For the year 2021, Samsung finally finds focus with its new Samsung Galaxy Book Pro series, which comes in a normal laptop design, or a convertible “360” 2-in-1 which comes as a 13-inch and 15-inch.
This post is all about the $1,499 Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 review, which is now readily available for you to buy. Coming with a gorgeous AMOLED display, excellent S Pen, and a wonderful robust software suite, Samsung is playing for keeps. However, the company also has some limitations that place this laptop computer just out of reach of greatness. Fortunately, its great pricing helps redeem it in the end.
Samsung’s new Galaxy Book Pro 360 is powered by some of the latest hardware on the market like Intel’s 11th-gen processors, an AMOLED panel, and more to make it one of the best laptops on the market. Here’s everything you need to know about the Galaxy Book Pro 360.
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Design
Just like the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 is also a skinny and lightweight laptop computer. however, the highlight here is the proven fact that it could be turned all the way around due to a 360-degree hinge. The laptop computer conjointly comes with a touchscreen and S Pen support, permitting us to use it as a tablet still.
Samsung says the S Pen is an updated version that is claimed to be 2.5x thicker than the last one that shipped with the Galaxy Book Flex. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 is claimed to come back with plenty of productivity apps that support the S Pen, making it a decent productivity machine. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 conjointly comes with a keyboard that uses a scissor mechanism to provide 1mm of near-silent typing.
The touchpad on the Galaxy Book Pro 360 may be a bit larger than what is on different Galaxy laptops. You furthermore get a fingerprint scanner that is embedded into the power button. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 additionally comes with speakers that are tuned by AKG and it supports Dolby Atmos.
Before I go too deep, let us take a look at how thin the Galaxy Book Pro 360 is compared to its rivals. At 14 x 9 x 0.47 inches, the Galaxy is considerably slimmer than the HP Spectre x360 15 (14.2 x 8.9 x 0.8 inches, 4.2 pounds), the Apple MacBook Pro (12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches, 2.8 pounds) and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 (13.4 x 9.6 x 0.5 inches, 3.4 pounds).
On the left edge of the Galaxy Book Pro 360, you’ll find a Thunderbolt 4 port (marked with a faint lightning bolt logo) and a USB Type-C next to a tiny LED power indicator. Over on the right is another USB 3.1 Type-C port — letting you charge from either side — alongside a microSD card slot and a headphone jack.
Display and graphics
If there’s one huge point of the Galaxy Book Pro 360, it’s Samsung’s renowned AMOLED display technology. Whereas AMOLED is common to TVs and currently smartphones, it’s uncommon in laptops. Samsung has experimented within the past with Super AMOLED (sAMOLED) in its 2018 Galaxy Book2, and QLED in Galaxy Book Flex, however used normal TFT in its recent Galaxy Book S.
AMOLED lives up to the high praise. In our tests, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 delivers exceptional color illustration with 100% sRGB, 85th AdobeRGB, and 96 DCI-P3 – all of that is way higher than average for this laptop computer category. Samsung additionally brings some clever tricks, too. for example, like high-end HP laptops, the display will auto switch color profiles supported by the application (“Intelligent Color Engine”). So, Adobe RGB is employed for image editing, whereas when watching a film, it will move to DCI-P3 and use vivid for everything else. Also, like HP, there’s a “focus mode” that auto-dims the background to assist extend battery life.
VESA DisplayHDR five hundred is additionally supported, which makes movie watching a blast with the next contrast vary. The screen conjointly supports wide-color gamut (WCG) natively in Windows, as well as apps that support it. With “adaptive color,” the portable computer auto-adjusts the color-supported lighting (this is totally different from auto-brightness, which is additionally an option).
But there are trade-offs, too. This display solely peaks at a bizarrely low 286-nits of highest brightness (when set to 0.33, the screen is an exceptionally dim 3.9 nits). Most laptops of late hit 400 nits, and Samsung’s own Galaxy Book Flex with QLED peaks at 623 nits. However, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 isn’t too dim and, due to how AMOLED works with separately lit pixels, appears brighter than most laptops and is way a lot consistent.
Another area of concern is the full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. whereas such a resolution is OK on a 13.3-inch screen, it pushes the boundaries on a 15.6-inch one where the AMOLED pixels come into view and text is a lot of jagged than most well-liked. it’s outstanding, however a “2K” resolution at 1440p would are a superb middle ground. As a plus, the full HD will facilitate increase graphics performance and extend battery life.
Like Samsung’s TVs, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 encompasses a shiny screen, however, because of the design, it reflects darker than an LCD, giving pleasing results and far lower reflectivity than similar laptops.
The included S Pen is outstanding. Though Samsung’s pen technology in laptops isn’t as widely used as Wacom AES or N-trig (Surface), I would argue that it is the best feeling for latency and accuracy as an informal user. The S Pen does not even require batteries or charging. The drawback is as a result of the S Pen is currently 2.5x thicker, which is great for ergonomics, there’s no place to slot it in like with the Galaxy Book Flex. Instead, it will stick to the lid with some magnets, however, its being black makes it very simple to lose in a bag.
Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 review: Performance
The Galaxy Book Pro 360, equipped with an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor and 16GB of RAM, loaded twenty-five Google Chrome tabs while not batting an eye fixed. I watched the Champions League game between Chelsea and Real Madrid on Paramount+ whereas picking away at edits and touching up some photos, and the Galaxy Book pro handled it pretty cool.
With a multi-core score of 5,575 on the Geekbench 5.4 overall performance benchmark, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 outpaced the typical (4,361) and also the Spectre x360 15 (4,668, Core i7-10750H) despite its H-series chip, however, fell behind the Surface laptop 4 (6,748, Ryzen 7 4980U) and also the MacBook Pro (5,925, M1)
It took the Galaxy Book Pro 360 sixteen minutes and twenty-four seconds to convert a 4K video to 1080p using the Handbrake video test. Again, it beat the Spectre x360 15 (18:01) however required longer on this test than the Surface laptop 4 (8:21) and also the MacBook Pro (7:44). the average premium laptop computer (15:59) edged it out by a number of seconds.
Samsung makes a number of the most effective external SSDs on the market thus it’s no surprise the 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD in our Galaxy Book Pro 360 duplicated a 25GB file in thirty-one seconds for a transfer rate of 869.5 megabytes per second. that’s a lot of speedier than the Spectre x360 15 (454.2 MBps, 1TB PCIe SSD), the Surface laptop 4 (372.5 MBps, 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD), and also the premium average (626.6 MBps).
Battery life
Samsung assured us twenty hours of battery life from the Galaxy Book Pro 360. whereas we ne’er expected it to hit that mark, the Book Pro 360 did put up a wonderful runtime of thirteen hours and thirty-four minutes in the laptop mag Battery check (continuous net surfing over Wi-Fi at one hundred fifty nits).
Only the MacBook Pro (16:32) out-endured the Galaxy Book Pro 360, which stayed power-driven for more extended than the Surface laptop 4 (12:04) and also the class average (10:22).
Price and availability
The entry price for the 13.3-inch Samsung Galaxy Book Pro starts at $1,299, climbing thereafter once you start upgrading the processor and storage. For those people with a more generous budget, there’s a 15.6-inch model available with a $1,499 starting price.
The Galaxy Book Pro was released on 30 April 2021 and is readily available for you to buy from your favourite retailers right now.
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What we think about this laptop
We can confidently say in the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 review that this is a superb choice for people who desire a massive screen on an ultra-portable chassis. Content creators can appreciate the vivid 15.6-inch AMOLED display, and also the Book Pro 360 slender however sturdy aluminum frame means that frequent travelers will not even notice the laptop computer in their backpack, purse, or case.
It does not use the foremost powerful processors however the Core i7-1165G7 CPU with 16GB of RAM delivered a quick performance in our benchmarks and real-world tests alike.
There is some space for improvement. The display, whereas gratifyingly colorful, does not get terribly bright. Also, the keyboard is shallow, and also the two hinges are not as sturdy as I might like them to be. Gamers ought to also avoid the Galaxy Book Pro 360 because it depends on integrated graphics.
If there’s an immediate rival to the Galaxy Book Pro 360, it is the 15-inch Surface laptop 4. That, too, is a superb transportable laptop computer however it does not have a 2-in-1 style just like the Samsung. There is additionally the LG Gram fourteen 2-in-1 to think about however it’s considerably chunkier than the Galaxy Book Pro 360 and also the chassis appears uninspired compared to the current blue beauty.
Overall, if you wish for an ultra-thin, ultra-lightweight convertible laptop computer with a 15-inch display, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 is pretty much as good as they get, despite the fact that it is a few missteps lagging off the competition with the likes of the Dell XPS 15 or MacBook Pro as an overall package.
| WHAT WE LIKE | WHAT WE DO NOT LIKE |
| Excellent battery life | No S pen slot |
| Reliable fingerprint sensor | The display could be brighter |
| Attractive design (in Mystic Blue) | |
| Class-leading portability |
Done with the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 review? Check out the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro review (the non-convertible version of this premium laptop) if you’re not a fan of 2-in-1’s and still want the same slim yet productive machine from Samsung.
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