Samsung Galaxy Book S boasts 23hr battery from Windows on Snapdragon

By Chris Davies/Aug. 7, 2019 4:09 pm EST

Samsung has revealed a new notebook, the Galaxy Book S, a surprise announcement alongside the new Galaxy Note 10. The slender ultraportable laptop runs Windows 10 on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx chipset, complete with integrated 4G LTE for always-on connectivity and longer battery life.

Indeed, Samsung is claiming up to 23 hours of use from a single charge of the 42 Wh battery. It charges up via the same USB-C charger as you'd use for your Galaxy Note 10 smartphone, too, so even if you're going to be away from your desk for more than its battery life will last, you only need a single adapter in your bag.

The display is a 13.3-inch touchscreen, with 10-point multi-touch support. It's a 16:9 panel, running at Full HD resolution. Inside, there's 8GB of LPDDR4X memory and either 256 GB or 512 GB of storage. You can add to that by up to 1 TB via a microSD slot.

It's definitely eye-catching. Samsung says it tips the scales at just 0.96 kg, or 2.12 pounds. The top and base are made of anodized aluminum, and the frame is arched so that it looks a little more interesting than the average MacBook Air-lookalike other PC makers are producing. AKG stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos technology are integrated.

As for connectivity, along with the LTE Cat.18 there's WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz) and Bluetooth 5.0. You also get integrated GPS, Galileo, Glonass, and BeiDou, together with a fingerprint sensor. Windows Hello can use the latter, though since there's only a 720p HD camera – but no infrared camera – you don't get Hello's facial recognition.

If you've got a Note 10 or Note 10+, meanwhile, you'll be able to integrate the two thanks to Microsoft's Your Phone app. That brings your notifications to the desktop, along with the ability to read and respond to messages. The most recent photos also show up on the Galaxy Book S too.

Compared to the Galaxy Book 2, the Galaxy Book S is promising 40-percent greater CPU performance and as much as 80-percent greater graphics performance from the Snapdragon 8cx. That's despite the notebook still being fanless.

Samsung will have two colors, Earthy Gold and Mercury Gray. The Galaxy Book S will go on sale in September, priced from $999.