During this year's SDC (Samsung Developer
Conference), the company introduced two new notebook lineups - the Galaxy Book
Flex and the Galaxy Book Ion. Each comes in two flavors - 13" and 15"
and they all share a couple of common standout features.
First and foremost, the Flex and the Ion have QLED
Full HD (1920 x 1080px) displays and although Samsung claims these are the
first QLED displays on the market, there are some earlier implementations of
the tech in the laptop market. AU Optronics has been making Quantum Dot panels
for quite some time now and they can be found in early Acer Predator gaming
laptop iterations.
However, these QLED panels seem superior as they
have a peak brightness of 600 nits, which is downright impressive. The 13-inch
and 15-inch screens on the Galaxy Book Flex and Ion seem suitable even for
outdoor use.
Both devices support Samsung's Wireless PowerShare
and can charge your Qi-compatible gadgets using the touchpad. We wonder if this
means that you won't be able to use the touchpad while you are charging your
device. AKG-branded stereo speakers are also on the menu.
Galaxy Book Flex
The 13-inch flex comes in a 1.15kg package with
Intel's latest 10th Generation (Ice Lake) Core chips, integrated graphics, up
to 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD. For extra security, the
machine has a fingerprint reader.
The name is derived from the 360-degree rotating
display, which is also touchscreen and supports S-Pen. Connectivity isn't
overlooked too, - 2x Thunderbolt 3 connectors and microSD card slot. A generous
69.7Wh battery is inside.
Interestingly, the 15-inch variant comes with the
same battery but it weighs 1.52kg or 1.57kg if you go for the discrete graphics
card version. Nvidia GeForce MX250 GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 memory is your option.
Galaxy Book Ion
The Ion series also come in
two flavors- 13" and 15". The 13-inch is 30g shy of a kilogram while
the 15-inch version can go up to 1.26kg with a discrete GPU. Intel's 10th Generation Comet
Lake chips sit behind the wheel while the 15-inch model can be equipped with an
Nvidia GeForce MX250 GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.
Memory configurations can go up to 16GB DDR4 in both
cases and up to 1TB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage. However, the 15-inch has t an
additional unpopulated SODIMM slot for another 16GB RAM chip and an additional
SSD slot too.
The same 69.7Wh battery keeps the lights on for both
iterations and connectivity-wise, the Ion beats the Flex with an additional
HDMI connector. As of now, there's no information about pricing but sales are
scheduled to start in December.
