Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro: Ultralight laptops get an upgrade

Samsung has announced updates to its Galaxy Book Pro laptop range at MWC 2022, but new features look fairly thin on the ground.

Launching alongside the 360-degree convertible, the 2022 Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro is extremely thin and light, just like last year’s Galaxy Book, and comes with a Full HD OLED display, again the same as last year.

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It still comes in 13.3in and 15.6in screen sizes and you can choose between graphite or silver colourways. The 2022 Book2 Pro models are lighter and slimmer, but only by a tiny amount. The 13.3in model weighs a mere 0.87kg and measures 11.2mm thick, while the 15.6in version comes in at a scarcely believable 1.11kg and measures 11.7mm thick.

In fact, if you were to compare the 2022 and 2021 Galaxy Book Pro side by side by side you’d struggle to tell the difference. From the images Samsung has so far supplied, they look pretty much identical to the previous models. The main changes are invisible to the naked eye.

The first significant upgrade is to the webcam, which moves to 1080p from the rather unimpressive 720p in last year’s model, and it comes with a wider field of view and auto-framing technology, just like on Apple’s iPads.

It’s surprising that it has taken Samsung this long to respond to the new way of working but any improvement is better than nothing.

Samsung is also offering the option of 5G connectivity in the larger 15.6in machine, and it has bumped up the peak brightness of the display by 33% to 400 nits.

More important, however, are the upgrades to the laptop’s internals, with a move to Intel’s 12th-generation chips this time around, specifically the more powerful P-series Intel Core i5-1240P and Intel Core i7-1260P CPUs.

The Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro will be among the first to feature these new processors, which are the first Intel chips to adopt the big/little hybrid architecture that has proven so successful in smartphones and, latterly, Apple’s M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max laptops.

Intel is claiming a performance improvement of up to 70% and half the power consumption for some of its new processors, so we’re excited to see what effect they can have on speed and battery life. The only disappointment is that the 15.6in Galaxy Book2 Pro only comes with Intel Xe graphics in the UK; a more powerful model with Intel Arc graphics is being released but it will, alas, only be available in the US.

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Finally, as with last year’s models, Samsung has squeezed in a surprisingly generous number of ports and sockets, including full-size USB-A and HDMI ports into such a slim and light machine as well as amicroSD slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The new laptops will be available at some point during April 2022, so keep your eyes peeled for our full review.