Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge - NP960XMB-KB1US - 16" AMOLED Touch Laptop - Sapphire Blue - 1TB Storage

I honestly didn't know what to expect with these new AI line of Windows PCs, but I was pleasantly surprised, but also disappointed.THE HARDWARELet's get this out of the way: These new Snapdragon processors are FAST. At least according to my benchmarks, The Snapdragon X processor in this Galaxy Book4 Edge is on par with my M2 machine. The screen is just the right resolution for its size and there are plenty of ports to keep you from needing to carry a dongle around. Battery-wise, this laptop is also impressive. With light use, I went for over a day before I had to recharge. Overall, the whole laptop is thin, light and gorgeous. Also owning a Samsung phone and earbuds, everything integrates nicely in its own ecosystem. My only real gripe on the hardware side is ... MoreI honestly didn't know what to expect with these new AI line of Windows PCs, but I was pleasantly surprised, but also disappointed.THE HARDWARELet's get this out of the way: These new Snapdragon processors are FAST. At least according to my benchmarks, The Snapdragon X processor in this Galaxy Book4 Edge is on par with my M2 machine. The screen is just the right resolution for its size and there are plenty of ports to keep you from needing to carry a dongle around. Battery-wise, this laptop is also impressive. With light use, I went for over a day before I had to recharge. Overall, the whole laptop is thin, light and gorgeous. Also owning a Samsung phone and earbuds, everything integrates nicely in its own ecosystem. My only real gripe on the hardware side is that the keyboard feels a bit stiff, the internal drive is disappointingly slow, and the speakers are about on par for laptop speakers. Nothing special there.SOFTWAREAgain, this is a surprisingly fast and powerful laptop, and almost feels wasted on what I would call introductory AI features. Cocreator is a cool feature that many may not find useful beyond its initial novelty. There were some instances where it's interpretation of my drawings were quite good; but most of the time, the results were fairly AI-looking journeys into dollar store recreations of Picasso drawings. Similarly, the Studio Effects filters are pretty preliminary. There is one feature that makes your eyes appear to stay focused on the camera, but it often seemed like a creepy introduction to the Uncanny Valley. My favorite feature is Live Captions, which provides a language translation overlay as it listens to whatever is coming over the audio channel. This worked pretty well, although it was sometimes difficult to read the translation as the AI was updating its output to what it was hearing in real time. As someone trying to learn a language, this tool has been great!The CoPilot+ AI features seem like a work in progress. Hopefully there will be additional capabilities and refinements, but I can't fault the Galaxy Book4 Edge hardware for that. Essentially this laptop has the power, it's just waiting for the software to catch up.

My first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy, in fact my first several smartphones were Samsung Galaxies because they never steered me wrong. To say I was excited and curious to see what the Samsung Galaxy Book 4, with the hyped CoPilot AI features, would be an understatement. I’d assumed it would be some kind of gimmick or an overhyped advertising bullet point that didn’t actually offer that much. The truth is that CoPilot is really cool and offered some of my favorite aspects of this laptop.Before I get into that, the basics. Inside the box is the laptop, the hyper fast charging cable (20% charge in about 30 minutes, not too bad!), and a small booklet with warranty information and a barebones quick start guide. The hardware onboard is a large 16” touchscreen, 16gb ... MoreMy first smartphone was a Samsung Galaxy, in fact my first several smartphones were Samsung Galaxies because they never steered me wrong. To say I was excited and curious to see what the Samsung Galaxy Book 4, with the hyped CoPilot AI features, would be an understatement. I’d assumed it would be some kind of gimmick or an overhyped advertising bullet point that didn’t actually offer that much. The truth is that CoPilot is really cool and offered some of my favorite aspects of this laptop.Before I get into that, the basics. Inside the box is the laptop, the hyper fast charging cable (20% charge in about 30 minutes, not too bad!), and a small booklet with warranty information and a barebones quick start guide. The hardware onboard is a large 16” touchscreen, 16gb RAM, 1tb SSD, and the real showstopper of the system: Snapdragon X Elite which is listed as 3.8Ghz on Samsung’s website but shows as 4.2Ghz in my system properties. This chip is the secret to the advertised CoPilot’s success and makes all the little bells and whistles work. You also get two USB4 ports (USB-C but super fast), an HDMI port, a microSD slot, a USB-A port, and the endangered species of the computer world: a headphone/mic port. The MicroSD is a small consolation though as there is no way, as far as I could tell, to add or expand the SSD under the hood like most other computers. While 1tb is the standard it really doesn’t go far these days and, maybe I’m the odd man out, I just don’t feel like a DropBox subscription is a viable storage option in the current economy of my household. I was impressed with the battery though, I charged it when I got the computer and then used it without charging off and on for almost four whole days before I had single digits and had to plug in. That is a WILD accomplishment for a laptop these days especially given how much I was using it. It wasn’t 22 hours as I’ve seen some of the advertising say but It was probably at least 12 and probably more.So CoPilot, the big AI elephant in the Galaxy Book 4 room, is it any good? Yes! There’s a dedicated key to the right of the Alt key on the keyboard that allows you to bring up CoPIlot at any point in your computing. You can have it do web searches or assist in locating settings, folders, or how to use features and programs. The Edge browser, which I’ll be honest has never been my “go-to”, is a lot more interesting when you have the option to talk with an AI to get movie recommendations, suggestions for websites (I know its probably the same as a regular search but it seems less cluttered) to buy something I’m looking for, or just talk to it about different topics to see how you can get it to interact. As an old school PC guy I remember the way old days when MS Paint was how you always made your art and then a million other programs and apps came out that stole all the artistic thunder…until now! MS Paint is back with Cocreator mode in the tool box. All the standard Paint tools are here, plus layers which somehow I missed had been added, but in addition Cocreator lets you turn what you’ve drawn/painted/etc into something more with an AI descriptor box and a series of various “styles” of art. I’ll include a picture but basically I copy/pasted a background image then painted a REALLY rough/bad unicorn for my kids before typing into Cocreator that I was trying to do a unicorn with a rainbow mane and a gold spiral horn. I clicked through the styles: Watercolor, Oil Painting, Pixel, Anime, and Ink Sketch. It automatically generated an AI version of my drawing and let me decide if I wanted it “pasted” over mine or not. Further, because this rabbit hole goes DEEP, you can adjust the “creativity” of Cocreator to decide how much of your drawing you want vs. how much it makes up. Basically there’s little noticeable difference below about 30 but if I crank it up to 95 then my art is basically gone and its all the computer’s interpretation. This led to a fun game where I just made random squiggles and then tried various prompts in the text box to see what the laptop came up with. Is it kind of silly? Yeah but I haven’t spent a tenth this much time in the Paint program since probably 8th grade! There’s a similar feature if you edit your photos too, although I found the AI Prompt to be a lot less useful at anything meaningful such as removing background people or removing glasses glare, etc. Its cool to change the background to the Photo Editing styles though such as cyberpunk, renaissance, etc. I didn’t get too into the Samsung Book Experience stuff that’s included, mostly since my current phone is sadly not a Samsung, but Samsung Studio is a slideshow/video creation program that I started playing with just to see how it worked and it prompted me to have inspiration and I began making an actual slideshow documentary on my big trip with the family last year. That’s maybe not a selling point without knowing my frame of mind recently but lets just say I don’t tend to get too in the weeds with slideshows after all the presentations I’ve done for school and work so the fact that this took me away from the AI silly stuff I was enjoying so much should speak volumes if you just take my word for it.One more surprise I had was just how much of a BEAST this computer is for gaming. There is no dedicated graphics card in this laptop, its just the RAM and the Snapdragon processor, but yet I was able to play everything I threw at it with not just no problems but with high graphics settings! I didn’t have any of the newest/hottest to test on it BUT I’ve had a lot of trouble with playing the game “Control” on some of my other systems and not the Galaxy Book 4 Edge. I was so surprised I did a little research and there are people claiming this laptop is playing Baldur’s Gate 3 without lagging. I wouldn’t call this a gaming laptop per se but if the shoe fits then why the heck not!So I’m probably missing something I wanted to talk about, this has been a legit revelation the past week and I’ve had so many “OH COOL!” moments with Galaxy Book 4 Edge, but I think you get the point. I’ve tried out some really solid laptops the last couple years but this is probably the system that has done more than I expected. Is this a good laptop for productivity, oh yeah! Can you do video editing and creative stuff? You bet! Can you game with this thing? It sure seems like it! I don’t know how but this laptop is a real “Everything but the kitchen sink” product, it seems to do anything you would want without breaking a sweat! I haven’t given a full stars review in a while, I don’t like to give them out willy nilly but this really earned it and deserves all the praise and reviews its likely to generate. If you don’t buy one of these you’re doing yourself a disservice because it’s already awesome and there’s bound to be more features added to CoPilot that I can’t wait to see what they are and what they do. A+ Samsung, you understood the assignment and you delivered!

The Samsung Galaxy Book Edge 4 is one of the first Windows laptops with the new Snapdragon X Elite ARM based processors. Previous attempts at Windows laptops with anything other than x86 processors never faired well but Microsoft has been putting in the effort to provide a native experience for both ARM and x86 now in Windows 11. The ARM side does still have a way to go but luckily there are more native apps than ever with more companies developing for the platform thanks to the hype around the Elite X performance. This is the first processor capable of running Microsoft CoPilot+ AI integrations, so there are a lot of possibilities and a lot of potential for issues too. These Snapdragon Elite based laptops are being hyped as the first step towards Windows laptops ... MoreThe Samsung Galaxy Book Edge 4 is one of the first Windows laptops with the new Snapdragon X Elite ARM based processors. Previous attempts at Windows laptops with anything other than x86 processors never faired well but Microsoft has been putting in the effort to provide a native experience for both ARM and x86 now in Windows 11. The ARM side does still have a way to go but luckily there are more native apps than ever with more companies developing for the platform thanks to the hype around the Elite X performance. This is the first processor capable of running Microsoft CoPilot+ AI integrations, so there are a lot of possibilities and a lot of potential for issues too. These Snapdragon Elite based laptops are being hyped as the first step towards Windows laptops finally competing with Apple hardware, particularly in battery life.I went with the 16” model and aesthetically it’s one of the nicest looking laptops I’ve ever had. The form factor is incredibly thin and light. Build quality feels premium with mostly aluminum construction barring a few plastic bits, considering how thin it is there isn’t much flex. Monitor hinge feels good in terms of tightness, the monitor doesn’t move under its own weight easily, and can be opened with one hand. They call the color Sapphire Blue, and it looks fantastic in my opinion. It also features one of the best-looking screens I’ve ever used on a laptop. The 16” 3K resolution AMOLED variable refresh rate screen is amazing both in terms of display quality as well as its ability to sip power. This is more akin to the type of screen on your cell phone instead of a traditional computer monitor. Samsung has an amazing anti-glare coating on the glossy OLED finish but still something to consider if you work outdoors or in extremely bright environments. The Keyboard is very good, a nice tactile feel to the keys and being a 16” laptop it offers a full-size keyboard including number pad. Now the trackpad they went with on this laptop is something some people will love, and some people won’t. It is massive, takes up probably 50% of the area at the bottom of the keyboard. Functionalities wise I enjoy it, although I do sometime brush against it accidentally while using or typing. It is a traditional trackpad, so you must click in the bottom left or bottom right corner for it to reliably register your input.The model I went with has the higher performance X1E-84-100 Snapdragon X Elite processor which has slightly higher multithreaded frequency and higher dual core boost clock than the one featured in the 14” model or non 1TB 16”. It also features a big jump on the GPU side, the NPU for AI processing is the same between models. Rounding out the spec sheet is 16gb of LPDDR5 and 1TB of eUFS storage. The eUFS storage is a low power storage option kind of like eMMC memory but offers faster read and write speeds, using CrystalDiskMark I got 3600MB/s read and 600MB/s write speeds. Running Cinebench 2024 new Windows ARM based benchmark with my Book4 Edge plugged in showed the Elite X at 126 single core and 847 multi-core which is better than a standard M3 typically. Now of course the M3 Max still has a dominant lead, but this is a great first showing for these new ARM based Windows products. Overall, all the apps I typically use have ran smoothly, even those that I have had to run through Microsoft Prism emulation. They also delivered on their battery life claims, which can vary of course depending on the applications being used. Applications that are emulated will take more battery life away compared to those that are native. Probably the easiest way to share the battery life available is just watching YouTube which my Book4 Edge was able to do for about 13 1/2hrs straight before needing a charge.Thanks to the NPU that is built-in to the new Snapdragon X Elite processors these are the first that have achieved the CoPilot+ certification. Some of these new features are useful like the enhanced Windows studio effects for when you’re using your webcam. I think the webcam has excellent quality and the studio effects allow for you to have a professional, or fun using the creative filters, presentation to your video calls. Things like portrait blur and an eye contact teleprompter help keep you on point. Another huge feature is the real time live captions and translations. This is all done locally on the NPU so it can be used anytime on any application. Those who travel frequently, work internationally, or just enjoy content from other countries can benefit from this feature.Overall, I went into this skeptical of both Qualcomm’s ability to deliver the performance claims they were making on a first-generation chip as well as Microsoft’s ability to deliver a good experience and I am happy to be proven wrong. This is a great laptop to consider for anyone looking for the latest and greatest AI experience and capabilities, especially if you are already integrated into the Samsung ecosystem.