TL;DR
- The Galaxy Book6 Pro is driven by a powerful Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3 chip which runs apps fast and responsively, and easily copes with heavier multi-tasking – with the on-board NPU accelerating AI tasks to boot
- The Dynamic AMOLED 2X touchscreen is excellent and a major highlight here, as is the power-efficiency of the Intel® processor, which helps the Galaxy Book6 Pro muster a very impressive level of battery life
- Samsung has some exclusive and useful AI tricks packed into this laptop, which runs admirably quietly even under heavy loads, and the supporting cast of components – including the keyboard and touchpad – are of a high quality
If you're considering buying the new Galaxy Book6 Pro and are wondering how this laptop fares in the productivity stakes, you've come to the right place. Samsung sent me one of these notebooks to test drive with my work – and I was happy to oblige. I tested the 16-inch model of the Galaxy Book6 Pro, and here I'm going to detail how it went, as well as how this notebook busted a common myth about AI.
Intel's® Core™ Ultra Series 3 CPU is a revelation
The processor inside the Galaxy Book6 Pro is an Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3 chip (also known as Panther Lake). This is Intel's® latest mobile silicon and it proved to be seriously nippy when I was using this laptop for work.
Apps loaded quickly, whether I was using Word to write, or GIMP for tinkering with images, and the laptop easily coped with multi-tasking while running a whole bunch of apps (including multiple instances of Chrome with tons of tabs open – I'm badly disorganised in that respect).
I loved how responsive Windows 11 felt in general with the Galaxy Book6 Pro, and the device booted up very fast, too – always a bonus.
The Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3 processor packs some power with its integrated graphics, too, and I could happily indulge in a spot of gaming with the Galaxy Book6 Pro in the evening. (Yes, I realise this is an article about productivity, but we all need a bit of downtime, and I was curious to see how the Intel® CPU performed in this respect).
In short, Panther Lake feels like a major step forward in performance for Intel®, but it's also about better power-efficiency. In fact, I found the battery life to be equally as compelling as the performance levels here. Samsung claims up to 30 hours of battery life with the Galaxy Book6 Pro (based on local 1080p video playback). I didn't test that myself, but what I did find is that I had no trouble getting a full working day out of this laptop on a single charge – and more.
Screen time: the Galaxy Book6 Pro's touchscreen is gorgeous
Samsung can do screens, which I know first-hand from my experience with its TVs (okay, full disclosure: mine's a Sony, but my dad has a Samsung and it boasts an excellent picture quality). So, it wasn't really a surprise that the Dynamic AMOLED 2X touchscreen is a high-quality affair, but even I was rather taken aback at just how good this display is.
I can't understate the vibrancy of the colours, or the sharpness of the display (with a 2,880 x 1,800 resolution). Blacks are inky, colours vivid, and brightness levels are impressive, particularly with HDR (this AMOLED screen is rated at 1,000 nits of peak HDR brightness – and I could very much tell). I don't engage in pro-level image work, but it's still nice to know that colours are accurate (with 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut).
What also surprised me was how well the AMOLED display remained readable in a sunny room (my living room has lots of windows), or even outdoors. This is achieved thanks to not just some of the tech in the screen – which is Corning Gorilla Glass with DXC – but also an AI feature called Advanced Vision Booster, which adjusts the display in real-time, coping with different lighting conditions.
All in all, the screen was a major highlight here, and it made work a more pleasant experience. I also liked that there's a robust blue light filter to protect the eyes – Samsung claims it reduces blue light emission by up to 78% when compared to an LCD display, helping to more effectively combat eyestrain.
AI features that are genuinely helpful
AI features such as Advanced Vision Booster can sometimes be off-putting and obvious when they kick in, but not in this case – I was pleased to find that it worked behind the scenes with a subtle enough touch.
It wasn't the only notable boon in this respect. I found AI Select – which is one of Samsung's exclusive AI features for the Galaxy Book6 Pro – to be pretty useful, too. I could select some text or an object in a photo, and it'd bring up a swift search, or provide an instant translation of any text in a foreign language. It's great to have a touchscreen, too, to be able to quickly and easily select things.
This is part of Samsung's Galaxy AI suite of tools which offers a host of abilities. If I wanted to do an image cutout of a graphics card, for example, from a busy background on a website, all I had to do was highlight the GPU and it'd be instantly isolated for pasting into a fresh image on its own.
Of course, you also get Copilot+ PC functionality on the Galaxy Book6 Pro, meaning all of Windows 11's AI tricks. While they're not something I use much personally, I can see the value in being able to create images from scratch or easily restyle photos. I certainly appreciated the video-chatting enhancements provided by Windows Studio Effects, whereby I could easily blur the background on a call, or have AI cater for poor lighting conditions.
In short, there are AI features that are worth having on this Samsung laptop, and these aren't just pointless trimmings as some folks might argue. Plus, they run responsively on the device thanks to the NPU in the Intel® Panther Lake processor (which hits 50 TOPS for accelerating AI tasks).
Key factors
It goes without saying that any laptop being used for work should have a good keyboard, as you may be doing a lot of typing. For me, this is one of the central aspects of my job (of course), and I found the Galaxy Book6 Pro's keyboard deck to be comfy and responsive, even during longer typing sessions.
The trackpad is also a cut above the norm, being roomy and again responsive, plus it offers haptic feedback which I could adjust to get the click action to my liking (not too strong or jarring). Samsung has clearly given quite some consideration to these elements of the design of the Galaxy Book6 Pro.
Quiet, please
It's a common enough notion that if you have a powerful and performant laptop, the fans will be spinning up noisily when you're diving into some serious work. I'm happy to report that isn't the case at all with the Galaxy Book6 Pro.
Even with heavy multi-tasking loads – and purposefully pushing the laptop by running many apps including benchmarks and video playback – the notebook's fans never threatened to become intrusive, remaining admirably quiet.
A Galaxy of extras
Another disclaimer: I don't own a Galaxy smartphone (I have a Google Pixel), but my wife does, and I tried out some of the Galaxy Book6 Pro's extra features that tie in with these phones (or indeed Samsung's tablets).
These are remarkably useful additions for those who have multiple Samsung devices, with Storage Share letting me directly access files on the Galaxy phone from the laptop. If I wanted to grab a photo (or video, or document) from the smartphone, this made it really easy to do so. With Samsung's Multi Control feature, it's possible to move the mouse cursor from the laptop's Windows 11 desktop onto the smartphone screen, and then control the Galaxy phone with the trackpad and keyboard. That's a really nice touch, but note that a Samsung account and Galaxy smartphone with One UI 7 or above are required to get the benefit of all this.
The integration between Samsung devices feels slick and seamless, so it's a real bonus if you've already invested in the Samsung hardware ecosystem.
Colour me impressed
Overall, the Galaxy Book6 Pro impressed me across a number of fronts. It proved easily powerful enough to cope with my productivity workloads, and the Dynamic AMOLED 2X touchscreen was nothing short of stunning.
Samsung has done very well with battery life here, too, and there are a bunch of extra trimmings that impress. A couple of features I didn't mention yet which are also worth a shoutout include the fingerprint sensor, top-right of the keyboard – a smart security touch (literally) for quick logins – and the laptop's speakers. The latter are crisp and clear, providing a more robust sound output than you'd expect from a thin-and-light notebook (where it's tricky to fit decent speakers in).
For a 16-inch laptop, it's surprisingly light and portable, and I found it easy to slip into my rucksack (at 11.9mm thin). In short, Samsung's Galaxy Book6 Pro is a great choice for a productivity laptop in my, erm, book.
If you're interested in buying a Galaxy Book6 Pro, you can order the laptop direct from Samsung.