Samsung Galaxy Book 12" Review: One Month In
A visitors tries the Galaxy Book at the stand of Samsung on the first day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 27, 2017, in Barcelona./ AFP / LLUIS GENE (LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images)
Samsung is, of course, best known for its smartphones—an area where they currently have a firm hold on the #1 market share. In this day and age though, mobility extends beyond smartphones to tablets and 2-in-1 detachables personal computers. Samsung has quietly been adding Chromebooks, notebooks and personal computers, highlighted by their CES 2017 announcements. The Galaxy Book 12 is Samsung’s second attempt at such a device (after last year’s TabPro S), and in my opinion, a much-improved product. Samsung recently loaned me the new Samsung Galaxy Book 12” for review and after using it as my primary device for a week, and as a secondary device for a month, I wanted to go ahead and offer my thoughts on my experience. While there’s always room for improvement, overall, I enjoyed using the device.
Excels at display, performance, camera
One of the first things I noticed is that the packaging says “premium”—the device comes in a sleek black box with silver lettering. I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but there’s something to be said for making a good first impression. The next thing I noticed was the quality of the display. The Super AMOLED touch screen display makes movies look great, and pictures look sharp and vibrant at full brightness. Though the bezels felt a bit large, I think the 12-inch screen is a good compromise when trading off size for portability. I still felt like I could multitask well when I split the screen into two or three parts, which probably would not be the case with a smaller screen size at 10-11”. At 2.6 pounds, the device is lightweight—not the lightest 2-in-1 we have seen on the market, but still quite portable.
Another important area where I thought the Galaxy Book excelled was performance. For the sake of analysis, I installed and used a variety of software on the device: On the desktop, I installed Office 365, OneNote, Chrome, Edge, OneDrive, Skype, Google Backup & Sync Apple iCloud, and G Suite Sync. From the MS Store, I installed Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Photos, Camera, Mail, Calendar, Weather, and News. I also used Samsung Flow, Notes, and Book Settings. All ran smoothly—the 7th generation Intel Core i5 Processor delivers enough horsepower for office productivity apps, multi-tab browsing, and light gaming. I also let my college interns take a spin on it, and it fared well while using various college applications such as Brightspace, D2L, and Globalyceum. You do not want to run workstation apps or high-end games on this, but productivity apps work great.
The Galaxy Book comes with a 13 MP rear-facing camera, which, compared to almost all other detachables, is very high quality as the only other detachable on the market right now with a nice camera is the new Apple iPad Pro. The device also sports two USB-C ports, which shows Samsung is looking towards the future. I realize dongles may be required for traditional USB devices like a digital camera or memory stick, but I think it is a worthy trade-off, particularly if you are in the Android phone world. I was also pleased to discover that I could charge the device with my Galaxy S8+ charger. Also, I was impressed by the audio capabilities of the device—clear and crisp, and the volume can go up pretty high, surprising given the form factor.
A few other notes—Samsung Flow, while similar to Android Cortana’s “notification sync,” provided more information that Cortana. I did notice, however, that Flow would sometimes suddenly, inexplicably disconnect, even when both systems were right next to each other and both “on.” I am not sure what that is all about, but it is something that Samsung is likely investigating. Another thought I had on Flow is that the fingerprint reader security access from a smartphone did not seem to save time for me, and I ended up just using the password instead. I am personally more of a fan of facial scan security access systems—I would like to see Samsung add that capability eventually. I especially appreciated the Galaxy Book’s LTE option—I find it hard to consider any product truly mobile without it. The WiFi AC was also a plus in my book.
Keyboard and pen
Post a Comment