Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge (Snapdragon X Elite) - Full First Impressions!

*14:01 -- I meant "haptic", not "capacitive". Single take! ;-)
You know the drill! If you want to see more, please subscribe! I rarely post videos, but when I do, I hope you'll find it's worth it. :-)
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Hey all,
I'm back, this time with a review of something I'm a little more familiar with professionally: a laptop. But this is no conventional laptop; it's one of the much-discussed new "AI PCs", powered by the new Snapdragon X1 Elite SoC with its sexy 4nm lithography.
I made this video (and purchased this device) because I had been searching for more information on many of these models and wasn't satisfied with the amount of videos and articles that have been published by knowledgeable reviewers. That's not to say that this video is meant to replace those; it's not a review, and I haven't done any benchmarks at all. There's plenty of that out there already... instead, even though I spent over 10 years of my life doing that sort of thing professionally, this is a different approach entirely: I'm just taking it out of the box, setting things up, talking through my thoughts and the speed bumps along the way.
This is no journey for the faint of heart, as OS support is pretty rough around the edges still. This much is immediately evident, and you'll witness some of that in my video. But I hope you find it useful and entertaining in some way regardless!
I'll be back with more, but for now, enjoy. Thanks for watching!
PS - Shout out to The Phawx, who actually did a proper review of one of these Snapdragon models. Mine, as usual, is not a proper review ;-) - • Impressive! But Also N...

[@Davesaintgold]

Let me say that after Firmware update the Pc improve 50% up the performance. Stunning...

[@OtherSteve]

Is that the one I already applied? Or is there another someplace?

[@vkhang12]

change power plan

[@doubly_negative]

You should write X Elite instead of snapdragon in the title for KZbin algorithm make your video reach wider audience cuz that's what fetches views. Excellent video btw. Looking forward for more videos.

[@OtherSteve]

Thanks! :-)

[@mikehawk7307]

Every time I watch a video on this device. I go to the Samsung site and look at the price tag for these. And then I snap back to reality.

[@OtherSteve]

Yes, they are very expensive. Honestly, though, apart from the keyboard criticisms, they *look* and *feel* like they're worth ~$1,200. Part of this is truly the chipset, which is actually amazing. But the design really is pretty stunning in itself. I keep coming back to the display, but that's a huge part of it also. If you're not planning on being outdoors much with the competing machines, I have no doubt that you will be satisfied with their display quality also. But, like the S24 series of phones, once you see a screen with reduced reflectivity, it's hard to go anywhere else.

[@peterparker2068]

If you wait, the 14 inch at bestbuy is priced at 899

[@sepidub]

Dude picked up the laptop to enter password instead of editing it out LOL

[@OtherSteve]

That's right, it has to look as unprofessional as possible or it isn't up to the standards of my channel LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE 😝

[@julienalexander6113]

I got mine and love it so far. I also get a free 65" samsung TV too, which will be here Monday.

[@OtherSteve]

Yeah, I didn't decide quickly enough for the TV deal. But I figured that's fine, honestly I've got too many TVs in the house already.

[@julienalexander6113]

@@OtherSteve I feel you

[@bishnu__newar]

😂​@@julienalexander6113

[@Karansingh-mf6bg]

Your Unscientific review feels more realistic then other ones

[@OtherSteve]

Thanks - that's what I'm aiming for ;-)

[@Asparagopistaxiformis]

real buyers review, like it

[@OtherSteve]

That's the only way I roll these days. I've done my time with PR-provided products ;-)

[@JanNiklasBenn]

Iam considering switching from my 16gb macbook pro to the yoga slim 7x with 32GB for the 16gb ram upgrade, would say it is worth it? Iam a CS Student and web dev.

[@OtherSteve]

I'm not sure if I'd decide based on the ram alone. It really doesn't translate across platforms well; for instance, you probably already know this, but macOS requires less inherently than Windows. Of course, if you find yourself using Windows frequently on your Mac, then yes, I'm sure you would find it helpful. I've got to say I'm pretty impressed with this platform, and I've been doing this for a while! It feels like a bit of a rushed launch, but I think they're going to iron out the wrinkles given how much attention and press this has gotten. since you'll still have a working Mac anyway, it really can't hurt too much to dive in. I think I'm keeping mine!

[@AllTimeTech12]

Linux?

[@taylorlatch2635]

How's the battery life in real world so far? Low drain overnight, better than the intels but not quite as good as the Macbooks I guess?

[@OtherSteve]

Battery drain while sleeping is phenomenal... maybe a few % overnight, that's it. N = 1, of course, but as I go through more nights I'll get a better idea of whether this is consistent. Seems like it should be though based on what I've read from others and what I understand about ARM. In use, I'm actually impressed. It's not *earth-shattering*, but if you leave it in Balanced/Optimized, it will easily last an entire day with general office use (even if you're a heavier user like me), at 70% to 100% brightness. I'll try to give more info on this soon as I continue to use it. Today has been a great workday with it thus far however.

[@bassyey]

Anything is better than trash Intels so that's a low bar to overcome lol.

[@TheGhost9294]

i like the technical parts , subscribed just for that :) btw great job on details......i learned something that i didn't knew before.

[@OtherSteve]

Thanks for the sub! Glad it helped you out :-)

[@hexagonal7075]

Please plug in eGPU and check if it's working

[@OtherSteve]

Unfortunately I don't have one of those handy.

[@DanielM.-mq4rm]

I dont think so, there are no Nvidia or AMD drivers yet available for ARM64

[@imranmokashi9101]

Only because of model processor 80 in samsung vs 78 in Lenovo, you are leaning towards samsung? or any other reason you are considered?

[@OtherSteve]

I need to make another video where I talk more about this because I realize I kind of got off the topic after I mentioned it. These were my primary considerations: - faster CPU due to boost - anti-reflective coating on the glossy screen - quieter operation due to vapor chamber - integration with Samsung phones - variable refresh rate + 120 Hz It's tough, because the Lenovo clearly has its own set of benefits. I'll try to make another video where I go into more detail to help people out.

[@imranmokashi9101]

@@OtherSteve i appreciate your honest feedback. I am leaning towards samsung too due to ecosystem.

[@Wankidy]

I got a 16" for $989, and the build quality was surprisingly good for a laptop this thin. I also got a very good deal on an OLED XPS 16, and now i'm stuck with a big decision to make. The price difference is only $200

[@javierruiz-alonso6941]

Wonderful, quirky video, keep'em coming 🙏

[@ChilenonetoYoutube]

First review fpcusingnon real users... not everyone render videos or play exclusively, the more productivity/developer/casual users are almost never addressed. Thank you. Following from now

[@OtherSteve]

Thanks! Agreed that this was missing, which is why I decided to make this. I'll be back very soon with additional/revised opinions and details.

[@ChilenonetoYoutube]

@@OtherSteve After the fact i saw that typed very weirdly some words LOL

[@OtherSteve]

@@ChilenonetoKZbin It's okay, we can infer!

[@Karansingh-mf6bg]

Do a detailed video on the battery life on this machine and how we can get best bettery life?

[@crissnickers_frog6689]

just the same like all the others , why? nice hack @the 8 min /nice video up to @4k rezolution

[@OtherSteve]

??

[@sumitkumarchaudhary4324]

How is the battery in comparison with m3 apple

[@OtherSteve]

Definitely nowhere nearly as good I'd say. However, it seems very sufficient given the level of performance, low heat development, and almost nonexistent fan noise. I think I could easily squeeze 8 - 10 hours out of this on high-ish brightness under heavy office use (active browsing with lots of tabs, document editing, etc), which, given the performance bonus, is a lot better than the 12th-gen Intel I use as a daily driver. I've seen plenty of 13th gen Intels also - many of them - and this easily impresses next to those as well. Biggest issues are the quirks of the new platform/ARM and the lack of solid OS foundational support for some things like older print drivers along with it.

[@bassyey]

@@OtherSteve That's normal. When M1 released not everything was compatible. I had to wait until M2. I bought M2 mini on release day. Which was 1-2 years after the initial Apple Silicon. By that time, I didn't have anything running in Rosetta.

[@OtherSteve]

@@bassyey Yes, this is true, but the built-in operating system level photo viewing app in macOS also didn't fail to work ;-D

[@sleepnclass]

Torn between this and the surface pro 11. Leaning towards surface pro 11 though.

[@xplics]

Which did you go with? If you're already in the Samsung Eco system is something to consider as well.

[@brooklyn560]

Surface

[@The_Penguin_City]

Todomundo habla del Snapdragon X, pero nadie dice algo acerca de la jeta del CEO de Intel que ve como se muere su negocio.

[@OtherSteve]

I think Intel will be all right -- as they've retooled x86 quite a lot also apparently. That should help buy them some efficiency I'd predict in the next product launch, and probably they'll have a few years to work on a shift to ARM if that really is where most mobile devices are headed.

[@Shabbir-A.]

I regret buying my Samsung Laptop. windows updates were blocked secretly. so no updates, no issues with laptop magic. it took me weeks to find a way to initiate updates in the laptop.

[@OtherSteve]

That's odd. I don't think I've ever seen a Windows laptop where the Windows updates were disabled by the OEM, and I work on many hundreds of machines annually. Are you certain it wasn't some sort of group policy inheritance via joining an organization (i.e., entering a work email address)? That seems far more likely.

[@drishalballaney6590]

@@OtherSteve iirc if one signs in with a work account on windows, then the org can auto apply their policies right ?

[@OtherSteve]

@@drishalballaney6590 Correct, though Windows warns about this ahead of signing them in

[@Shabbir-A.]

@@OtherSteve I bought that laptop from BestBuy and had phone chat with Samsung several times. then I saw notes in Google to delete a folder in windows directory to initiate updates.

[@mannkeithc]

Is the eUFS storage in the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge slower than NVMe SSD storage?

[@OtherSteve]

It seems quite a bit slower than most of the better NVMe drives to me. Write speeds are particularly interesting; I swear I got better numbers yesterday, but today I'm getting only 500 MB/s or so. Read speeds are closer to 4,000 MB/s. Of course, the faster SSDs out there are 6 - 7,000, but at some point you're splitting hairs. Once I have some more time (working today) I'll try to run some more tests.

[@OtherSteve]

Here's the full readout from the most recent CDM benchmark I ran. This was on Best Performance power mode by the way: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CrystalDiskMark 8.0.5 ARM64 (C) 2007-2024 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World: crystalmark.info/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s] * KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes [Read] SEQ 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 3836.462 MB/s [ 3658.7 IOPS] < 2184.98 us> SEQ 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 3235.878 MB/s [ 3086.0 IOPS] < 323.92 us> RND 4KiB (Q= 32, T= 1): 465.050 MB/s [ 113537.6 IOPS] < 272.82 us> RND 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 51.620 MB/s [ 12602.5 IOPS] < 79.26 us> [Write] SEQ 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 559.896 MB/s [ 534.0 IOPS] < 14913.58 us> SEQ 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 562.644 MB/s [ 536.6 IOPS] < 1862.01 us> RND 4KiB (Q= 32, T= 1): 294.107 MB/s [ 71803.5 IOPS] < 444.77 us> RND 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 179.585 MB/s [ 43844.0 IOPS] < 22.73 us> Profile: Default Test: 1 GiB (x1) [C: 18% (83/459GiB)] Mode: [Admin] Time: Measure 5 sec / Interval 5 sec Date: 2024/06/21 13:41:42 OS: Windows 11 Home 24H2 [10.0 Build 26100] (ARM64)

[@NIGHTCASTERS]

set dep for the photo app

[@OtherSteve]

It fixed itself... turns out it was an issue with the Photos app itself rather than a chipset problem (ran into the same issue with an Intel device about a week later).

[@Bozo---]

i wouldn't buy samsung except for smartphones. So many bad reviews for laptops, tv and monitors.

[@OtherSteve]

TVs and monitors I think they do all right personally, at least, in my experience. I've long been averse to the Samsung PC landscape however. It seems this might work well as a secondary machine, or even a primary if there's a solid secondary on hand in the event that a problem arises. I may try to get my hands on a Yoga Slim 7x also and see what I think of that one.

[@ThePriceIsNeverRight]

What are you talking about Samsung tvs and monitors are their best products and what known for

[@bassyey]

Don't buy their appliances like air conditioning and refrigerator, utter trash.

[@abdulsamadafolabi3189]

I agree my touchpad does not work within 2 years

[@ikhfangmail3165]

My tv last decade, the most reliable so far

[@jerryyan4131]

QC so bad for Samsung

[@brentmorris8626]

If benchmarking - please plug it in 1st.

[@denischiosa4496]

No need

[@Berserk-ig1ok]

Cap​@@denischiosa4496

[@ThePriceIsNeverRight]

Im actually interested in benchmarks plugged in vs unplugged

[@morm2173]

Which is better for me the book 4 ultra or the new edge ? For gaming , multi tasking , speakers with dolby etc ?

[@sebseb6799]

For Gaming, I'd say buy the book 4 ultra. The X Elite is atrocious for gaming, at least right now.

[@morm2173]

@sebseb6799 ah I see yea I was thinking thr book 4 ultra is better which is probably why they charge so much for it

[@OtherSteve]

This absolutely is *not* a gaming laptop and honestly it should not be used as one IMHO.

[@morm2173]

@OtherSteve thanks for clarifying that for me . Also how are the speakers with dolby ?

[@OtherSteve]

@@morm2173 pretty decent, though definitely not as good as many of the more recent up firing models, such as the new yoga laptops, latitude 7000 and 9000 series from Dell, and Surface Book. Still, it's perfectly passable for daily use unless you're relying on it for constant media consumption where you need a lot of low end. The bass is middling at best, but the clarity is good. Overall volume is very good I'd say. I would say if you're after the absolute best audio performance the yoga looks pretty sweet actually.