The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is a superlative laptop with exceptional performance, allowing Windows 11 to really shine, though the battery life isn’t as good as advertised. Microsoft has made a big deal introducing Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets to new so-called Copilot+ PCs, including on its own Surface Pro and Surface Laptop hardware. The tech giant is promising fast performance to match Apple’s M3 chips and much better battery life than we’ve come to expect from most Windows 11 computers.
It’s all a little confusing. In basic terms, there are several new expensive laptops on the market that have a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset rather than one made by traditional Windows chip provider Intel. Microsoft has made sure to slap new dedicated artificial intelligence features into Windows and rebranded its AI chatbot as Copilot – and all the new X Elite laptops have a Copilot key right there on the keyboard.
Why they have to be referred to as Copilot+ laptops is another confusing decision. What you really want to know is: are these laptops as good as Microsoft says?
Performance and Battery Life
I’ve been testing the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge, a 16-inch laptop with the most powerful X Elite processor available, the X1E-84-100. You have to get the larger screen to get the boosted chip. Cheaper Copilot+ laptops can also have the different X Plus chip.
This model will set you back a cool £1,699, and while it’s the best Windows laptop I’ve used for some time, it can’t quite justify the cost. Performance is noticeably better than on recent Intel laptops I’ve tested, but the battery life claim of up to 22 hours is absurd – in a bad way. From 100 percent I got just about eight hours of constant use out of the Book 4 Edge before it was clamouring for the charger – and all I was doing generally was working in Chrome, Google Docs, and some light photo editing in Photoshop. Samsung says the 22-hour mark is for video playback, but I expected more given the claims from Microsoft and Samsung about the efficiency of the X Elite chip.
Design and Usability
Thankfully the laptop is great to work on. It took me a little while to get used to the keyboard, but mainly because it has a number pad so the keys are offset. I prefer a central keyboard. The keys are nicely clacky even if the travel is a little shallow, and there’s a handy fingerprint sensor in the power button for unlocking and biometric access to apps (but no facial recognition via the webcam for Windows Hello). I was also surprised the key caps showed visible wear after less than a month’s use.
Samsung’s design is also impressive. Despite the size of this 16-inch clamshell it only weighs 1.55kg and I didn’t feel it was too weighty in my bag. The base seems to have every unnecessary corner shaved off, and it looks good in a silvery blue hue. Impressively for the thinness, there are two USB4 USB-C ports, plus one USB-A and one HDMI, a microSD slot and a headphone jack. Great stuff.
Display and Audio
The large OLED display here is excellent. It has great brightness and colour reproduction – I have no complaints. It’s also touchscreen, like all laptops should be in 2024 for quickly pinching to zoom or tapping buttons and the 120Hz refresh rate means everything is very smooth.
The trackpad is also enormous, presumably because Samsung had the space, but I’d have preferred some better speakers. They’re underneath the unit, so audio isn’t great because they don’t fire up at you, even though they do get plenty loud. I also found the palm rest was so big that my metal watch strap annoyingly scratched against the metal of the laptop.
