With the Galaxy Book4 Edge launch last week, Samsung joined the first wave of Windows laptop manufacturers using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, an ARM-based chipset designed for laptops rather than smartphones or tablets.
I spoke with Samsung’s Vice President James Kitto about the new Galaxy Book, the advantages of an ARM chipset, and where Galaxy AI sits in all of this.
The Hybrid Working Revolution
First up, let’s start with the laptop itself. The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge is part of the modern breed of laptops designed for hybrid working. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world of work has been upended; the hybrid mix of “at home” and “in the office” has demanded a new approach to mobile computing.
“Galaxy customers are looking for speed and power,” Kitto lays out. “Great battery life, incredible screens, and an augmentation of the Galaxy experience onto PC. The interoperability between our phones and our PC range is second to none.”
The first wave of Copilot+PC laptops powered by Snapdragon X Elite chipsets have been with reviewers for over a week, and the first benchmarks are promising. Qualcomm’s new chipset tops existing chips from AMD and Intel in performance and efficiency. It’s easier to draw direct comparisons with other Windows-focused chipsets than the Apple-shaped elephant in the room. The early tests from Tom’s Guide show that Apple’s M3 wins out on single-core performance, while the X Elite wins on multi-core; as Tony Polanco notes, “You probably won’t notice a major difference during real-world use, but it’s interesting to see M3 lagging in multi-core.”
Samsung has an advantage over the other Copilot+PC laptops as it uses Qualcomm’s more powerful X Elite chipset in the Galaxy Book4 Edge, and Kitto lays out the benefits:
“That processor version, which runs up to 4.2 gigahertz, is a Samsung exclusive. We’re the only company that will be offering a laptop with that higher-end processor, which is amazing for us and our consumers.”
Laptop Mag has some early benchmarks for this uprated X Elite chipset, which places the Book4 ahead of the MacBook M3, and in the same neighborhood as the M3 Pro: “While the MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro does still hold the edge in some areas, Qualcomm and Samsung are beating this third-generation Apple Silicon in any metrics, which is impressive.”
The Power of Galaxy AI
The Galaxy Book4 Edge is one of the first Copilot+PC laptops. This is built around the Snapdragon X chipsets and Microsoft’s approach to AI. As such, the three key parts of Windows’ Artificial Intelligence are shared equally by all of the Copilot+PC laptops.
That means you have Cocreator, which allows generative image creation and editing in Paint; Live Captions to help translate audio from over 40 different languages; and the Recall feature, a global history of searchable screenshots to help you remember what your computer was doing in the past—although Recall proved controversial given the security implications storing weeks of screenshots, so it will be fully activated in a later update.
But Samsung has more. Samsung has Galaxy AI.
“The one massive advantage that we have versus some of our competitors is the Galaxy AI experience,” Kitto is excited to tell me. “We’re happy to say that you can now experience Galaxy AI right on your PC, on your Windows desktop.”
The core features of Galaxy AI are well-known to Galaxy users. You can live translate calls and messages on the handset, use the handset to translate both sides of a conversation in text or voice while traveling, transcribe voice calls, summarize notes and information in your phone, and offer suggestions for conversations and messages with chat assistance.
There is a catch, though. These aren’t available as standalone features on the Book4 Edge; you will need to connect your Galaxy handset to unlock these features fully.