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We've long been fans of the Galaxy Book line here at Tom's Guide, because Samsung has a reputation for building light, capable Windows laptops with killer displays.
Does the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Pro live up to that tradition? Here's what I think.
Focusing on the fundamentals
In my time talking to the team behind the Galaxy Book6 Pro, one thing became clear — instead of focusing on flash, Samsung is zoning in on the fundamentals. People expect over 5 years of use from their laptop and 61% of people use theirs only for productivity.
That means any good laptop has to nail the processing speed and battery life, while offering a thoughtful design that feels good to get stuff done on. And with this spec sheet, Samsung’s definitely onto something.
It starts with a re-engineered chassis with a centralized keyboard (no more number pad) and a massive haptic touchpad. All this comes together to feel like an ergonomic dream, even the flatter profile chiclet keyboard has a far nicer clicky typing experience.
And it comes in this gorgeous two-tone finish to isolate the board — all in a sleek aluminum chassis that measures in at just 11.9mm thin. But that doesn’t impact the internals, which you can spec this up to an Intel Core Ultra X7 355H (the one with the beefy 12-core GPU), a redesigned battery that allows for more capacity (up to 30 hours video playback), and a full-blown six-speaker setup that honestly sounds just as good as a MacBook Pro.
But most impressive on the performance side is again something you may not pay too much attention to — the cooling. It’s super critical, and in these slimline chassis of Galaxy Books in the past, it can falter. Here, however, there is a wider and larger vapor chamber, improved fans and bigger vents that allow for 35% better thermal efficiency vs the Galaxy Book5 Pro.
Going ultra?
Say you want a little more horsepower? That’s where the Galaxy Book6 Ultra comes in — packing some real power potential that is thermally very efficient with another massive heatsink, and multi-directional vents to get heat out as fast as possible.
This is slightly thicker at 15.9mm, but with that, Samsung is able to pack in up to an RTX 5070 for extra zippy creative productivity performance.
The display is a marvel
Let’s be honest, when it comes to displays, Samsung laptops have always had quite a lead with its gorgeous AMOLED tech. Now, it feels like the team’s just doing a victory lap because this is an absolute stunner.
The next-gen 14- or 16-inch AMOLED panel here with a 2880 x 1800-pixel resolution is 2x brighter than the last generation screen, and sports an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz.
But again, same as everything else, Samsung’s focused on fundamentals of productivity — 78% less eye strain with enhanced blue-light reduction and the real depth of that contrast ratio provides inky depth and can highlight even the finest details in darkness like smoke coming off fireworks.
Doing the simple things right
How do you beat a MacBook? It’s easy for companies to fall into gimmick traps to stand out for your attention. But the answer is always simpler than that — just nail the core things that matter: squeeze as much sustained performance and power efficiency out of the shell, make it look good and feel good to do stuff on.
And on first impression, Samsung has nailed these. The Galaxy Book6 Pro (especially when you slap that X chip in there) could be a shoe-in for the laptop to beat in 2026. Of course, we’ll test it properly when it launches officially, but signs are positive right now.
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