First impressions are that the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro is incredible: a 16-inch laptop with a stunning display in a body that’s less than half an inch thick. It features one of Intel’s new Lunar Lake processors, delivering significant integrated GPU and AI performance, and a spacious keyboard with a dedicated number pad. I don’t want to spoil the rest of the review: the performance is good and the battery life is off the charts. This is one of the sleekest large-screen laptops we’ve tested this year. However, while we think Samsung’s latest has a lot to offer business users, it’s also disappointing because it gets most of the important things right, only to fumble in one key area.
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360: Design
Like LG with its Gram line, Samsung seems to have figured out how to make large-screen laptops without the accompanying weight and bulk. The Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 measures 355 x 252mm, which isn’t much larger than its 16-inch screen. It’s 12.8mm thick and weighs 1.69kg, but the alloy body feels incredibly durable, with barely visible seams and almost no flex on the lid. It looks fantastic with its dark gray metallic finish and works comfortably on both your lap and desk. Only when the equipment is pressed hard does it emit the slightest noise or heat, and even then we’re talking about a little surface heat, not a lot of noise.
Moreover, the design is universal. As its name suggests, the Book 5 Pro 360 has a 360-degree hinge, allowing you to slide the back of the screen into the base and use it as a large tablet or in a tent configuration as a smart screen or compact device. All-in-one PC. Samsung even provides an S-Pen stylus for taking notes or drawing by hand. There’s no garage to hide it in, just a magnetic area on the lid, but it’s a useful addition for a laptop of this type.
While many recent thin and light laptops have offered a small selection of ports, the Book 5 Pro 360 goes beyond the usual two Thunderbolt 4/USB Type-C ports and features full-size HDMI 2.1 and USB 3.2 video output. Gen 2 Type-A port too. Give it up WiFi 6 for your home or office network, and you have everything you need for work or presentations in the laptop itself.
But now we come to the Galaxy Book 5’s biggest problem: everyday usability. Its touchpad is damn big, measuring approximately 15 by 10.9 cm and taking up a huge portion of the laptop. It gives you a large work area to work on the big screen, and the tracking is as smooth and efficient as you could want. However, your left hand gets pinched in the bottom left corner while typing, which is a problem when the keyboard is so large and the layout is so spacious.
As far as this keyboard is concerned, the unbalanced typing position is just the beginning. The layout itself is mostly good, despite the disappointingly small left Shift and Ctrl keys, but the action is very shallow, not giving you much tactile feedback when you press a key. Initially, we also found that the keys were sometimes difficult to press, although this improved with time and practice. Usability is always subjective, but the keyboard makes using the Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 less enjoyable. This is a laptop that you gradually get used to, rather than one that feels right from the start.
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360: Display
The AMOLED screen is an absolute knockout. At a maximum brightness of 377 cdm/2 with SDR content, it doesn’t get crazy bright in normal use, but the white looks pretty dazzling and can be used anywhere except direct sunlight. Meanwhile, the combination of a 16-inch screen size and 2880 x 1800 resolution gives you both clear images and plenty of space to work with, ideal for tasks where you’re retrieving information from multiple apps and documents, or tackling complex creative work.
Color reproduction is almost flawless: AMOLED technology covers 100% of the sRGB color gamut with 150% volume and 98.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut with 106% volume. The average Delta-E value rises to just above 1.19, but it’s still low enough for color-critical design work.
The front-facing camera isn’t always impressive: in low-light conditions, videos come out slightly noisy with a strange color creep effect on areas of the skin. However, this is quite enough for online meetings during daylight hours. At the same time, the sound is clear, warm and unexpectedly rich. No voice calls, no videos, no background music will make you regret connecting your headphones.
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360: Performance
The Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 we tested combines a 265V Intel Core Ultra 7 processor with 16GB of internal memory. DDR5 RAM and SSSTC with a capacity of 1 TB PCIe 4.0 solid state drive. The processor has four high-performance cores running at up to 5 GHz and four low-power cores running at up to 3.7 GHz, and lacks SMT technology, which on earlier Intel chips or modern AMD processors allowed one core to run two threads simultaneously . .
Intel’s new architecture is extremely efficient and most applications run at impressive speeds. In this day and age, the Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 has never felt anything less than snappy and super-fast. In the PCMark10 application performance test, its score of 6,779 is not far behind Asus Zenbook S16 (7229) or Asus ProArt PX13 (7534), both of which are equipped with 12-core/24-thread AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chips.
However, in tests focused on multi-threaded performance, the Core Ultra 7 265V struggles to keep up. The Galaxy Book 5 scores 11,037 in the Geekbench 6 multi-threaded test and 618 points in the Cinebench 2024 multi-threaded rendering tests. The Zenbook S16 scored 13,508 and 877 in the same tests, while the ProArt PX13 scored 15,080 and 1,023.
The Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 also competes with machines powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite chips. They don’t pass the PCMark10 test, but perform even better in Geekbench 6 and Cinebench 2024. For example, the Asus Vivobook S15 scored 14,337 points in Geekbench 6 multi-core tests and 941 points in Cinebench R24.
Honestly, this shouldn’t bother you unless you’re a heavy user of demanding multi-threaded applications. If you’re focused on office and productivity work, the Galaxy Book 5 Pro will be more than fast enough. What’s more, Core Ultra 7 is a good all-rounder, with impressive 3D performance and an NPU that meets and exceeds requirements Copilot + from Microsoft PC spec. You won’t find any Spapdragon X laptop scoring 4302 in the 3D Mark TimeSpy test, and the 47 TOPS of AI processing power isn’t something to underestimate either. As more apps use AI features, the Galaxy Book 5 Pro should be well equipped to handle them.
At the time of writing, Copilot+ features Windows 11 still do not install or run on Intel or AMD technologies. What’s more, Samsung is bringing a number of Galaxy AI features to the Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 that actually require a linked Samsung phone with Galaxy AI to work, simply by using the laptop as an external screen. It would be a little more impressive if these features worked on the laptop itself.
However, let’s not object to Samsung’s marketing. Instead, let’s end with unexpected strength. We fully expected the Book 5 Pro 360 to have shorter battery life, even with the power efficiency of the Intel processor. Surely no machine with a massive OLED screen can give you much more than a day’s work?
Well, we were wrong. In our standard video test with the screen calibrated at 170 cdm/2 brightness, the Book 5 Pro 360 lasted 21 hours and 57 minutes, making it the longest-lasting Windows laptop we’ve ever tested.
There is one big caveat here. Intel’s processor can now play 1080p and 4K video on its most power-efficient cores, meaning what you get when playing video won’t necessarily match when running business applications. Still, it’s incredibly impressive, and in practice we found that the Samsung could help me get through one workday and most of the next morning without needing to be plugged in.
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360: Is it worth it?
The Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360 might be the best big-screen laptop we’ve seen this year. There are no major complaints about the screen, core design or performance, and its NPU and connectivity should keep it relevant for years to come. However, the keyboard and overall usability aren’t quite on par, which detracts from the overall experience. If you can get used to the odd stance and shallow travel, you’ll have a serious performance machine with epic endurance. Otherwise, you might wonder how Samsung achieved such success but missed out on something so important.
Specifications Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360
| Display | 16-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2880 x 1600 and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. | Row 0 – cell 2 | Row 0 – cell 3 |
| CPU | Intel Core Ultra 7, 256 V, 2.2 to 48 GHz | Row 1 – Cell 2 | Row 1 – Cell 3 |
| GPU | Intel Arc 140 V | Row 2 – Cell 2. | Row 2 – Cell 3. |
| RAM | 16 GB LPDDR5X | Row 3 – Cell 2. | Row 3 – Cell 3. |
| Ports | 2 Thunderbolt 4/USB Type-C ports, 1 HDM I2.1 connector, 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 connector, MicroSD | Row 4 – Cell 2. | Line 4 – Cell 3. |
| Storage | 1TB PCIe4 SSD | Line 5 – Cell 2. | Line 5 – Cell 3. |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth v5.4 | Line 6 – Cell 2. | Line 6 – Cell 3. |
| Weight | 1.69 kg | Line 7 – Cell 2. | Line 7 – Cell 3. |
| Dimensions | 355 x 252 x 12.8 mm | Line 8 – Cell 2. | Line 8 – Cell 3. |
| Battery capacity | 76Wh | Line 9 – Cell 2 | Line 9 – Cell 3 |
| operating system | Windows 11 Home | Row 10 – Cell 2 | Row 10 – Cell 3 |