A good espresso with some crema releases an intoxicating scent that is earthy and fresh… each time. There needs to be consistency. Consistency of performance is also a good quality to look for in a laptop. With laptops coming in every other week for review, it becomes easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro is the latest “skinny jeans” in the laptop world and it competes with MacBook Air at many levels. It’s no surprise that this is one of the best Windows laptops you can buy at the moment, especially if you are already using a Samsung Galaxy phone.
Geared towards creators and gamers who are on a quest for speed and performance, the laptop has enough future-proofing in terms of performance.
Practical design
I have been testing the 14-inch version of the Galaxy Book4 Pro, which is the perfect size for anyone who travels a lot or carries a laptop to the office every day. It’s compact and lightweight (1.23kg) while in terms of look, I am reminded of the wedge shape that the MacBook did away with a few years ago.
The keyboard has a very satisfying click, and the user can surpass normal typing speeds
Those familiar with Samsung’s laptops will be happy to stick to a design from the previous generation. It’s a no-nonsense style with the brand’s logo on one side of the lid. The matte brushed metal chassis is classy and doesn’t attract too many fingerprints. It’s solidly constructed and there is almost no wobble when you open the screen. The same goes for creakiness — zero, unlike on many other laptops. The display is helmed in by skinny bezels while the port situation is better than on most slim laptops: A pair of Thunderbolt 4, a Type-A USB 3.2, a micro SD memory card and an HDMI 2.1 port (besides the 3.5mm headphone jack).
For security, there is a fingerprint scanner on the power button and even when your finger is moist, there is no problem logging in. As with Samsung devices, there is a layer of protection for your biometric data, courtesy Knox security.
Even though the keyboard doesn’t fill the entire chassis but the keys are large enough, click-y and have a fair bit of key travel. Being well-spaced, the keys are easily accessible and typing documents on the fly is easy. But here’s a quibble — the keyboard backlighting could have been brighter. Touching upon the touchpad, it is of decent size and responsive.
Dazzler of a display
Be it the 14-inch or the 16-inch model, both come with a dynamic AMOLED 2X display with 3K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and anti-reflective surfacing. Needless to say, Samsung offers some of the best displays in the industry. The 3K resolution is a stunner, so colours pop and once you get used to watching videos on this machine, it’s difficult to switch to anything else. Bright, vibrant and pop-y… that somewhat captures the feeling of viewing things on the Samsung laptop. There are a number of different colour profiles you can set — Samsung AMOLED Adobe RGB profile, P3 Profile, sRGB Profile and auto mode. With HDR active, expect stunning contrasts when you are streaming content on Netflix, with deep blacks and clean whites. It’s ideal for outdoor usage.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro (left) versus Apple MacBook Air M3
There is even an anti-reflective surfacing, which works well: Even if you have bright lights in the room, there will be very little reflection. It’s like what you have on the Galaxy S24 Ultra phone.
The distinguishing factor here is the touchscreen. No, you don’t get a touchscreen on the MacBook. Some argue that having a touchscreen on a laptop is unnecessary because you can’t hold your hand up for long (fatigue sets in) while using a touch display and if you must, a tablet is a better option. Without getting into the argument, all we can say is that the display is touch sensitive and works fine.
Coming to audio output, it’s excellent and almost matches the MacBook Air. What you get out of this skinny laptop is amazing, despite the speaker grilles being housed below the laptop.
There is not much to say about the webcam — the 1080p FHD webcam keeps images bright and there are features such as eye contact correction and Auto Framing in Studio effects.
Further, you can link your Samsung Galaxy smartphone to the Samsung laptop and then use the phone’s high-res camera as an alternative.
Top-tier performance
Now you can have 32GB LPDDR5X RAM and this great for people who use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Premiere and even AI tools. The laptop is powered by Intel Core Ultra 7 155H. This is impressive configuration. Samsung is clearly focussed on Gen AI because video apps and photo tools are incorporating plenty of AI features which can be demanding. I am not getting into benchmark scores but be it single-core or multi-core performance, it’s among the best in the industry.
For anyone who wants something really light, this is a good Windows laptop
Playing a game like Resident Evil 3 was easy. I kept the laptop plugged in to get the best performance. It’s a demanding title and the Samsung laptop delivered, even with all the high-res features switched on. While playing Forza, graphics were of high quality and reflections appeared super smooth.
The performance on a MacBook Air or Pro is silky smooth because the company is using its own silicon. Samsung does a great job but the company should look at bolstering its chipset division because that way it can introduce features that others don’t have.
Overall, be it audio or video editing, there is enough power to go through all the tasks.
Should you buy it?
You can expect around seven to eight hours of usage if you are working on demanding tasks. If entertainment is all you want then you get more out of the battery. Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro is a no-brainer for anybody looking for a premium Windows laptop experience.
The fingerprint reader is on the power button
At a glance
Device: Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro
Price: Upwards of Rs 131,990
High notes
Excellent design and lightweight
Powerful performance
There is future-proofing
Works very well with Samsung devices
Brilliant display
Muffled note
Keyboard backlighting could have been better
