© 2020 Cable News Network. And like a phone, the Galaxy Book S also has Airplane Mode to switch off your cellular connection. Discuss: Samsung Galaxy Book (12-inch) review: A great Windows tablet that just scratches the Surface Sign in to comment. Battery life was also very good for a laptop this thin and light with a relatively small capacity battery, and without the compromise in app compatibility that an ARM chip imposes. One that can easily be packed, lasts a long time and gets the basics done with the minimum of fuss, just don’t expect it to be a premium power laptop. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Book Flex costs £1,349, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 costs from £999, the Dell XPS 13 costs from £1,399 and the Apple MacBook Air costs from £999. There was some unwelcome pre-installed software, including McAfee LiveSafe, Clonix RansomDefender and the usual Candy Crush Friends and Farm Heroes Saga, which I uninstalled on first use. There are core (and very nerdy) differences in how an ARM processor works when compared with the far more common Intel or AMD processor, with the ARM processor requiring less energy, for example. After a week of testing, we’ve come away convinced that the Galaxy Book S is a preview of our computing future – a future that we fully welcome. But those differences also mean that developers have to build their apps specifically for an ARM processor, which, up to this point, has rarely been used in a laptop. Web browsing and mobile working are great. Blacks were dark, and didn’t blend in with different shades of gray. By subscribing, you agree to our privacy policy. I’m excited to put this laptop to the test and being that it’s a Samsung system, that’s saying a lot. On the outside, the Galaxy Book S appears to be a normal Windows 10 laptop, albeit in an impressively thin housing. One of, if not the, headlining features of the Galaxy Book S is its battery life. Samsung Galaxy Book Flex review: long battery laptop with fold-back screen, Apple MacBook Air review: 2020’s near-perfect consumer laptop, Dell XPS 13 2020 review: a fantastic but flawed laptop, Huawei MateBook X Pro review: Windows 10’s MacBook Pro rival, Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 review: still sleek, just no longer unique. Our password manager of choice, 1Password, is slow, but eventually it gets the job done. They haven’t yet delivered on that promise in Windows computers, but it hasn’t stopped Intel designing chips in a similar way to ARM models in an attempt to head off the competition. The keyboard was oddly satisfying to use. It’s a mobile-first device designed with portability and connectivity in mind, but the apps it can run are full-fledged PC apps. Samsung makes just one model, with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. Please click the button below to agree to our Terms and Conditions and acknowledge our Privacy Policy. If an account exists, we've sent an email with a link to reset your password. Therefore it’s not a bad start for the Core i5-L16G7, the first of Intel’s hybrid chips. CNN News staff is not involved. Samsung Galaxy Book S 4G LTE Connectivity. Samsung touts up to 25 hours of continuous video playback, an astronomical number for any laptop. Beneath it is a full-size keyboard, with a power button in the top right corner that doubles as a fingerprint reader. It started to come unstuck when I opened a couple of fairly large photos in Affinity Photo. The Samsung Galaxy Book S is an absolute marvel when it comes to laptop design. Either port can be used to charge the laptop or for tasks like syncing your phone. The reason you have this sort of design is that for simple things the chip consumes less power than the equivalent standard dual or quad-core chip, but it still has the poke to do heavy lifting when required. Like many ACPCs, the Samsung Galaxy Book S is more of a device in search of an audience than one that changes the equation in a way that draws in its own crowd. A microSD card slot is on the underside of the laptop in a small pull-out tray. Throughout a week of daily use, we found that the invisible line on the trackpad differentiating where a left click ends and a right click begins seemed to move around. Samsung rates the battery for at least 1,000 full charge cycles while still maintaining at least 80% capacity. Samsung's Galaxy Book S is an extremely lightweight mobile companion, which is powered by an ARM processor. Using a Wyze camera, we recorded a time-lapse video and, to our surprise, the Book S lasted 14 hours and 47 minutes. Samsung’s latest Galaxy Book S is one of the first laptops available with Intel’s new hybrid processor that aims to be both powerful and power efficient for long battery life. 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