Not content with landing on convertibles and 13 inches, Samsung is also attacking 15.6 inches with the Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro. Is right ?
Yes Samsung. The electronics and household appliance giant had a presence in IT for a very long time, before the crash in the sector made it take a small step back. Momentum for a new leap forward? The Galaxy Book range is in any case trying, and here we have the third element of the triptych. The 15.6-inch diagonal isn’t necessarily the most hotly contested battleground in the world, making the Galaxy Book 2 Pro stand out. In good ?
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Technical sheet
| Model | Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022) |
|---|---|
| Screen size |
13.3 inch, 15.6 inch |
| Definition |
1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Display technology |
AMOLED |
| Touchscreen |
Non |
| Processor (CPU) |
i5-1240P |
| Graphics chip (GPU) |
intel Iris Xe |
| Memory (RAM) |
8 Go, 16 Go |
| Internal memory |
512 Go, 1024 Go |
| Standard Wi-Fi |
Wi-Fi 6E |
| Version du Bluetooth |
5.1 |
| Operating system (OS) |
Microsoft Windows 11 |
| Dimensions |
304,4 x 11,2 x 199,8 mm |
| Weight |
868 grammes |
| Prix | 1 299 € |
| Product sheet |
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Design
Ultrabooks have continued to improve in recent years. One might therefore doubt Samsung’s ability to get up to speed. But let’s not forget that thanks to the markets for smartphones and tablets, it is far from having lost its touch. The 15.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro makes us forget the behemoths of yesteryear. Rather, we are dealing with an incredibly compact machine, which is only 1.17 cm thick and weighs only 1.11 kg.
It’s very simple: its main competitor is none other than the LG Gram 16, with which it shares many traits. Starting with this design of extreme sobriety, all in black and light metal with rounded corners. The finishes are simply exemplary, and taking the device in hand is always surprising by its ability not to make its size felt. It is perhaps on the side of the borders of the screen, and particularly the lower border, that we are entitled to expect better from Samsung, but this disappears with use and is less of a embarrassment that a possible improvement in the future.
Keyboard and touchpad
Here we find a full-size chicklet keyboard including everything expected of an AZERTY keyboard, including a function bar whose keys are however slightly thinner than the whole. The presence of a real full-size Enter key is a pleasure, knowing that many competitors split it in two in the American style.
On the right, a 15.6-inch PC requires, we also find a numeric keypad. It offers keys, however, narrower than the rest of the keyboard, which requires some time to adapt before being used comfortably. At the top, the ignition key doubles as a fingerprint reader to ensure the security of the device thanks to Windows Hello.
This keyboard is half-hearted. On the one hand, he is very responsive and bounces easily on every strike, with the usual short travel for a chicklet. On the other, it lacks a bit of resistance for my taste to ensure the precision of my shot. But it’s just that: a matter of taste. Fortunately, the large glass touchpad with an irreproachable glide will make everyone agree.
connectors
On the left is a full-size HDMI port, a USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 port, and a Thunderbolt 4 port. On the right, the combo jack, a USB-A 3.2 port and a microSD card reader. In view of this relatively limited connection for a 15.6 inch format, it is difficult not to wonder why the two USB C ports on the left are not both Thundertbolt 4 compatible. Or why the SD port is not full format .
Source: Anthony Wonner – Frandroid
Source: Anthony Wonner – Frandroid
Here we have a helpful connection, but not necessarily optimized. The sacrifice is not uncommon, since this is how many manufacturers can create devices with such a thin format, but Samsung does not seem to have thought regarding optimizing its machine either and was content to stick classic options.
Webcam et audio
The same goes for the in-machine speakers, developed by AKG. So yes, the Dolby Atmos is there, but the physical configuration places them once once more below the machine for a rendering that is struggling to convince. Don’t think you’ll respect the efforts of the musicians you listen to, but that’ll do for YouTube videos.
The 1080p camera is there too… oh well. Like any other. And the software improvements offered by Samsung have no other effect than to play hide-and-seek. Avoid false bokeh as much as possible, which is of deplorable quality, but face smoothing and light compensation are appreciable for video.
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Screen
Impossible not to wait for Samsung when turning on its slabs. The Korean manufacturer is the all-category champion of this market, and it has to prove it on each of its devices. The Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro has a 15.6-inch AMOLED screen in Full HD definition (1920 x 1080 pixels), with a 16:9 ratio and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. It may be on the latter part that a small disappointment points the tip of its nose, other competitors like Asus offering at least 90 Hz.
Under our probe, we observe what we expected from Samsung, namely excellent coverage of the important market gamuts: 163% for sRGB, 109.6% for DCI-P3 and 74% for Adore RGB. In its auto mode, which is essentially the same as the DCI-P3 mode, this amounts to an average Delta E2000 of 3.23 for colors very close to reality. We also note a color temperature of 6800K which comes close to the 6500K target of the video standard.
The only disappointment comes from its maximum brightness, measured at 408 cd/m². That’s enough for the computer to be readable in direct sunlight, but not enough for it to become comfortable to read. The mat treatment of the screen will help in this sense, but we would have appreciated 100 to 200 cd/m² more to never have to counter the sun’s rays.
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Software
Windows 11, of course. However, Samsung isn’t leaving the system unattended, and has developed its own universe of utilities and tweaks on top of Microsoft’s operating system. The two entities are already making friends in the world of smartphones, there is nothing surprising in that. So there are a few apps like Notes or Bixby (yes, you read that right: Bixby), as well as an in-depth link to Galaxy devices in the form of a mirror mode.
Above all, we will note specific parameters for Samsung devices which use the same interface… as Android. It’s quite disturbing, but not unpleasant, especially since it is here that we will find many important settings such as the default colorimetry of the screen. Samsung’s additions are therefore mostly welcome, even if we also regret the presence of applications and particularly the demonic McAfee.
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Performances
The Korean manufacturer has once more not really sought to optimize its proposal for its largest diagonal. The Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro is also equipped with the Intel Core i7-1260P, Intel’s 12th generation with 12 cores: 4 performance cores and 8 efficient cores for 16 threads. It comes with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, which is soldered to the motherboard.
General benchmarks
So the performance is exactly the same as for all the other machines of this Book 2 Pro generation? Not quite. Where we observed a limitation on the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, which made it less efficient than the Asus Zenbook 14 with the similar technical data sheet, it disappears here.
Its score of 8639 in multi core and 1644 in single core on Cinebench r23 makes the 15.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro equivalent to the Zenbook 14. We also observe it on PCMark 10 with a score of 5124, slightly higher than its competitor. For who was worried regarding Samsung’s clamping, this large model is for you!
The 512 GB PCI-E 3.0 NVMe SSD storage integrated into our test machine is equivalent to all those in its range, and thus offers good performance.
Cooling and noise
That doesn’t mean the 15.6-inch Galaxy Book 2 Pro gets hot and noisy, though: the device is constantly quiet and never really warm to the touch on a day-to-day basis. The comfort promised by Samsung is therefore still valid on this larger format.
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Autonomy
The 15.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro sports a 68Wh battery, slightly larger than the 13.3-inch 63Wh model.
In our PCMark 10 battery life test, the device went the distance with 12 hours and 22 minutes on the clock to go from 100 to 3% battery. Enough to hold on to a productive day! The difference with the Galaxy Book 2 Pro 360, which did not impress us, is surely explained by the fact that our model does not have a touch screen to manage.
As always, you can count on recharging at 65W in Power Delivery to restore health to your computer. The most impressive in this aspect is its very small charging block, which has the luxury of being less imposing than even the majority of the latest smartphone blocks.
Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro (2022)Price and availability
The 15.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book 2 Pro retails for a starting price of $1,599 with 512GB of storage. You can upgrade to 1TB of storage for 1799 euros. In this diagonal, the computer is only available with the Intel Core i7-1260P.
