Tag Archives: Galaxy Book Pro

Samsung Unpacks the New Galaxy Book Series

Samsung unpacked a brand new series of laptops that make up the new Galaxy Book Series. The new series brings a renewed focus on productivity and also inter-device connectivity with Samsung focusing on features like Multi-control and Second Screen.

Samsung Galaxy Book 01
Source: Samsung

The Galaxy Book Series comprises of three entries: The Galaxy Book Pro, Galaxy Book Pro 360 and the Galaxy Book Ultra. Each brings Samsung’s flavours to a different class of laptops. However, they focus on bringing a revolutionary user experience to the thin and light category of laptops.

The Galaxy Book Pro brings either a 14-inch or 16-inch display to the traditional clamshell laptop form factor. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 brings a larger 16-inch display complete with S Pen functionality. Finally, the Galaxy Book Ultra is a 16-inch beast looking to find its home with creators. The three laptops have a simplistic design that emphasises minimalism and functionality. This design approach allows Samsung to have a series of laptops that are incredibly thin and light with the largest – the Ultra – coming in at only 16.5mm thick and weighing 1.79kgs.

The Galaxy Books will be coming with the latest 13th Generation Intel Core processors. Samsung has supercharged their Galaxy Book Ultra with configurations supporting the Core i7 and Core i9 with up to 32GB of RAM. Together with these, the Ultra will also feature configurations with either the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX4050 Laptop GPU. The Pro and Pro 360, on the other hand, will take advantage of the integrated Intel Xe Graphics.

Samsung Galaxy Book 04
Source: Samsung

All the laptops come equipped with a 16:10 Dynamic AMOLED Display with support for up to a 3K display with a resolution of 2880×1800. The display also sports a 120Hz refresh rate with a 500nit peak brightness. It’s also VESA ClearMotion Ratio and VESA Display HDR TrueBlack 500 certified. In addition, the Galaxy Book Series will also come with studio-quality dual mics with ambient noise cancellation. They also come with a quad-speaker setup with two 5W woofers and two 2W tweeters for a more immersive audio experience.

When it comes to ports, the laptops come with a universal USB-C charger, microSD card slot, USB Type-A (v3.2), headphone and mic combo input, Thunderbolt 4 enabled USB-C ports and an HDMI port. They also ship with an integrated FHD webcam.

Software to Complement the Power

In addition to the hardware, Samsung has its eyes focused on providing a uniquely Samsung experience when it comes to their laptop lineup. The laptops will be able to take advantage of Galaxy Book Smart Switch which allows you to copy all your data from your old PC over to your Galaxy Book. You’ll also be able to leverage your Samsung account to sign in with Single Sign On (SSO). Your passwords are also securely stored in Samsung Pass.

Samsung Galaxy Book 07
Source Samsung

If you’re working on the go, you’ll probably be utilising Link to Windows to connect and control your smartphone from your laptop. In addition, with the latest updates to the app, you’ll be able to automatically turn on your phone’s Hotspot feature with Auto Hotspot. Samsung is also bringing the ability to synchronise your recent websites with your laptop. The most useful feature will, of course, be Multi Control which allows you to seamlessly transition between your phone, tablet or laptop. In addition, you can even use your Galaxy Tab as a second screen.

Pricing & Availability

The Galaxy Book laptops will not be available in Malaysia. However, they will be available in global markets starting in Q2 2023.

Now You Can Repair Your Samsung Galaxy S22 Smartphone by Yourself!

The rights to repair bill in the United States (U.S.), believe it or not, is a big deal not just in that side of the world. The bill sort of encourages manufacturers to design products that can be easily repaired and serviced by end-users without going through a service center. It also requires manufacturers make parts of their devices available for end-users to purchase. While the bill is a requirement that has to be fulfilled for products being sold in the U.S. for now, the product design will make their way around the globe eventually.

Samsung has initiated their own self-repair program with a few of their older products like the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, Galaxy S21 series, and the Galaxy Tab S7+ tablet. They have announced that they will be starting to sell the parts to their Galaxy Book Pro 15”, Galaxy Book Pro 360 15”, Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+, and Galaxy S22 Ultra. The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 15” and Galaxy Book 360 Pro 15” are not technically available in the region, so that might not excite some of you. The Samsung Galaxy S22 family though, those are available here.

The program was kickstarted in collaboration with iFixit. There is the caveat, at least for Malaysia. The iFixit store currently only caters to the U.S. market. You can technically get them to ship the parts to Malaysia, but that means that you are paying quite exorbitantly for shipping charges on top of the parts. It still might make more sense if you go to a specialised repair shop down the road, at least for now.

Still, the addition of Samsung’s latest Galaxy S22 series and Galaxy Book line-up is good news. It shows that Samsung is serious and committed in supporting their self-repair program. As we mentioned, while the program is not made to cater the South East Asian market just yet, it will eventually make it here and we are excited for it to be available through official channels in the region. If you are interested to get genuine parts for your Samsung devices, you can check out iFixit. There are no guarantees that the warranty will be covered by Samsung Malaysia though.   

Samsung Unpacked Event Launches the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360

Samsung just had an unpacked event last night and we found it quite odd. We did not expect a major unpacked event to happen at this time of the year. Still, it happened, and they launched something we did not really expect them to launch since a few years ago.

Welcome to Samsung’s first notebook PC product in many years. Welcome to the Samsung Galaxy Book ecosystem. First on the menu, are the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360.

We are going to assume that the Samsung Galaxy Book and Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 is the premium thin and light in their expanding stables of notebook products. The Galaxy Book Pro is light though at less than a kg. Specifically, it weighs just a little under 870g (13.3-inch). The 15.6-inch variant is not that much heavier too at a maximum of 1.15kg.

Source: Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 are Intel EVO certified platforms with some new tricks up their sleeves to make it even more seamless for users than ever; we will talk about this later. Intel EVO also means that it packs Intel’s latest 11th Generation Core i7 (up to) to boot. Alongside Intel’s Core processors also is a very capable Intel Iris Xe Graphics. You can opt for an NVIDIA GeForce MX450 discrete GPU (Galaxy Book Pro 15.6-inch) too if you want to and it is available in your region. The powerful Intel processor can be matched to an ample 32GB (up to) of RAM to make quick work of your tasks on the Galaxy Book Pro. It even packs up to 1TB of SSD space to store all the important documents and even your videos.

There is more inside the Galaxy Book Pro and the Galaxy Book Pro 360 though. All Samsung Galaxy Book Pro models, including the 360, packs WiFi 6E capabilities for smooth, stable network experience anywhere they can find WiFi signals. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 (13.3-inch) even has a SIM tray with 5G capabilities. The Galaxy Book Pro (13.3-inch) only has LTE capable SIM tray at this point, but LTE is plenty useful too when you are constantly on the go.

Both the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 comes with AMOLED (Super AMOLED for Galaxy Book Pro 360) display pushing images at Full HD 1080p resolution. What that means is that you get crisp, saturated, vivid, and very pretty images and videos on your Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 notebooks. Thanks to the added colour accuracy, editing photos and videos on the notebook should be an experience. You can even edit your photos via Samsung’s own Gallery app now ported to Windows on the Samsung Galaxy Book series.

Source: Samsung

They have redesigned the keyboard as well for a better typing experience. The new Pro Keyboard, as they know it, supposedly features an optimum key travel of up to 1mm and is designed to be quieter and softer than ever before. All that allows for a smooth and comfortable typing experience especially when you are working on long emails. The Pro Keyboard is also a repositioning of the keyboard to maximise your typing position and therefore maximizing the trackpad for a more intuitive navigation through Windows 10.

Both notebooks in the series receive AKG’s treatment for audio with Dolby Atmos certification. That also means immersive sound on both ultrabooks. You even get to immerse yourself in movies even longer with up to 20 hours of video playback time and 16 hours in work/play time from the battery. Of course, that is what is being quoted by Samsung anyway, we have not had our chances to put it through our paces, so we can only take Samsung’s word for it at this time. Both notebooks also come with 65W Fast Charging via USB Type-C ports. The chargers are included of course. You can use the same charger to fast charge your Samsung Galaxy S21 device too.

What’s more impressive is that they managed to fit both the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 with a full-sized HDMI, and a full-sized USB Type-A port into the slim bodies of both notebooks. But that is really not the most impressive part of the notebook. The most impressive part of the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 is how well they seem to integrate Samsung’s own ecosystem into Windows, and how Samsung integrates their Android experience into Windows.

If you are already a Samsung device user, you get to benefit plenty from the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360. For one, you get a very familiar S-Pen on the Galaxy Book Pro 360. It is about as big as the one you get from the Samsung Galaxy Tab S, and it is as brilliant, supposedly. But if you own a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 for example, you get to treat that tablet as a secondary display. It is a secondary touch sensitive display too, so you can naturally draw on the tablet and transfer it to the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro series instantly and seamlessly.

Easy Bluetooth Connection automatically detects other Samsung devices like the Samsung’s Buds earphones line-up for example, or even the Galaxy Watch devices. That also means you do not have to dig through Window’s annoying Bluetooth settings to pair up your earphones and synchronize your Samsung Bluetooth devices. But Samsung’s collaboration with Windows also means that it is now easier than ever to link your Android smartphone to windows with Link to Windows and Your Phone app. You need not download DeX anymore to get your device to seamlessly work on Windows.

You even get access to Smart Things within the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 to control all your smart home products from your notebook instead of your smartphone. Quick Share is now a part of the Windows ecosystem so you can start sharing any files instantly to Android devices in your vicinity quickly and seamlessly. These are truly the next step to integrate your devices into a single ecosystem, a way to access everything anytime, anywhere, every time, everywhere.  

The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 will be available May 14th onward in selected markets. The Galaxy Book Pro starts at US$ 999 (MYR 4,098*) and is available in Mystic Silver, Mystic Blue, and Mystic Pink Gold colour options. The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 starts at US$ 1,099 (MYR 4,509*) and is available in Mystic Navy, Mystic Silver, and Mystic Bronze colour options. There are no confirmation or information currently on its availability or official pricing in the local (Malaysia) Market. For more information on the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360, you can head over to Samsung’s website.

* Based on approximate exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.10 as of 29/04/2021