ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Professionals: The Galaxy Book6 Professional sports activities an AMOLED display, a booming six-speaker system, and a brand new vapor chamber
- Cons: The consumer expertise is held again by a substandard keyboard.
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I will be brutally sincere: I did not count on to be tremendous impressed by the Samsung’s Galaxy E book 6 Professional. On paper, it is primarily a toned-down model of the Galaxy E book 6 Extremely, a barely extra highly effective laptop computer I reviewed earlier this yr.
Nonetheless, after spending time with the Professional mannequin, I spotted how mistaken I used to be. The Galaxy E book 6 Professional is a extremely succesful machine in its personal proper. In actual fact, I might suggest the Professional over the Extremely if you need a premium PC expertise with out paying over $2,000.
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Skinny body, massive sound
As a result of the Galaxy E book 6 Professional shares a lot of its DNA with the Extremely, it has a number of the identical flaws. The keyboard is, as soon as once more, mushy. Typing really feel is just not nice. Plus, the sharp edge alongside the wrist relaxation can dig into your pores and skin. Other than these comparatively minor complaints, it is a strong laptop computer. Samsung will get the basics proper.
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Although I wasn’t an enormous fan of the keyboard, the haptic touchpad is fortunately higher. It is massive, responsive, and affords exact fingertip controls for easy internet looking. It is onerous to place into phrases how nice it feels; it is a kind of issues it’s a must to expertise your self to completely perceive.
Different design variations are small however significant. The E book 6 Professional is slimmer than its massive sibling, measuring 0.46 inches (11.9mm) and weighing 3.5 kilos. For comparability, the Extremely measures 0.6 inches (15.4mm) and weighs 4.1 kilos. It sports activities the identical AMOLED touchscreen full with a 120Hz refresh price, as much as 1,000 nits of peak brightness, and a Corning Gorilla Glass panel. There is not a high quality hole between the 2 shows — each have equally improbable screens.
It additionally helps Samsung’s Imaginative and prescient Booster. In response to the tech big, this characteristic analyzes ambient lighting and on-screen content material to enhance visibility and coloration accuracy when outdoors. It does work to some extent, however the show nonetheless struggles to take care of clear visibility underneath direct, harsh daylight.
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Audio efficiency is equally spectacular. The six-speaker system delivers room-filling sound with wonderful instrument separation. Listening to jazz tracks felt just like the band was in entrance of me, nature movies sounded lifelike, and rock music had a satisfying punch and presence. I did discover some distortion occurring with sure dance tracks, though that will have been extra of a difficulty with the YouTube movies themselves.
Extremely-level energy
Probably the most notable distinction between the Professional and Extremely fashions is the {hardware}. My evaluate unit housed an Intel Core Extremely X7 358H processor, 32GB of RAM, and the built-in Intel Arc graphics card. That is a strong setup, however not as highly effective because the Galaxy E book 6 Extremely, which comes with a devoted Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series GPU. There’s a efficiency hole between them, although it is not massive.
Under is a comparability desk exhibiting how the Galaxy E book 6 Professional stacks up in opposition to the Extremely mannequin, one other laptop computer with launched this yr with the identical processor: the Acer Swift 16 AI, and the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 — a high-end 16-inch laptop computer from 2025.
Because the numbers present, all three laptops carried out about the identical within the single-core exams. Which means internet looking, workplace work, and normal multitasking will really feel simply as quick on the E book 6 Professional as they do on the opposite machines. The actual separation seems within the multi-core efficiency, the place the Professional mannequin falls barely behind the higher-end chip.
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This suggests it is not as well-suited to essentially the most demanding duties like 3D animation or video enhancing. Nonetheless, that does not imply the Galaxy E book 6 Professional is low-power by any stretch.
Fairly the alternative; it is nonetheless a high-performing laptop computer. Take a look at the multi-core scores, and you will see that the E book 6 Professional does not path far behind the others. In 3DMark Evening Raid, a benchmark centered on built-in GPUs, the Professional scored 37,234, which is near the Extremely’s rating of 40,615. These are all strong outcomes, confirming that the laptop computer is very succesful at dealing with content material creation amongst different demanding workloads.
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That energy confirmed up in my hands-on testing. I used to be capable of edit a number of quick 4K movies with out situation and export massive batches of images rapidly. I used to be even capable of squeeze in some gentle gaming. Indie titles like Hole Knight and Mewgenics ran as easy as butter.
Thermals are one other vibrant spot. In response to Samsung, the Galaxy E book 6 Professional is the primary of its Professional laptops to characteristic a vapor chamber cooling system, and it really works fairly properly. Throughout testing, the laptop computer would get heat underneath heavy workloads, however by no means uncomfortably sizzling.
Battery longevity can also be fairly strong. Due to its much less highly effective {hardware}, I anticipated the Professional to last more than the Extremely, however the battery lasted the identical period of time: 20 hours on a single cost, which is a good runtime, make no mistake.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
The Galaxy Book6 Professional is at the moment on sale on Samsung’s web site, beginning at $1,600. This base mannequin comes with a 14-inch display, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. You’ll be able to equip the laptop computer with a 16-inch display, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage, at which level you will pay $2,100. If you need the very best Samsung has to supply, the tech big additionally launched the Galaxy Book6 Extremely, which boasts even better efficiency.
