Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge review: beauty before brawn

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 matches the latest generation Intel and AMD in CPU performance and beats them in battery life. But I’m 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 top-of-the-line 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 energy-efficient Windows PCs and take on Apple’s MacBook Air M3 in a way that Intel or AMD couldn’t accomplish.

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. Edge has similar features to Intel-based Galaxy Book4 Ultralike an AMOLED display and a fingerprint reader, but it also offers faster ports and Wi-Fi.

The X1E-84-100 chip should be up to 20% faster than the next model. Samsung had the chance to do the laptop that could show the full potential of the platform. Instead, he reduced the power of the chip to have 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 be better off saving money.

Heavy, unportable 16-inch laptops have almost become a thing of the past, making larger screens an increasingly attractive choice. 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 bag, and it feels like I can be more nimble with it since its weight is distributed over a larger area compared to some lighter, smaller Copilot Plus PCs I’ve tested. It’s easier to hold, so I’m not afraid of 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 match perfectly with its silver body. Samsung says the body color is actually sapphire blue, but I don’t see any blue on it.

The keyboard responds, but doesn’t attract attention. I like that the keys aren’t too shallow and don’t make too much noise, especially for a heavy-fingered typist like me. But they feel sluggish. The actual print looks slower and smoother than I expected. I don’t entirely dislike them, 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 Samsung’s.

The Book4 Edge would be great for work, school, or any environment where all you need is a fast, reliable machine to handle the basics. The laptop opens programs a little faster than many competing AMD- or Intel-based machines, and it can also handle multiple browser tabs or movie streaming. But because Samsung prioritized design over performance, it missed the chance to show off what Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon chip can do best.

The base model of the Book4 Edge comes with a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 processor, but the higher-end model I tested has the X1E-84-100 chip, which should be up to 20% faster. It should also be able to increase the maximum clock speed of two of its cores from 3.8 GHz to 4.2 GHz.

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

Like many processors, Snapdragon X Elite chips can run in a fairly wide power range: give it more power and it will run faster. It will also produce more heat. The thinner the laptop, the less space there is for the cooling system to dissipate this heat, and as a result, the less power you can supply to the processor. By providing less power to the chip, Samsung keeps the temperature under control and the chassis thin. Fortunately, the fact that the Book4 Edge doesn’t reach its maximum clock speed doesn’t affect how it feels in everyday use. It’s still the same speed as the other Snapdragon X Elite laptops we’ve tested.

But it was a disappointment 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 advantage of the laptop not running at full blast is that it is quite power efficient: I typically get about 14 hours of battery life on a charge. I was able to use it for almost two full workdays while loading Microsoft Edge with dozens of tabs, streaming music, writing, and making the occasional video call. I set the laptop’s power mode to the most efficient setting, but there was no change in the Book4 Edge’s responsiveness. (I didn’t see a noticeable difference in power consumption between efficiency mode and performance mode.)

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

Its 2880 x 1800 (3K) AMOLED screen also helps save energy. It has about half the pixel count 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 still generating a vibrant, accurate range of colors. It’s a happy compromise that doesn’t sacrifice image quality for battery life—a big reason why displays with similar resolutions are starting to appear more frequently in productivity and gaming laptops.

The Book4 Edge is a good, thin, and 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 beautiful screen and good looks. I simply can’t understand why Samsung would put the most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip in a laptop and not take advantage of it. There’s no reason to buy the $1,750 model I tested; the $1,450 base 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 are still much better off with an AMD or Intel machine. These machines will have better application compatibility and better graphics performance, even if, yes, you will have to change at least a few hours of battery life. Asus’ Zenbook S 16, for example, starts at US$1,699. It performs faster, comes with more RAM, and costs a little less than the Book4 Edge, but it’s about a pound heavier and has about 11 hours of battery life instead of 14.

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

Photography by Joanna Nelius/The Verge