Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14 review: Light as a feather

Price When Reviewed

$1,449.99

Best Prices Today: Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro 14 NP940XGK-KG2DE

$1449.99

$1449.99

When it comes to the Galaxy Book line of laptops, Samsung has established itself in high-end notebooks for professional use. The laptops look excellent, are light and slim, and offer great displays. The new Galaxy Book4 Pro with a 14-inch screen is no exception. It has an OLED touchscreen with 3K resolution, its very sturdy aluminum casing weighs just 2.64 pounds and it’s around 12 millimeters thin. It’s finished in the classic grey of a stylish business notebook (Moonstone Grey color variant), which elegantly changes to a bluish hue depending on the incidence of light.

Bottom line? The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14 is a lightweight, elegant all-rounder for business professionals. Let’s dig into why.

Looking for more laptop options? Be sure to check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available today.

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: First impressions

In the fourth generation of Galaxy Books, Samsung relies on processors from the new Intel Meteor Lake platform, in the case of the test device on a Core Ultra 7 155H. This CPU generation is characterized by a significantly different architecture in which Intel assembles the processor modularly from individual chips (aka tiles). However, most notebook manufacturers, including Samsung, advertise Meteor Lake primarily as an AI processor due to the new NPU (Neural Processing Unit).

There’s little evidence of AI on the Galaxy Book4 Pro, but this also applies to other Meteor Lake laptops. For example, the test device lacks the Copilot button and, apart from the Windows Studio effects, which are supposed to improve video meetings via AI through auto-framing, automatic eye contact, and background blurring, there are no apps that can use the NPU.

This is disappointing, as Samsung’s current Galaxy smartphones show how AI can be put to good use. Even apps such as Samsung Gallery, which can utilize AI functions on the smartphone, do not offer them in the Windows version.

At the beginning of the benchmarks, it wasn’t the lack of AI on the Galaxy Book4 Pro that frightened us, but the miserable performance. The laptop’s mouse clicks were very delayed, programs were slow to open, and the first set of benchmarks delivered disappointing results. The problems cannot be solved with Windows updates and the Samsung Device Care analysis tool, as they cannot find more up-to-date drivers.

Only the manual installation of a new GPU driver directly from Intel solves the performance dilemma. Apparently, the driver for the Arc GPU installed by Samsung in December is responsible for the sluggish performance. After the driver update, the notebook runs as expected.

Thomas Rau

Thomas Rau

Thomas Rau

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: Performance

The new internal GPU is the performance highlight of Meteor Lake. In system tests such as PCMark 10 and Crossmark, the new CPU generation stands out from its predecessors from Raptor Lake’s U, P, and H series, primarily due to its significantly improved graphics performance. The Galaxy Book4 Pro performs above average in all applications that make heavy use of the GPU such as rendering and photo and video editing. This means that compact Meteor Lake laptops such as the Samsung laptop are now much better suited for multimedia and graphics tasks.

The Arc graphics in Meteor Lake can also set itself apart from the Iris Xe Graphics of the predecessor CPUs in gaming tests. In the 3DMark, it is 70 percent faster in Night Raid and almost twice as fast in Time Spy. This does not make the Samsung notebook really suitable for gaming, especially not in its high native resolution of 2880×1800 pixels. You have to reduce the resolution to Full HD and can only use the medium quality level for graphic details. Even then, the Galaxy Boo 4 Pro remains well below 60 fps in the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark.

Despite the increased performance of the internal processor GPU, users who do more than just occasional gaming or professional multimedia editing should still rely on an additional GPU. This also applies to AI applications, as the test with the AI benchmark Procyon proves. The NPU from Meteor Lake scores around 500 points in the Integer test with AI applications based on Intel’s Open-Vino programming environment–incidentally, the same as the GPU from Meteor Lake. An RTX 4070 GPU performs the same tasks four times as fast based on Nvidia Tensor with significantly higher power consumption.

In addition, Samsung limits the CPU performance due to the 14-inch form factor and only allows the Core Ultra a maximum power consumption of 60 watts and a standard consumption of 28 watts, while this processor in 16-inch notebooks is usually allowed to work with up to 80 watts and 45 watts in standard mode.

Accordingly, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro is around ten to 15 percent slower in the system benchmarks than large Meteor Lake notebooks. In the Cinebench R23 CPU test, the Samsung laptop only achieves just under 9,000 points while the Core Ultra 7 155H in a 16-inch notebook achieves around 14,000 points.

Thomas Rau

Thomas Rau

Thomas Rau

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: Battery life

The Galaxy Book 4 Pro benefits from the economical CPU setting in battery mode. At less than 5 watts, the power consumption is around one watt lower than a comparably equipped 16-inch notebook with Meteor Lake and is also significantly lower than a notebook with a Raptor Lake H CPU and an OLED screen. However, the laptop’s 13 hour battery life is still not particularly long because Samsung only installs a battery with 62 watt hours due to the low weight and slim form factor.

The biggest mobility advantage of the Samsung notebook is its low weight, which also applies to the 65 watt power supply. It weighs only 166 grams and fills the laptop battery to 81 percent after one hour of charging.

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: Fan noise, temperature

The Galaxy Book4 Pro hardly heats up even during longer load phases. The operating noise is 38 dB(A) in the load test. It reached 42 dB(A) when I switched on Windows’ High Performance setting. Many Meteor Lake notebook already deliver in the standard Balanced setting.

The palm rest doesn’t warm up much in the load test. The underside of the notebook heats up to a maximum of 45 degrees, so you can easily place it on your thighs.

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: Display

The display is always a highlight of the Galaxy Book laptops. Our review unit has an OLED touchscreen with 3K resolution (2880×1800) and 10-bit color depth, which offers a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The in-house panel is protected by Gorilla Glass DX. The screen is not completely reflection-free, as claimed by the manufacturer Corning, but is slightly less reflective than other touchscreens in direct light.

The Galaxy Book4 Pro also demonstrates the advantages of OLED technology” the contrast is extremely high, the luminance is very evenly distributed, and the color reproduction is outstanding. With Samsung covering almost all important color spaces and minimal color deviation, it’s slightly better than other OLED notebooks. The brightness is also pleasantly high at over 400 cd/sqm, only a few notebook screens are brighter, but they usually use more expensive panels with mini-LED backlight.

The Galaxy Book4 Pro is ideal for photos and films and even those who only come into contact with color in PowerPoint presentations and Excel diagrams at work will be pleased with the outstanding picture quality.

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: Ports

The Galaxy Book 4 Pro 14 only comes with 512GB of SSD storage, which isn’t much space given the price. On the other hand, the notebook offers many ports for a 14-inch laptop. There are two Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 on board, one Type-A port with USB 3.2 Gen 1, and an HDMI output. The slot for micro SD cards and audio connection via mini-jack are also welcome, as they are no longer commonplace on lightweight business laptops.

The front camera with Full HD resolution makes you look good in video calls and you can also log in securely via the camera or the finger sensor in the power button.

Unlike many Meteor Lake laptops, the Wi-Fi module in the Galaxy Book only supports Wi-Fi 6E and not Wi-Fi 7, but Wi-Fi 7 remains in its early days for now anyway.

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14: Keyboard and touchpad

Despite the focus on elegant design and low weight, business notebooks should never neglect operating elements such as the keyboard and touchpad.

Samsung makes no compromises here with the Galaxy Book4 Pro. The keyboard is sturdy, all keys provide clear pressure feedback even when typing quickly and they remain relatively quiet. The number keys are smaller than the other keys, but they’re easy to reach because Samsung has placed them slightly away from the keyboard.

Sensitive users may be bothered by the clearly audible clicking noise of the touchpad. However, it provides clear and consistent feedback over the entire touchpad surface because of the stable build. Multi-finger gestures also worked just fine.

Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14 specs and features

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro?

Absolutely, if you’re in the target audience. As we said up top: The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14 is a lightweight, elegant all-rounder for business professionals who need reliable performance and ample features on the go.

This article originally appeared on PC Welt and has been translated from German to English.