Review Summary
Expert Rating
Samsung is a household name for smartphones, smart TVs, and even soundbars that enhance your home entertainment experience. It also has the same reputation in computing with its Galaxy Book series of laptops, which feature a number of enhancements designed to elevate productivity and entertainment on the go. The latest version of the series is the Galaxy Book5, which is available in 2 variants – the Book5 Pro with a touchscreen and the Book5 Pro 360 with a 360-degree display. I have the standard Book5 Pro (non-360). Let’s see how this machine performs and who it is right for?
Table of Contents
Key Specifications at a Glance
Processor: Intel Core Ultra 5 – 226V
Display: 14-inch 16:10 WQXGA+ (2880 x 1800) AMOLED touchscreen display
Refresh Rate: 120Hz
RAM: 16 GB LPDDR5X
Storage: 512 GB
Wireless Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
Connectivity:
1 HDMI 2.1
2 Thunderbolt 4
1 USB 3.2
MicroSD Card Reader
1 Headphone out/Mic-in Combo
AC Adapter: 65W
Weight: 1.23 Kg
Design, Build and Connectivity
Kicking things off with the design, we have a very minimal design perfect for the classroom as well as the boardroom. The entire laptop has this gunmetal grey finish, making it look quite elegant. The lid has “Samsung” written in a reflective silver colour that reflects light just like a prism, adding a unique touch. Lift the lid, and you are greeted with the stunning 14-inch AMOLED touchscreen display.
The hinge is strong, with minimal wobble for the display. You can lift the lid with a single finger without wobbling the laptop, which is a testament to the hinge’s build quality and the machine’s overall weight distribution.
Moving to the keyboard, it is large and the keys are well spaced, giving you a good typing experience. If your work requires you to do a lot of typing, then this keyboard won’t disappoint. It has a decent amount of travel and feedback for comfort. The keyboard is backlit, and you have three brightness settings for the backlighting. The power button also doubles up as a fingerprint reader, adding a layer of security. Sticking with security, the laptop supports Windows Hello, but does not have a physical shutter for the webcam.
Moving over to the trackpad, it is fairly large, smooth to the touch and supports the standard multitouch we have come to expect from modern Windows laptops. You can adjust the sensitivity of the trackpad in the settings; in everyday use, it is very smooth to use. I personally switched off the physical right click and used the 2 fingers tap to right click, as the gestures and taps are very precisely recognised on the laptop.
Overall, the build of the laptop is robust with its aluminium build. The contoured edges not only make it easy to carry without a case, but also comfortable for long durations of typing.
The left side of the laptop houses 2 Thunderbolt ports and the HDMI port, while the right has a USB port, headphones-mic combo jack and the card reader. The bottom of the laptop has an intake of fresh air to keep the laptop cool, and while 4 rubber feet keep the laptop elevated, I wouldn’t recommend keeping it on the bed for too long. If you like consuming content on the bed, then you may want to consider the Galaxy Book 5Pro 360 as you can prop that on the bed in tent mode for prolonged use.
Display
Once you go OLED, there is no going back, and Samsung has been the king of displays in smartphones, TVs, and laptops in that regard. The Galaxy Book5 Pro comes with a 14-inch 16:10 WQXGA+ (2880 x 1800) AMOLED touchscreen display that looks gorgeous and is great for consuming content. If you are bingeing content in the middle of the night, I recommend going into the laptop’s settings and switching on HDR for the best experience. It is truly sublime. The 16:10 aspect ratio gives you a little more headroom for documents, Excel sheets, and scrolling through websites. You do get slightly thicker black bars at the top and bottom when watching movies on streaming services, but after a couple of hours, you get used to it. It’s probably the only con of having a 16:10 display. Speaking of cons, my only other problem with the OLED display is how reflective it is. So if you have a light source directly reflecting on the display, you may want to adjust the display or your seating position to ensure you get the best experience.
Apart from that, the display is a dream to work on and consume content. Movies look stunning with deep blacks and accurate skin tones, and even everyday work like typing documents and working on spreadsheets looks great. The refresh rate is 120Hz, making it butter smooth for productivity, social media, and general use.
The laptop has a touchscreen display, and while I do not like touching the display (for fingerprint and smudge reasons), I found it quite convenient to use to scroll through my social media, long PPTs and documents and more. If you use the touchscreen a lot, then know that it is responsive to the lightest touch (in a good way), and pinching to zoom also works when looking at some graphs and stats.
Audio
Moving over to the sound output, the laptop has 2 bottom-firing speakers, and when kept on a table, they shine. The speakers can get loud and are quite clear for laptop speakers. Watching a few episodes of Daredevil Born Again and even The Last of US Season 2 (especially that snow battle in Episode 2) on JioHotstar, some movies on Netflix, or some videos on YouTube, the laptop speakers get loud. When kept on the bed, they can get slightly muffled. When it comes to music, don’t expect deep bass or accurate instruments. But sitting alone in the office (perks of coming in early), I played music on the laptop while working, and it got quite loud and clear.
Performance
Let’s get down to the belly of the beast – the performance of the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro! Below is a look at some synthetic benchmarks of the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro which is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 5 – 226V compared to similarly priced laptops, including the ASUS Zenbook S 16 which is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, and the HP OmniBook X powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100.
As you can see, the Intel Core Ultra 5 – 226V compares well and even surpasses the competition in some benchmarks. In Cinebench, the Galaxy Book5 Pro is on par with the Zenbook S 16, which is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and surpasses HP’s Qualcomm alternative. The same is the case with Geekbench. However, Samsung takes the cake in the 3D Mark benchmarks, beating both its peers.
In PCMark Battery, too, the Intel Core Ultra 5 – 226V-powered Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro lasted for 14Hr 53Min, beating the Qualcomm-powered OmniBook X, which lasted for 12Hr 51Mins.
Moving over to real-world performance, this laptop gave me 1.5 days of heavy productivity and some entertainment, which was about 16 hours of use, which is very good. During my time, I worked on a bunch of articles, did some Excel work, wrote part of this review, wrote part of another review, replied to emails, watched some content (for work, of course), all while having my 30 tabs open in Chrome.
Samsung Ecosystem
One of the best parts about the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro is the seamless integration with the Samsung ecosystem. All you need is a Samsung smartphone or tablet with the same Samsung account logged in. The device must have both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. You can literally drag and drop content from your smartphone or tablet to your Samsung laptop and vice versa, making sharing documents easy. You can also create your travel itinerary on your Samsung laptop and move it seamlessly to your phone and walk away from your machine without waiting for any form of “sync” to happen. You can also use your Samsung Galaxy Tab as a secondary display for your laptop if you need it. So, if you are one who’s invested in the Samsung ecosystem with multiple devices, you will be able to take advantage of a lot of Samsung ecosystem features.
Gaming
We played GTA V and Valorant on the laptop to see how well it works for casual gaming, and the device did not disappoint. We recorded an average of 53 FPS in GTA V and 175 FPS in Valorent. As for the settings, for GTA V, we played the game with MSAA set to 4X, Reflection at 4X, and Anisotropic filtering set to X16. For Valorent, we played the game at High with MSAA set to 2X. To put things into perspective, the HP Omnibook ran GTAV at an average of 49 FPS (with the same settings).
Verdict
Priced at Rs 1,31,990, the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro is a great machine for everyday productivity and work on the go. It weighs ~1.7 kg, making it convenient to travel with. The AMOLED display is stunning to consume content on, and the 16:10 aspect ratio gives you a bit more real estate for productivity. The 120Hz refresh rate makes interacting with the touchscreen display butter smooth. The Intel Core Ultra 5 – 226V powering this laptop is powerful enough to take on the competition and outperforms Qualcomm’s offerings. If a laptop with good battery life and seamless everyday productivity is what you want, you can consider this laptop.
Editor’s Rating: 8.3 / 10
Pros
- Brilliant touchscreen display
- Great battery Life with good performance
- Good build with a comfortable keyboard
- Samsung Ecosystem works well
Cons
- Display can get reflective
- No physical shutter for the camera