Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360 test: Flexible, fast and with a touch of AI
May 13, 2024
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While the competition is catching up with the Galaxy Book series with beautiful OLED screens, Samsung is not standing still. If you’re looking for a thin, light yet
While the competition is catching up with the Galaxy Book series with beautiful OLED screens, Samsung is not standing still. If you’re looking for a thin, light yet powerful 16-inch laptop, you’ve come to the right place.
Since entering the European market in 2022, Samsung has impressed with the Galaxy Book laptop series. The breathtaking OLED screens in particular were a real eye-catcher. That was still the case in 2023, but the competition was gradually waking up. This year everyone is on edge, making it harder for Samsung to stand out.
The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360 (from 1,735 euros excluding VAT) packs everything into a competitive package with a minimalist look. New this year is the touch of AI you get thanks to the Intel Core Ultra chip on board the device.
All in all, this laptop is a great picture, but that was also the case last year. It’s up to you whether you want to surf the AI PC hype.
The same design philosophy
Samsung remains true to its design philosophy and hardly changes anything externally. That’s not necessarily a bad idea, after all, we were very impressed with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro last year. The large touchpad is very comfortable to use and the metal housing feels particularly stable. Samsung doesn’t do MIL-STD testing, so we can’t really be sure it’s long-term robust.
The number 360 already suggests that this is a model with a 360-degree hinge and touchscreen. Samsung includes a stylus that is based on Wacom technology and has an integrated digitizer. This means you don’t need a battery in the pen. The pen works well, unfortunately there is no holder in the case.
We believe that there is a high chance that active pen users will lose their pen in no time unless they purchase a laptop case with space for the pen.
As far as connectivity is concerned, we can only be satisfied. Despite the thin housing, we find: 2x USB-C (Thunderbolt 4), 1x USB A (USB 3.2), 1x HDMI (2.1), a microSD card slot and a headphone jack. The only small detail: both USB-C ports are on one side. Ideally, there will be one on each side for added flexibility when working with a docking station or USB-C monitor.
Sparkling OLED screen
The pièce de résistance of every high-end Galaxy Book in recent years has been its OLED screen, and now it’s no different. Compared to last year, little has changed. The 16-inch screen still has a resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels (16:10 ratio) with a smooth refresh rate of 120 Hz.
One of the few disadvantages of OLED is that the maximum brightness is not very high. That’s actually not that bad: 398 nits. This is sufficient in a bright environment with moderate sunlight, but outdoor use is not an option. The glossy surface of the screen is certainly not a gift.
The screen has a wide color range of 170 percent sRGB, 114 percent DCI-P3 and 77 percent AdobeRGB. Professionals working with DCI-P3 can rely on solid standard factory calibration.
sRGB profileDCI-P3 profile
We measured a DeltaE of 2.6 for color and 3.5 for white balance. Any DeltaE value below 2 is great for professional creative work. The OLED panel is of sufficient quality: with a colorimeter, the DeltaE value drops quickly. The biggest culprit is the standard color temperature of 7,053 Kelvin. 6,500 Kelvin is ideal; if you aim for that with your color measuring device, you can keep going.
Intel Core Ultra
The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H is one of the more powerful chips from Intel’s new Core Ultra series. The processor has sixteen computing cores, including six P-cores with multithreading, clocked at 1.4 GHz, but with a boost capacity of up to 4.8 GHz.
The “H” in the name makes it clear that this processor is not the most economical in the Intel range, although the chip has a very variable TDP, varying between 28 watts at the base and 115 watts at the top. How this CPU performs in practice depends largely on how successfully Samsung has integrated the chip into the housing.
During our tests we see a brief increase to 3.5 GHz, with a quick drop to 2 GHz where the clock speed stabilizes. The E cores also do their job and stabilize at around 1.7 GHz after a while. All in all, you get so much performance out of this Core Ultra 7 155H, and we see that in the benchmarks too.
On a single core basis, this chip isn’t much more powerful than its predecessors, but when all cores work together, the CPU significantly outperforms last year’s classic Core i7-1355U.
The Core Ultra 7 155H in this Galaxy Book Ultra is a robust workhorse that offers enough power for casual photo and video editing, rendering and workloads with a modest graphics component.
Battery life and charging time
An OLED screen, strong performance and a thin case often do not go hand in hand with good battery life. The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360 proves the opposite and presents strong numbers. If you make video calls all day on Microsoft Teams or Zoom (with the excellent 1080p webcam), you will hardly make it to the end of the workday without a power outlet nearby.
If you have lighter office work or don’t make video calls all day, you can easily get by without electricity. Nice: The fan is quite quiet even under load during benchmarks or video conferences.
One of the few downsides is the so-called “fast charging technology” of this laptop. Just as Samsung lags behind smartphones in terms of charging speed after all these years, the situation is no different in the laptop segment. You shouldn’t be able to afford to wait longer than an hour until the battery is half full in this price range. If other brands can do it in half the time, you need to go back to the drawing board.
Diploma
Samsung already cleaned things up last year with the Galaxy Book series and is continuing this trend. The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360 (from 1,735 euros excluding VAT) is a top model that is only inferior to the Ultra version because it has a separate Nvidia graphics card for GPU computing power.
If you don’t need that, like a large 16-inch touchscreen, and enjoy using a stylus occasionally, you’ve come to the right place. Actually the best place to go, because the same screen quality, the same list of specifications and the same general balance of the configuration cannot be found anywhere else at the moment. All those AI gadgets that Intel and Samsung shout from the rooftops? Don’t worry about it (yet), it won’t be a problem for you.
Tested configuration: Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360 (NP960QGK) with Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB NVMe SSD, Intel Arc Graphics, glossy touch OLED screen (2,880 x 1,800 pixels), Windows 11 Home.
.Professionals
Large and beautiful OLED screen
Very good, light pen
Powerful Intel Core 7 Ultra chip
Thin and light case for a 16-inch laptop
.Cons
The pen doesn’t fit in the laptop
The charging process takes too long
Expensive
Warranty: 2 years as standard when you take it with you.
As an experienced journalist and author, Mary has been reporting on the latest news and trends for over 5 years. With a passion for uncovering the stories behind the headlines, Mary has earned a reputation as a trusted voice in the world of journalism. Her writing style is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking, as she takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues of our time.