Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro review: a slim, powerful laptop with a stunning display
Long battery life, an AMOLED touch display and premium design make this one of Samsung's best laptops ever, as Attitude's Dale Fox discovers
By Dale Fox
Samsung’s 14-inch Galaxy Book5 Pro sits at the top end of the company’s laptop range, aimed at anyone who wants a premium Windows machine in a truly portable form. It’s one of the thinnest laptops Samsung has produced, but still manages to feel more substantial than its svelte frame suggests.
The aluminium build keeps the weight to 1.23 kg, which makes it easy to carry around or slip into a bag without noticing it. At roughly 11 mm thick, it’s closer to an ultraportable than a traditional notebook. The overall impression is neat, minimal, and premium. It doesn’t creak or flex, and feels extremely solid despite its slim profile.
The 14-inch AMOLED 3K touchscreen is the star of the show. An anti-reflective coating does its job well, cutting down on glare that glossy OLED panels often suffer from. Colours look rich, blacks are genuinely black and detail is clean throughout. The 120 Hz refresh rate keeps scrolling smooth across busy webpages or longer documents, while touch input works well for quick navigation or zooming into photos.
A noteable inclusion on Samsung’s part is the selection of legacy ports. Alongside the two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, you’ll find USB-A, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a MicroSD slot (though a full SD slot would have been more useful for the content creators among us).
Performance, battery life and audio
In everyday use, the Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and Intel Arc graphics handle multitasking comfortably. Switching between documents, browsers, streaming and calls feels fluid. While not on par with a dedicated gaming GPU, the integrated Intel Arc graphics chip still offers adequate performance for creative work (including photo and video editing), or any GPU-accelerated workloads. Even gaming is easily within reach: Red Dead Redemption 2 ran at reduced settings with a steady frame rate during our testing.
The backlit keyboard has shallow travel, which is expected for something this thin, but spacing and feedback make it fine for extended typing. (A 16-inch version of the Galaxy Book5 Pro brings a larger keyboard with a full number pad.) The trackpad is large and accurate, with consistent gesture support, though it lacks the haptic touchpad found on the likes of modern Surface or Macbook devices.
Battery performance is a strong point. Samsung quotes up to 21 hours of video playback on a full charge, though in reality this means a full working day of browsing, documents, calls and streaming is easily achievable without topping up. Samsung includes a 45W charger and USB-C cable in the box, though the device appears to support up to 65W with third-party chargers.
The weakest part of the experience is the audio. The bottom-firing speakers lack depth and don’t reach the clarity or volume of more premium rivals. While they’re fine for calls, you’ll want to connect headphones or a speaker if you plan on taking full advantage of the gorgeous display by watching films or series.
Software and extras
The Book5 Pro carries the Copilot+ label, with features such as live translation on calls and AI-powered photo tweaks. Samsung adds its own touches too, including quick photo transfer from a Samsung phone and seamless clipboard syncing between devices. Both work reliably and shave moments off daily tasks for anyone already in the Samsung ecosystem. That said, the CoPilot+ and Samsung features are welcome additions, but sit firmly in the category of nice-to-have rather than essential.
Verdict
The Galaxy Book5 Pro 14 combines a brilliant display, solid day-to-day performance and impressive battery life in a frame that’s easy to carry and use anywhere. For work, travel and general daily use, it’s one of Samsung’s strongest entries in recent years. We would have liked to have seen better speakers, especially with the likes of the Macbook Air squeezing high-quality audio into a machine that’s just as thin/
Pros
Excellent anti-reflective AMOLED touch display
Light and slim
Strong battery life
Smooth multitasking
Good port selection
Cons
Weak speakers
A full SD slot would have been nice
Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 14-inch specifications
Screen: 14-inch AMOLED 3K, anti-reflective, 120 Hz, touch
Processor: Intel Core Ultra 7
Graphics: Intel Arc
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: SSD (512GB/1TB)
Ports: USB-A, HDMI, microSD, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, 3.5mm headphone jack
Weight: 1.23 kg
Thickness: approx. 11 mm
OS: Windows 11 with Copilot+
The Galaxy Book5 Pro is available to buy from the Samsung online store from £1,149.
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