Samsung Galaxy Book2 Review
The Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 is a luxury 2-in-1 ultrabook that runs on the Evo platform and is driven by an Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake-P series processor.
Compared to the last generation of ultrabooks from the competition, this laptop has pretty good speed and much longer battery life. Even though the Galaxy Book 2 Pro has a few flaws, especially when it comes to I/O ports and how well it handles heat, the laptop still does well in many of our tests.
Samsung Galaxy Book2 Overview
| CPU | 2.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 SoC |
| Graphics | Qualcomm Adreno 630 |
| RAM | 4GB RAM |
| Screen | 12-inch FHD+ (2,160 x 1,440) Super AMOLED |
| Storage | 128GB SSD |
| Ports | 2 x USB-C; 1 x microSD slot |
| Connectivity | 802.11ac Wi-Fi |
| Camera | 5 megapixel (MP) Webcam |
| Weight | 1.75 pounds (793g) |
Pros:
- Clean, minimalist style
- It’s sleek and light, and it works well.
- Great battery life
- Impressive display
Cons:
- No Thunderbolt ports Bloatware.
- 720p camera.
Design
The Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 feels very solid, starting with how it was made. The laptop is only 11.5mm thick, which is very thin. Even so, the machine doesn’t bend much when I try to pick it up from its corner end with the flap open. A user will feel a small flex, but the weight of the device is spread out in a way that makes this problem as small as possible. The touch panel on the screen gives the flap more weight.
Even with the extra weight, you don’t have to hold the laptop down with one hand before you can open the door. Since the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 is a 2-in-1 device, it has a pretty strong hinge, which is something that most devices in this category have. And it’s easy to use either in split mode, as a tablet, or as a regular laptop.
The place between the two hinges in the middle of the bottom of the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360 is the “least durable” in terms of how well it is made. It doesn’t feel very sturdy for a laptop that is otherwise so well made. When we talk about well-designed things, my review unit has a silver satin finish that feels very high-end. It would be a shame for the device to get scratched, so you should get a laptop cover for it as soon as you start using it.
Performance
The fun part is about to start. Intel’s 12th-generation Alder Lake chip is built into the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360. In particular, the Intel Core i7-1260P processor in the Samsung Galaxy laptop is built on Intel EVO technology, which makes it more efficient.
The chip has 16 threads and 12 cores. For those who don’t know, Intel’s 12th Gen processor line is the first to use a mixed design with both performance cores (P-cores) and efficiency cores (E-cores). The Intel Core i7-1260P has a total of 12 cores: 4 cores for speed and 8 cores for economy.
The high number of cores helps the laptop right away with multi-threaded tasks like Cinebench R23 multi-core. Most of the time, the Intel Core i7-1260P processor takes the place of the quad-core Core i7-1165G7 processor from last year. Here, it’s easy to see how these two chips are different in how well they work.
Price
When it comes out on November 2 on AT&T, Microsoft, and Samsung’s online shops, the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 with a S Pen pen and keyboard will cost $999 (about £757 or AU$1,399). Later this month, the tablet will also go straight to AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon retail shops. At the time, this was the only way to get a Galaxy Book 2.
It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 processor, 4GB of memory, and 128GB of solid-state storage. All of this is in front of a 12-inch Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2,160 x 1,440 pixels.
The tablet has two USB-C 3.1 ports (for charging and transferring data), a microSD slot, a headphone jack, a 5-megapixel camera on the front, and an 8-megapixel camera on the back. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro from Apple and the 12.3-inch Surface Pro 6 from Microsoft each cost $799 (£769, AU$1,199) and $899 (AU$1,349, about £690). Since neither of these choices comes with a stylus or a cover for the computer, they are already more expensive.
Display
The screen on the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro is one of the best on the market. It has a 13.3-inch FHD AMOLED screen that refreshes at 60 Hz. The laptop could have had a 4K screen, but it would have drained the battery life a lot. I think the 1080p AMOLED screen is beautiful. In terms of details, the screen can show 10-bit colors and has an average peak brightness of about 380 nits. This screen can get as bright as 500 nits at its peak, but that’s mostly for HDR video. During our tests, we also found that the screen shows colors pretty well.
The screen also has a pretty good RGB balance and uses 100% of the DCI-P3 color space. Overall, it’s a very nice AMOLED screen that’s pretty bright even when you’re looking at it outside. The laptop also works pretty well when you touch it. Even though the frame rate of the screen is only 60 Hz, the S-Pen is very fast. The S-Pen doesn’t have a place to go inside the laptop, but it can be connected near the mouse or over the screen flap.
