Samsung Galaxy Book S Review - Ultra Thin and Always Connected

Samsung Galaxy Book S Review - Ultra Thin and Always Connected and will keep you going for hours.

The Galaxy Book S is one of those laptops that has a specific target audience, so it will be reviewed as such. It’s not built for gaming as an example, so reviewing it and complaining that I can’t play call of duty on it would be totally pointless. What the Galaxy Book S does offer is excellent battery life, good connectivity and perfect for those who want an always-on, always-connected machine for their work wherever they are.

Out of the box, you will immediately notice how ultra-thin and slim it is, it’s so thin, it almost disappears into thin air and at 960 grams, it’s so light and can be easily chucked in the bag or like me, my chest bag. It’s so slick beyond words and they’ve managed to do this without compromising on materials used, so it’s got a metal chassis, so it’s solid. You get a 13.3inch TFT Full HD touchscreen with narrow bezels, around 94% sRGB coverage, again continuing that sleek look here. One thing I really liked about the display is its brightness of around 335 nits and when I used it outdoors, I can see what I’m doing without the level of struggle I would usually experience with something less bright. If I have any issue, it’s that the glossy finish just attracts a lot of fingerprints. The Galaxy Book S is a true Samsung design craftsmanship, even the downward-firing speakers sound really good with a pleasant surprise, bringing in the efforts of their Audio acquisition with AKG tuned speakers.


There’s a 720p webcam for Zoom calls although not Windows Hello compatible strangely, but where it makes up for it is with the power button that also doubles as a fingerprint sensor to quickly login every time you power on. I generally love the colours used here both on the outside and on the inside, and as with any laptop or device with this kind of keyboard footprint, it will either be comfortable for you or not, depending on the size of your hands, but for me, it was more than good enough. Not enough space to rest my palm, but that’s a compromise I’m willing to make. Having said tho, I still think the trackpad is pretty wide enough but you can’t click the top of it. Keyboard travel is ok, nothing to write home about.

For ports, you get two USB-C on either side of the Galaxy Book S both of which can be used to charge the machine or output a video signal to an external monitor. There’s a 3.5mm headset jack on the left edge, just next to one of the USB-C ports, and a SIM/microSD card tray on the base of the machine. At this point, it feels like a scaled-up Galaxy Note device with a keyboard and Windows 10 running on it.


Powered by Qualcomm 8Cx, it’s part of the reason it’s able to be as slim as it is and it also results in a very cool machine. Integrated with it, is also Qualcomm’s X24 Modem which dishes out some good speeds depending on which network you go with and when you’re in a more secure WiFi zone, you have a 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi. With this processor ship, it also means you’re limited to a 32-bit emulated version of any Windows application you want providing it’s available and 64-bit apps encoded especially for the ARM64 architecture. You can still game on it, use Photoshop also but try to push it for video editing and good luck. Of course, this wouldn’t be a Samsung product without a touch of Samsung-esque software, you can tether your device to it and have it on screen whilst doing work. Battery performance is no issue either, you can easily get a day’s work out of it and then some, so battery life is not something you worry about at all. It felt good to be able to pick it up at any time and just carry on like you have an endless supply of battery.

Verdict? As I mentioned, the Galaxy Book S is not for everyone, if you need a tool for learning, Microsoft Office applications, web browsing and some basic photo editing, then it’s definitely one to consider, it’s stylish, ultra-thin, portable, has long battery life and excellent display, but where it really lacks is apps compatibility and that’s a hard pill to swallow for the price tag.