Samsung Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional and Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional 360 hands-on

Samsung has introduced two updates to its premium Galaxy Ebook line: the Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional and Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional 360. The units will begin at $1,049.99 and $1,249.99 respectively; they hit cabinets on April 1st with preorders starting on March 18th. A budget-oriented Galaxy Ebook 2 360, a convertible model of the common Galaxy Ebook, may also ship April 1st with a beginning value of $899.99.

Each Professional fashions are available 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch sizes, whereas the common Ebook 2 360 is barely a 13.3. As you possibly can most likely guess from the names, the Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional is a clamshell whereas the Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional 360 is a 2-in-1 convertible with a touchscreen and S Pen assist.

These units appear and feel fairly just like the Galaxy Ebook Professional and Galaxy Ebook Professional 360 fashions we reviewed final 12 months. Like its predecessor, the smallest Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional is simply 1.92 kilos and 0.44 inches thick. It’s nonetheless one of many absolute lightest clamshell laptops you should buy, and selecting it up actually messes along with your thoughts. But it surely additionally makes remarkably few compromises for that portability. Specifically, the 15-incher manages to squeeze an HDMI port into that tiny chassis. Many laptops of this dimension are actually solely USB-C. (The 360 mannequin is, as you’d anticipate, a bit heavier.)

The first chassis replace is that each one the brand new fashions characteristic 1080p webcams. There are additionally some new software program options meant to boost the video-call expertise, together with some new background and face-effect options, in addition to an Auto Framing instrument that retains you targeted as you progress round. This can be a pretty predictable funding as extra employees proceed to embrace distant and hybrid setups.

The shows (all FHD AMOLED) are additionally brighter than they have been on final 12 months’s fashions. I wasn’t floored by the brightness on both of the 2021 Galaxy Ebook Execs, so I’m glad to see this transformation. I did catch some glare from the intense lights in Samsung’s demo space, although I didn’t have bother seeing something on the screens. Sadly, all of those units nonetheless have the cursed 16:9 facet ratio, which many different premium strains have moved away from this 12 months.

The Professional convertible can also be out there in a brand new burgundy colour, along with graphite and silver. It’s very fairly in particular person and feels easy, although the graphite providing continues to be my favourite.

These units could be configured with as much as a Twelfth-Gen Core i7, 32GB of RAM (the Ebook 2 360 maxes out at 16GB), and 1TB of storage (the Ebook 2 360 goes as much as 512GB). Samsung says they’ll be licensed by way of Intel’s Evo program (which implies that Intel vouches {that a} machine’s efficiency, battery life, and different essential options are as much as snuff).

The Professional fashions meet Microsoft’s “secured-core PC” necessities, which implies that they embody numerous hardware-based safety parts like TPM 2.0 and virtualization-based safety, in addition to options customers would possibly care extra, about like biometric authentication. (Each of those units have fingerprint sensors of their energy buttons.)

And each Professional fashions assist just a few Samsung-specific connectivity options, which has all the time been a significant draw for Galaxy Books amongst Samsung fans. These embody Single Signal-on, Sensible Swap (which makes it simpler to switch knowledge, photographs, settings, and so on. between PCs), and assist for the SmartThings good residence dashboard.

An attention-grabbing addition is Multi Management, which lets you use a Galaxy Tab S8 as a secondary display screen alongside a Galaxy Ebook 2 Professional. I bought to do this out with a 15-inch Ebook 2 Professional 360, and it was practical; I may efficiently transfer the cursor backwards and forwards between the 2 Galaxy units, dragging home windows and such. I did expertise some vital lag when navigating on the Tab S8 — the cursor appeared prefer it was having bother maintaining with my gestures, although it did finally observe them. That is one thing I hope Samsung irons out as the discharge date approaches.

Keep tuned for our full opinions of those units, the place we’ll have extra impressions of the brand new webcams and software program options.

Pictures by Monica Chin