Samsung Galaxy Book Go Review: A Very Different Laptop!
The Samsung Galaxy Book Go is a product that
I find to be really exciting because it is
a very different device from the traditional
laptops, and if you have a use case for it,
it can work better than the more expensive
laptops for you.
It starts at 38,990 Rs. in India, but you
can also get an instant bank discount of 3000
Rs., so for just 36,000 Rs., you are getting
a very usable laptop with some unique qualities.
Hey guys I am Siddharth, and this is an ARM
based laptop that doesn’t have a traditional
x86 CPU, which offers some really nice advantages
but we will also talk about its limitations,
because it kind of shares its DNA more with
a smartphone than a laptop.
The Galaxy Book Go looks quite sleek, and
it looks more expensive than it actually is
because of its aluminium finish, even though
it is made completely of plastic.
The build quality is decent, and even though
there is some flex in its plastic body, it
has passed some military standard testing,
and it also has a spill resistant keyboard,
which is nice to see.
It is a thin and light device at 1.38 kg weight,
and 14.9 millimetres thickness, so you can
easily take it
a very important factor for me these days,
because it just makes me want to use the device
more.
The keyboard is surprisingly good on the Galaxy
Book Go, even though we don’t have a lot
of travel on the keys because of its thickness,
the keys feel tactile, and I didn’t have
any issues with typing my scripts on this
keyboard.
The touchpad we have here is also kind of
large, it tracks your fingers nicely and all
the Windows 11 gestures and palm rejection
works well on this.
On the left side of the device, we have a
USB C Port, a combined audio and mic jack,
along with a Micro SD Card reader, and on
the right, you will find a USB C port that
supports displayport out, along with a USB
A 2.0 port, and a Kensington lock.
The Galaxy Book Go has a 14 inch full HD display.
It looks quite sharp at this size, but this
is a TN panel, so you will have to keep it
at a proper angle, otherwise its colors and
contrast can shift.
When you are looking at the panel straight
up, it looks quite decent, and you can enjoy
watching video content.
The lid of the laptop does go all the way
back, which is kind of rare to see on devices
of this class, though you do have to make
use of your both hands to open it.
The Galaxy Book Go has only one storage variant
available in India, which is a 128 GB model
with 4 GB of RAM, and while the storage is
decently fast and it makes it boot up quickly,
128 GB is not a lot of storage, so you have
the option of expanding this by using a Micro
SD Card.
Now this is an ARM based device, which means
that it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2
Processor, instead of something from Intel
or AMD, so even though this comes with Windows
11 64 bit, it is running something called
Windows on ARM, which is the ARM specific
version of Windows that can still run most
things.
The great thing about this processor is that
this makes it an always on device, which means
that the power button on it works like the
power button on your smartphone, so just make
it go into a standby mode instead of shutting
down, and when you want to resume, you can
just get back to your work instantly.
Now I’ve had laptops with very fast SSDs
that boot into seconds, but an always-on device
is faster and more efficient than that, and
this makes it really amazing for using it
in college or other places where your work
requires constant pausing and resuming.
Having an ARM based processor means that this
laptop doesn’t require a fan for cooling,
and I really like this design a lot because
you don’t have to worry about dust and fan
noise, and if you use your laptop in your
lap, the heat can actually affect the quality
of your sperms by heating up your testicles,
so keeping things cool can be useful in the
long term.
The performance on the Galaxy Book Go is good
for everyday tasks but you can make it better
with some tweaks, for example, just disabling
transparency effects improves performance
noticeably.
Windows 11 is actually kind of a heavy OS
for a device with 4GB of RAM, so you will
find the RAM usage to be mostly over 80%,
even when you just have one tab open in a
browser, and opening multiple programs will
mean that you are in the high 90% of RAM usage.
This doesn’t create many issues in practice,
but if you have lots of tabs open, you may
see them getting refreshed when switching
back to them, and you will have to be mindful
about opening many heavy apps.
Another very important concern I had for this
laptop is its ability to run x86 apps, because
its CPU has a different architecture, but
it is able to do that well, and even though
you will find native ARM64 apps to perform
better, most of the regular 32 and even 64
bits apps will run on this laptop with emulation.
I tried testing this with a variety of programs,
the emulation does seem to work quite well.
I was able to run GIMP on this without issues,
and I think that Adobe apps like Photoshop
and Lightroom are also supported.
It was also able to run the 64 bit version
of VLC without issues, and it even ran the
Cinebench Benchmark, and it already comes
installed with Microsoft Office Home & Student.
Then I tried to install some games on it,
and it was able to run Dead Cells properly,
and I also tried Counter Strike, but it only
worked in software mode with choppy framerates.
Again, the fact that these programs even ran
is a big deal, and this should make you confident
about being able to run whatever you want
on this.
One area where you may run into issues is
with drivers, because hardware that doesn’t
have drivers for Arm64 may not work with this.
I tried using an old printer, and even tried
installing drivers manually, but it didn’t
work.
There may be a way to make printers without
ARM64 drivers work, but I haven’t yet been
able to figure that out.
Regular plug and play stuff like mice and
keyboards, and wireless hardware will mostly
work, but you will just have to keep the hardware
compatibility in mind (text: I also failed
to make it detect a webcam).
Installing Linux and other OSes also seems
to be a bit tricky on this.
But a big advantage of having an arm processor
is that it has a TDP of just 7 watts, so you
can expect really great battery life from
these devices.
Samsung has claimed 18 hours of battery life
on video playback, and I tested that by playing
a 4K video on loop, which is more resource
intensive, and I was able to get around 14
hours of run time on 50% brightness on the
screen, so you should be able to reach close
to the 18 hour figure, especially while doing
regular everyday work.
This is on a different level when you compare
it with other x86 based laptops, and it is
just so nice to have the confidence to take
this anywhere you want without its charger,
even though the one that comes in the box
is a compact 25 watt fast charger which this
laptop supports, and you can of course just
charge it with any mobile charger with the
USB C ports on both sides.
The onboard speakers we have here also sound
quite good, and even though they of course
lack bass, they are very usable for watching
video content.
I don’t know how this works, but even though
these speakers are down firing, it also sounds
like the sound is coming out from the top
of the laptop
[Sound Test]
We also have a 720p webcam here, and this
is what it looks and sounds like.
It can look quite good actually, but you will
require a lot of light for that, though one
thing I like about this is that the microphone
on it sounds really nice.
Samsung also has some Samsung specific features
on this, so you can use one of their tablets
like a second monitor to extend the screen,
and you can link this easily to their phones
and their earbuds, and this is of course also
possible with non Samsung devices but it won’t
feel as Samsungy.
So overall, the Samsung Galaxy Book Go can
be a really amazing device for you, but you
will have to ensure that you are okay with
some of its limitations.
If you have a use case for it, it can work
better than more expensive laptops for you,
so for example I will be taking this to my
college after this review is done, because
it is just a perfect device for that kind
of use case because of its long battery life,
and it’s always on design, and I’ll also
use it a lot as a secondary device to write
scripts, because most people don’t really
need a super powerful device for their work.
At its effective price of 36,000 Rs., you
can find other x86 laptops that offer similar
or better specs, but again, I really think
that having an ARM based laptop has advantages
if you know what your use case is, and the
other laptops won’t be as slim and light,
or have a fanless design which I also really
prefer having in a device.
The only thing that bothered me a little is
the TN panel screen, but the rest of the hardware
is quite good, and I am really glad that the
keyboard and trackpad work well on this.
And that will be it for this review, let me
know what you think about this device as it
is the most fun to review device I’ve had
in some time, give the video a thumbs up if
you enjoyed it, thanks for watching, and I’ll
see you in the next one.
