Samsung Galaxy Book6 16 (Core Ultra 7) Review: Let Down by Its Panel

The Samsung Galaxy Book6 is an ultraportable aimed at office work. Having established itself in the premium laptop market with the Galaxy Book6 Pro and its impeccable finish in 14- and 16-inch sizes, the South Korean manufacturer also offers this entry-level Galaxy Book6.

The configuration examined here is the 16-inch model with an Intel Core Ultra 7 355 processor from the Panther Lake generation. Its most obvious direct rival is Apple's MacBook Air, and the question is whether the Galaxy Book6 can hold its own against it in the Windows ultraportable market.

Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy Book6's chassis is very nearly a copy of its Pro sibling's — at least in appearance. The silhouette and the design language could hardly be more similar, aside from a slight difference in dimensions, at 35.71 x 24.8 x 1.49 cm, and in weight, which at 1.75 kg is around the average for a laptop of this size. The layout of the central island is unchanged, but the components underneath have moved on in places.

There is nothing to report about the keyboard, whose chiclet keys remain as responsive and pleasant to use as ever. The trackpad, by contrast, differs from the Pro model's: it drops haptic feedback in favour of more conventional clickable buttons. That is hardly cause for outrage, since the practical difference is difficult to perceive once the knack has been acquired. This clicking trackpad is still a good one and avoids the sense of sag found on some entry-level machines.

The port selection brings changes for better and for worse. Thunderbolt 4 has gone: the Galaxy Book6 makes do with two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI output and a headphone socket. Set against that, an RJ45 Ethernet port and a microSD card reader appear, two welcome additions that are rarely found on a less expensive SKU. Charging is handled through one of the USB-C ports using a 45 W adapter. Wireless connectivity is limited to Wi-Fi 6E, doing without the Wi-Fi 7 of the Pro model, though Bluetooth 5.4 will comfortably meet most users' needs.

The Galaxy Book6 is cooled by a single fan assisted by a heat pipe, which translates into unsurprising temperature peaks when the processor is worked hard. A reading of 48.2 °C was recorded at the air exhaust near the hinge, which is worth bearing in mind before working with the machine on your lap. The laptop nonetheless runs slightly quieter than its Pro counterpart, with 37.1 dB recorded on a sound level meter.

At the heart of the Samsung Galaxy Book6 sits Intel's Core Ultra 7 355 from the Panther Lake generation, a chip that sits in the middle of the Core Ultra 3-series range. It counts eight logical compute cores — four performance and four efficiency — with a maximum Turbo frequency of 4.7 GHz, alongside four Intel Graphics GPU cores running at up to 2.5 GHz.

Those compute cores are not the great strength of Intel's Core Ultra chips, but the choice of CPU is entirely justified by where the machine sits. This is not a laptop chasing performance at all costs; it is aiming for a sensible compromise for anyone who wants to get office work done while travelling.

It is no surprise, then, that the Galaxy Book6's performance index trails that of the Book6 Pro and its more powerful Core Ultra 8 358H, and also that of Asus's ZenBook A16, which benefits from Qualcomm's latest flagship, the Snapdragon X Elite Extreme.

Among Windows laptops at broadly similar levels of the market, the Galaxy Book6 comes out ahead of the HP OmniBook 5 14 with its AMD Ryzen AI 5 340, and of the Snapdragon X version of the same machine, which is hardly astonishing. And to close on another non-revelation, the MacBook Air's M5 chip remains close to the absolute reference in the comparative CPU index, with a lead large enough to embarrass the rest of the field.

There is no great shock in the gaming benchmark either, where Shadow of the Tomb Raider at the Very High preset and 1200p averaged 26 frames per second. In short, unlike the X7 and X9 variants, the Core Ultra 7 is not really cut out for gaming.

Storage performance is perfectly respectable, with average sequential throughput of 6940 MB/s reading and 4553 MB/s writing. One small detail is worth noting: the controller is a Phison PS5027-E27T, where Samsung has habitually used its own modules in its ultraportable ranges.

The Samsung Galaxy Book6 carries a 16-inch IPS panel displaying 1920 x 1200 pixels at 60 Hz. The matt coating is welcome, since it limits reflected light to 19% — enough to make working outdoors or in a dimly lit office viable. Response time is also well controlled, averaging 13 ms, in line with rival office laptops.

Far less encouraging is the default calibration, which is simply disastrous. A probe recorded a delta E of 5.4, with blues far too pronounced to allow faithful image reproduction. Colour temperature, meanwhile, averages 6798 K, which is around the norm and relatively close to the 6500 K ideal.

The Galaxy Book6's pair of speakers struggles to match those of its more expensive siblings. The result is a sound short on bass, fairly forward in the midrange and with a narrow soundstage. They do at least have the advantage of playing reasonably loud.

The headphone output fares a little better, with distortion held close to the average, as are dynamic range and crosstalk, which reproduce stereo effects correctly. There is no miracle on output level, however, which is too low to drive high-impedance headphones.

In a battery test designed to simulate continuous standard laptop use as faithfully as possible, the Samsung Galaxy Book6 gave up after 6 hours 48 minutes. That places it above Asus's ZenBook A16 with its Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme, and above the HP OmniBook 3. It remains behind the Samsung Book6 Pro 16, which benefits from a more generous cell than the 61.2 Wh unit in the Book6, and a long way behind Apple's MacBook Air M5 and the notably frugal Snapdragon X in the HP OmniBook 5 14.

Four screws hide beneath the Galaxy Book6's silicone feet, and a suction cup is recommended to lift off the base plate. Inside, everything is neatly arranged, as is customary with Samsung. The memory is not upgradeable, but the battery is replaceable and sits next to a very welcome spare SSD slot.

In the office ultraportable market, few machines are able to stand up to Apple's MacBook Air M5, which remains the reference point for anyone not put off by macOS.