After being the subject of several leaks, the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 series of Windows 11 ultrabooks is now official: there are new Meteor Lake processors, upgraded displays, and of course some extra artificial intelligence features built in, to take on the best MacBooks.
Starting with the top end, 16-inch Galaxy Book 4 Ultra, the 400-nit, 120Hz AMOLED touchscreen runs at a resolution of 2880 x 1800 pixels. You've got a choice of Intel Core Ultra 9 or Core Ultra 7 CPUs, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 or 4050 GPUs, plus 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of RAM, and 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of SSD storage.
The Pro model is available in both 14-inch and 16-inch versions with the same screen specs as the Ultra and a choice of Intel Core Ultra 7 or Core Ultra 5 processors. Graphics are handled by Intel Arc, you don't get the highest 64GB of RAM or 2TB of SSD storage options on the Pro laptops, and there's a 256GB SSD storage variant.
As for the fourth model to be announced, the Galaxy Book 4 Pro 360 uses the same 16-inch screen as the Ultra, but tweaks the hinge so the display can be folded all the way back. The spec options otherwise match the Pro laptops exactly, although SSD storage choices are limited to 512GB or 1TB.
Ports and cooling
At first glance, these look like fine new additions to Samsung's laptop lineup, though we'll have to wait to get our hands on them before we can give you a full verdict. The new Intel Core Ultra chips are the stars of the show, adding neural processing units (NPUs) for AI operations for the first time, as well as improving overall performance.
A plethora of ports are included on these laptops, covering Thunderbolt 4, USB Type-A, and HDMI 2.1, and there's even room for a micro SD card slot and a headphone/microphone jack. There's a 2-megapixel, 1080p webcam included, plus four speakers tuned with the help of audio experts AKG.
There's a redesigned cooling system on these models, and Samsung says battery life has been improved over the previous editions, without going into detail (in our Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra review, we reported six hours at most, which isn't great). Also of note is a new video-editing tool, Samsung Studio, which can sync with mobile apps.
These new laptops will go on sale in South Korea in January, but we're still waiting on information about wider availability and pricing. Samsung has played it very straight with the colors, meanwhile: gray for the Ultra model, and gray or silver for the other models.
