Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro review: one of the year's best Windows laptops

If you're shopping around for one of the best laptops money can buy, then it's likely that you're going to have a Samsung model or two on your shortlist – and quite possibly the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro, if you're wanting something that's relatively high-end.

Following on from the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Pro that went on sale early in 2024 (and which impressed us when we reviewed the laptop), this successor brings with it a notable performance upgrade, without changing much in terms of the design and style.

I've spent the last couple of weeks putting the Galaxy Book 5 Pro through its paces, and you can find my thoughts below. If you need even more buying inspiration, be sure to check out our guides to the best laptops under £500 and the best student laptops as well.

Price & Availability

You can buy the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro now online and in stores, and it'll set you back from around £1,200 / $1,350 for the entry-level model at the time of writing. The shopping widget embedded above on this page will lead you to the best prices currently online.

That entry-level model has a 14-inch screen, but there's also a 16-inch version, which is the one I'm reviewing here. That will cost you around £/$200 more, and you'll also pay extra for CPU, RAM, and storage upgrades.

If you are in the UK, you can pick up the laptop direct from Samsung. It's also worth pointing out that an extra chunk of cash will get you the 360-degree version of this laptop, with a display that folds all the way around and back flat on the keyboard.

Design & Display

It would be very difficult to argue against the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro being a very good-looking laptop: it's super-slim, subtle in its minimalism, and finely finished. There's a small Samsung logo on the laptop lid, and plenty of curves in the right places, too. On this 16-inch model, you get a full number pad on the keyboard, plus a large trackpad beneath, both of which are comfortable to use.

Pick up this 16-inch version, and you've got a laptop weighing in at 1.56 kilograms, and measuring 12.5mm thick when closed shut. Build quality is perfectly fine, if not quite up to the level of the some premium laptops on the market – including those made by Apple, and those costing twice as much as this one.

The display you get here is a sumptuous 16-inch AMOLED panel, which runs at a rather unusual resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 – that's a 16:10 aspect ratio. I like the slightly taller approach for documents and webpages rather than this wide-angle approach, though the black boxes around this widescreen for movies are going to be less intrusive. It's also a touchscreen panel, if you like to reach out and prod your finger at the display (personally, I don't, but each to their own).

In actual use, though, it's a fantastic panel. Samsung has been making top-tier screens for the best TVs, smartphones and laptops for many years now (and selling them to other manufacturers too, of course), and that's evident in the vibrancy and brightness of this screen. As you would expect from Samsung, it's a treat for the eyes, no matter what you're looking at.

Features & Performance

My review laptop came with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor (and integrated Intel Arc graphics), 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of internal storage. For connectivity, we've got an HDMI 2.1 port, two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, one USB 3.2 (USB-A) port, a 3.5mm headphone and mic combo port, and a microSD card reader. That's a decent selection on a thin and light laptop like this.

So what do those specs mean in day-to-day use? In my experience, this is a snappy, speedy laptop, and one that's not going to interrupt you with any hint of lag or stutter. The only problems you're going to have are with demanding video, audio, and image editing work – though even here you get respectable performance. I got through a decent amount of editing work on multiple large photos without any problems.

With no dedicated GPU on board, this is obviously not going to appeal to serious gamers, but integrated Intel Arc graphics are now good enough for some light gaming – even the most demanding games will run, if you dial the settings right down and don't expect high frame rates. Generally though, you're going to have to stick to older titles and more basic games in this department.

Even when games were running, I found the Galaxy Book 5 Pro to keep to acceptable limits in terms of noise and heat output most of the time – you can use it comfortably on your lap without it getting overly warm. The keyboard and trackpad experience feel premium, without quite getting to the Mac-level standard in my opinion.

Sound is handled with a quad-speaker setup that actually includes a tiny subwoofer, and it's actually rather decent. If you're watching videos on the go, then the quality of the accompanying dialog and music is top-notch, especially considering how thin the laptop is. There's support for Dolby Atmos audio here, too.

Also worth mentioning are the fingerprint sensor in the top right corner of the keyboard – making it much easier to log into Windows, into apps, and into websites – and the 2-megapixel camera that sits at the top of the screen. It's not the most brilliant of webcams, but it does the job well enough, and you can always upgrade it with an external model – our best webcams list can help you out there.

Battery life is really impressive here, even with that gorgeous, 16-inch display to contend with. Of course, display brightness and power mode settings all come into play, but generally speaking, I was getting 10-11 hours between charges during my testing. This is a laptop that should be able to last a whole day away from a power socket, rather than just an afternoon or a morning.

I ran a video streaming test for an hour, with the volume set low and the display brightness set to around 50%, and the battery level dropped by 8% in that time – so that means you're looking at around 12-13 hours of just video streaming, if you don't put any more demands on the laptop.

Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro review: Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro is a real treat to use, ticking all the boxes you want in a laptop: a pleasing design, plenty of performance power, battery life that'll get you through the day, a quality screen, and a keyboard and trackpad that are responsive and a pleasure to use.

Add in plenty of connectivity options and decent sound, and this is clearly one of the best lightweight laptops around at the moment. Unless you're a creative professional or gamer who needs the highest levels of PC performance right now, then Galaxy Book 5 Pro will appeal if you're in the market for a new laptop.

The pricing is competitive too: far from the budget end of the spectrum, but also reasonable considering what you get in return. More configuration options in terms of processor, memory and storage options can be tweaked to match how much you've got to spend, and there are two different screen sizes to pick from.

Also consider

One thing is clear if you're shopping for a new laptop: you've got a lot of them to choose between. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 is a great all-rounder, offering you a fine display and some serious performance.

Then there's the Asus Zenbook A14, which is a little more compact and portable than the 16-inch Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro. With it being smaller, you can pick it up for less than the Samsung model, which might suit you better.