to do so.
Paying about $1,500 for all this might be a bit too much, though Samsung offers cheaper options that we’ve listed elsewhere in this review. For the size, weight, and price, plus intangibles like its rich multimedia capabilities, we’d recommend the
Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 as one of the premier thin-and-light notebooks PCS that you can buy.