The new series of Copilot+ laptops that have recently appeared promise to open a new era for the PC world.
Many of these laptops emphasize performance and long battery life thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chip. That's impressive, but if you look at the laptop brands launching new products, Samsung 's participation is really noteworthy.
Design efficiency
The Copilot+ PC has been Microsoft’s focus lately, starting with laptops that compete with the MacBook Air in terms of performance and battery life. However, many of them are still thicker than their competitors. The Surface Laptop, for example, is still 17.5mm thick despite Microsoft’s design tweaks, while the MacBook Air M3 is significantly thinner at 11.2mm.
The 14-inch version of the Galaxy Book4 Edge is thinner than the MacBook Air.
To create a thin laptop, designers took full advantage of the efficiency of the ARM architecture, which allowed Apple to move from the powerful Intel MacBook Air to the breathtakingly thin M2 MacBook Air.
Some other Copilot+ laptops come closer but don’t quite match the MacBook Air, until Samsung’s 14- and 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Edge are surprisingly thin, especially the 14-inch model. The 14-inch is just 11mm thick, while the 16-inch is 12.2mm. That means the 14-inch is thinner than the MacBook Air. In the case of the larger model, Samsung could even squeeze in an HDMI port on the side.
It’s clear that the new Qualcomm chip really is as efficient as Apple Silicon, especially if the Galaxy Book4 Edge can deliver strong performance. More impressively, while the MacBook Air is fanless, the Galaxy Book4 Edge has a fan, which helps it maintain better performance without requiring a thicker chassis. The Galaxy Book4 Edge certainly won’t be the thinnest Copilot+ PC ever, but it’s certainly a credit to Samsung for taking the opportunity to trim the size.
Galaxy AI
The other big push behind the Copilot+ is AI, an area where the Galaxy Book4 Edge excels. All of these laptops benefit from new AI features built into Windows like Recall, but the Galaxy Book4 Edge has the edge thanks to its place in the larger Samsung ecosystem.
The Galaxy AI ecosystem will give the Galaxy Book4 Edge many advantages.
In particular, the product has a new feature that takes advantage of the advantage to make Copilot more useful. Using Copilot and Phone Link on the Galaxy Book4 Edge will allow users to fully control their phone through natural language generated by AI. So, let's say a user wants to text someone or set a map to the next location on their phone, it can all be done through natural language on the PC.
Of course, that's just the beginning of a growing number of developers starting to build tools based on Copilot and harness the NPU power of these laptops.
What will the price be?
One concern surrounding these new Samsung devices is the price. Samsung has limited configurations available, and they’re priced higher than other Copilot+ PCs. That could be an issue, especially since the MacBook Air M2 is still so cheap. One of the issues with the Copilot+ PC is that it requires a minimum of 16GB of RAM, which means the base configuration isn’t cheap.
Price will be the deciding factor in how the Galaxy Book4 Edge competes with the MacBook Air.
But if you’re looking for a Windows product that’s a worthy competitor to the MacBook Air, the Galaxy Book4 Edge seems ready to take that spot. It’ll take some time to get to grips with the product, but it looks like Samsung’s laptop will be among the Copilot+ laptops that users will want to experience.