Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge Review: Beauty Before Strength

Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chips have quickly turned Windows on Arm into a viable platform. We’ve tested more than half a dozen laptops with the new processors, and even the least powerful chip is on par with Intel and AMD’s latest-generation processors in terms of CPU performance and beats them in terms of battery life. But I’ve been eager to get my hands on a laptop with Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon processor to see if it can do even more. I got to see the high-end model in action in April on a demo machine, and it looked like it would be the chip to help usher in a new era of faster, more power-efficient Windows PCs and compete with Apple’s M3 MacBook Air in a way that Intel or AMD hadn’t.

That chip, the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100, is only available in one Copilot Plus PC: Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge. It’s Samsung’s thinnest and lightest 16-inch laptop, designed for everyday web browsing, a mix of business- and creative-focused work, and running Windows Copilot Plus AI apps like Live Captions and Cocreator. The Edge has similar features to the Intel-based Galaxy Book4 Ultra, like an AMOLED display and fingerprint reader, but it also offers faster ports and faster Wi-Fi.

The X1E-84-100 chip is supposed to be up to 20 percent faster than the successor model. Samsung has had the chance to do the laptop that could show off the platform’s full potential. Instead, it underpowered that chip to make the thinnest chassis possible. There’s still a good laptop in the Book4, but you don’t need to buy the best chip to get it, and you’d actually be better off saving your money.

Heavy, awkwardly portable 16-inch laptops have become a thing of the past, making larger screens an increasingly attractive option. The Book4 Edge pushes the limits of a 16-inch machine even further. It’s one of the few 16-inch laptops that’s less than half an inch thick and weighs less than 3.5 pounds, making it one of the most portable large laptops available. It doesn’t strain my back when I carry it in my messenger bag, and I feel like I can be more agile with it because its weight is distributed across a wider area than some of the lighter, smaller Copilot Plus PCs I’ve tested. It’s easier to hold, so I don’t worry about dropping it.

The Edge’s build quality is solid. Its metal chassis is completely rigid, the lid doesn’t flex when you open or close the laptop, and the hinge maintains a firm grip on the lid no matter how you tilt it. Aesthetically, the machine’s gray keys blend well with its silver body. Samsung says the body color is actually sapphire blue, but I don’t see anything blue about it.

The keyboard is responsive but not eye-catching. I like that the keys aren’t too low and don’t make a lot of noise, especially for a heavy-fingered typist like me. But they do feel sluggish. Actual typing feels slower and softer than I expected. I don’t mind them entirely, but after typing on the Asus Zenbook S 16, a competing 16-inch laptop that’s about the same size and weight, I don’t want to go back to the Samsung.

The Book4 Edge would be perfect for work, school, or any environment where all you need is a fast, reliable machine to handle the basics. The laptop opens programs a bit faster than many competing AMD or Intel machines, and it can handle a lot of browser tabs or streaming movies just as well. But because Samsung prioritized design over performance, it missed the chance to show off what Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon chip is capable of at its best.

The base Book4 Edge model features a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 processor, but the top-end model I reviewed has the X1E-84-100 chip, which is claimed to be up to 20 percent faster. It should also be able to boost the maximum clock speed of two of its cores from 3.8GHz to 4.2GHz.

I tracked the X1E-84-100’s clock speeds throughout my testing. Even in our most demanding multicore benchmarks, none of its 12 cores hit 4.2 GHz. Samsung didn’t tell me exactly how much power it’s giving the CPU in the Book4 Edge, but it’s clearly not enough. I also track power consumption throughout the benchmarks. The Book4 Edge never drew more than 35 W from the outlet during my testing; every other laptop I’ve tested with a Qualcomm chip has drawn more than 50 W.

Like many processors, the Snapdragon X Elite chip can operate within a pretty wide power range — give it more power and it will run faster. It will also produce more heat. The thinner the laptop, the less room there is for the cooling system to dissipate that heat, and consequently the less power you can give the processor. By giving the chip less power, Samsung keeps temperatures in check and the chassis thin. Thankfully, the fact that the Book4 Edge doesn’t hit its maximum clock speed has no effect on how it feels to use it on a day-to-day basis. It’s still about the same speed as the other Snapdragon X Elite laptops we’ve tested.

But it was disappointing when I compared its benchmark scores to laptops with lower-tier Snapdragon chips, like the Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and saw lower numbers; the Book4 Edge was 13 to 16 percent slower in multicore performance than those laptops, respectively. The Edge is currently the only laptop with Qualcomm’s fastest processor, and I wanted to see it fly!

The upside to not running the laptop at full power is that it’s pretty energy efficient: I typically got about 14 hours of battery life on a charge. I managed to get through nearly two full work days with Microsoft Edge loaded up with dozens of tabs, streaming music, writing, and the occasional video call. I had the laptop’s power mode set to its most efficient setting, but there was no change in the Book4 Edge’s responsiveness. (I didn’t notice a noticeable difference in power consumption between efficiency mode and performance mode.)

What impressed me most about this laptop’s battery life is that it lasted so long on a relatively small 61.8 Wh battery, proving just how efficient Qualcomm has made its Snapdragon processors. How efficient? Consider the nearly identical 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Ultra, which has an Intel Core Ultra chip and a 76 Wh battery. The Book4 Edge lasted about 20 minutes longer, even with an 18 percent smaller battery. Yes, the chip is that efficient.

Its 2880 x 1800 (3K) AMOLED display also helps save power. It has about half the number of pixels of a 4K display, so the laptop doesn’t have to work as hard to power it. But there are still plenty of pixels to keep images clean and sharp while also generating an expanse of accurate, vibrant colors. It’s a happy medium that doesn’t sacrifice image quality for battery life, a big reason why displays with similar resolutions are starting to pop up more often in productivity and gaming laptops.

The Book4 Edge is a good, thin, light laptop for someone like a student who needs a big-screen machine that can handle multiple open apps with ease. It has excellent battery life, a nice display, and looks great. I just can’t understand why Samsung would put the most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip in a laptop and then not take advantage of it. There’s no reason to buy the $1,750 model I tested; the base $1,450 model is a much better value for 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chip.

The Snapdragon processor makes the Book4 Edge one of the thinnest and lightest 16-inch Windows laptops you can get, with excellent battery life and performance. But power users who need a Windows laptop for creative work or gaming will still be much better off with an AMD or Intel machine. Those machines will have better app compatibility and better graphics performance, though, yes, you’ll have to give up at least a few hours of battery life. Asus’s ZenBook S 16, for example, starts at $1,699. It has faster performance, comes with more RAM, and costs a bit less than the Book4 Edge, but it’s about a third of a pound heavier and gets about 11 hours of battery life instead of 14.

Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge is a good laptop for what it offers. But I haven’t seen what Qualcomm’s more powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip is capable of.

Photo by Joanna Nelius / The Verge