Review Of The Samsung Galaxy Book2: An Excellent 2-in-1 PC For A Good Price

My experience with the new Galaxy Book2 of Samsung has been seamless so far.

The Galaxy Book2 is equipped with Snapdragon 850 mobile platform which is specifically designed for Windows 10 PCs. The chipset gives users a better performance than the first-generation models I tested running on Snapdragon 835 at constant web connection and up to twenty hours of battery life.

Consumers have many options to choose within or below the $1000 price range of the Book2 (Rs 72,975) and many of those have more storage, faster performance and other features that you could find important. But if you are looking for something that can fully last beyond your work day, an always-on connection and also a mobile, comfortable design, it will definitely worth your money.

The same, but different

The Book2 is a two-in-one PC that can be detached. The tablet comes with a 12-inch AMOLED touch screen that is bright, and it should be a bit brighter to fight the reflections when out in daylight or simply under lights in the office.

Compare to the model last year, the Book2’s frame around the screen seems slimmer and its rounded corners of the body are squared off. Its kickstand is also new which lets users to freely set the display’s position to the angle where you find comfortable to work.

You can still comfortable work with the tablet being in your lap

Along with the display are the speakers tuned by AKG - a popular audio brand and also a subsidiary of Samsung. The speakers sound good enough for a tablet, and it can even get better when you enable the Dolby Atmos processing. There are a 3.5 mm headphone jack for those who want to use wired headphones and two USB Type-C ports as well. You can also expand the storage with a microSD card tray as.

Good performance and better battery life

One of the interesting things about this Book2 is that it does not boot up or waking up from the sleep mode. It basically turns on instantly and it can sign you in really quickly with its fingerprint sensor at the back.

Just flip out the Book2’s kickstand and drop down its keyboard cover and you are ready. If you are going out, this tablet will turn on the LTE connection and if you are in range of known Wi-Fi networks, it will prioritize those networks. The point of that is to ensure an instant connection when you wake it up.

You can use the S pen include in the Book2's package for writing and drawing

The Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 850 was better than the Snapdragon 835 we reviewed last year, but it is still only suit for office related usage or something like that such as general work, streaming video and email. I still experienced some lag here and there but it does not bother me too much.

This book runs with the latest Windows 10 in more efficient and safer S mode. Therefore, you are limited to use approved apps in the store of Microsoft and that can be a big issue. Taking browser as an example. If your favorite browser is Google Chrome or Firefox but there is only Microsoft Edge available in the store, then you just have to wait and hope for those to hit the Microsoft’s Store.

The Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 850 can allow devices to run either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, so you are able to get your tablet upgraded from S mode. But S mode is designed for efficiency to ensure the tablet to have the best performance with 20 hours of battery life. Testing the tablet with Windows 10 Home, it can also last 14 hours which is still a significant battery life without S mode.

While it is a 64-bit Arm process, you have to make sure that the softwares you want to use must be developed to run on it. When we conducted a benchmark test, two Windows performance tests could not run on it and we can only open those in 32-bit mode.

The Samsung Galaxy Book2 is detachable

The always-on and always connected feature

Samsung has been ahead of anyone else in terms of LTE connectivity in its devices. With built-in LTE will allow you to connect to the Internet as long as there is a cell service around. You no longer have to worry about unstable Wi-Fi networks or tether to a mobile hotspot or a smartphone. But if you want to enable that feature, you will have to add the tablet to your data plan.

While this new Book2 of Samsung is not really different in designs of other similar models and its overall performance is also not something too impressive either. But overall, with the long battery life and fast Gigabit LTE for a better performance in wireless speed as well as the comfortable it offers, I would say it is a really good choice its $1,000 price range.