While Samsung is not a big name in the PC and laptop market, it sure makes some of the most interesting devices in the category. At the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) 2019 expo, the South Korean electronics giant unveiled two new laptops: Galaxy Book Flex and Galaxy Book Ion. Both laptops belong to the premium thin-and-light category. They feature striking looks and come with an interesting feature that makes them different from all other laptops in the market right now
The Samsung Galaxy Book Flex is an ultra-thin convertible laptop with a 360-degree hinge, a touchscreen display, and an S Pen. The Samsung Galaxy Book Ion, on the other hand, has a conventional laptop design. The Galaxy Book Flex and the Galaxy Book Ion are some of the earliest laptops to pass through Intel’s new Project Athena standards, and they will be available in 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch variants. Let us have a close look at their design and specifications.
Samsung Galaxy Book Flex Features, Specifications
The Galaxy Book Flex is a 2-in-1 convertible with a 360-degree hinge and a touchscreen display so that it can be converted into a full-fledged laptop when the need arises. For artists, there’s an S Pen that comes bundled with the laptop. This is the same S Pen that comes with the Galaxy Note 10, featuring Bluetooth, gyroscope, and a built-in battery so that you can perform Air Gestures (for things like switching between presentation slides) remotely, without touching the laptop.
The Galaxy Book Flex has a 13.3-inch or a 15.6-inch QLED display, depending on the variant. Screen resolution maxes out at Full HD (1920×1080 pixels), but thanks to high-quality QLED panels, colors are richer and the screen can reach a maximum brightness of up to 600 nits (in Max Auto screen brightness mode).
The laptop uses 10th Gen. Intel Core Ice Lake processors, Intel Iris Plus or Intel UHD integrated graphics, up to 16GB LPDDR4X RAM, and up to 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD. The 15.6-inch variant of the Galaxy Book Flex also features dedicated GPU in the form of Nvidia GeForce MX250 with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM.
The laptop has a backlit keyboard (full-sized keyboard on 15.6-inch variant only), a Windows Hello compliant fingerprint reader (placed in the keyboard layout), and a 69.7WHr battery (that Samsung claims to last for up to 10.8 hours on a single charge). The Galaxy Book Flex comes with has two Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB Type-C connectors, a 10Gbps USB Type-C port, a UFS/microSD combo memory card reader, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There are AKG stereo speakers with a smart amplifier, dual-array microphones, and an HD webcam as well.
Samsung Galaxy Book Ion Features, Specifications
The Galaxy Book Ion is a conventional laptop with a clamshell design. It comes in 13.3-inch or 15.6-inch versions, and both variants use Full HD QLED displays that can reach up to 600 nits of brightness in Max Auto mode (400 nits otherwise). The 13.3-inch screen variant of the Galaxy Book Ion weighs less than a kilogram (0.97kg to be precise). There’s no touchscreen or S Pen on this laptop, but it makes it up with additional full-sized ports and user-upgradeable RAM and storage (in the 15.6-inch variant).
The Samsung Galaxy Book Ion is equipped with Intel’s 10th Gen. Comet Lake CPUs, up to 16GB DDR4 RAM, and up to 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD. While the 13.3-inch version of the laptop has to make do with Intel’s integrated graphics, the 15.6-inch version is equipped with Nvidia’s GeForce MX250 GPU with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM. The 15.6-inch Galaxy Book Ion also comes with an additional SODIMM slot for user-upgradeable RAM and an additional SSD slot.
The 13.3-inch Galaxy Book Ion has a tenkeyless keyboard, while the 15.6-inch version has a Numpad. Both versions come with backlit keyboards, though. There’s a Windows Hello compatible fingerprint reader, AKG stereo speakers with a smart amplifier, a 720p HD webcam, and a 69.7WHr battery. In terms of connectivity, the laptop features Wi-Fi 6 (with 2×2 MIMO), Bluetooth 5.0, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, one Thunderbolt 3 port with USB Type-C connector, an HDMI 2.0 port, a UFS/microSD combo card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
YoungGyoo Choi, Senior Vice President of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics, said, “Consumers often have to choose between mobility and high-performance hardware when choosing a laptop. Galaxy Book Flex and Galaxy Book Ion eliminate the need to compromise by offering powerful performance with unparalleled portability and display innovation.”
