Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro review: Why I'd buy this instead of the Ultra model

Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Samsung's Galaxy Book 6 Pro launches March 11 with a starting terms of $1,600.
• It boasts a stunning AMOLED screen, a almighty six-speaker system, and a caller vapor enclosure that keeps temps successful check.
• However, the idiosyncratic acquisition is bogged down by a anemic keyboard and crisp wrist rest.

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I'll beryllium brutally honest: I didn't expect to beryllium ace impressed by the Samsung's Galaxy Book 6 Pro. On paper, it's fundamentally a toned-down mentation of the Galaxy Book 6 Ultra, a somewhat much almighty laptop I reviewed earlier this year. 

However, aft spending clip with the Pro model, I realized however incorrect I was. The Galaxy Book 6 Pro is simply a highly susceptible instrumentality successful its ain right. In fact, I would urge the Pro implicit the Ultra if you privation a premium PC acquisition without needing to wage implicit $2,000 for one.

Thin frame, large sound

Because the Galaxy Book 6 Pro shares truthful overmuch of its DNA with the Ultra, it has immoderate of the aforesaid flaws. The keyboard is, erstwhile again, mushy. Typing consciousness is not great. Plus, the crisp borderline on the wrist remainder tin excavation into your skin. Apart from these comparatively insignificant complaints, it's a coagulated laptop. Samsung gets the fundamentals right.

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Even though I wasn't a large instrumentality of the keyboard, the haptic touchpad is thankfully better. It's large, responsive, and offers precise fingertip controls for creaseless web browsing. It's hard to enactment into words however large it feels; it's 1 of those things you person to acquisition yourself to afloat understand.

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Other plan differences are tiny but meaningful. The Book 6 Pro is slimmer than its large sibling, measuring 0.46 inches (11.9mm) and weighing 3.5 pounds. For comparison, the Ultra measures 0.6 inches (15.4mm) and weighs 4.1 pounds. It sports the aforesaid AMOLED touchscreen implicit with a 120Hz refresh rate, up to 1,000 nits of highest brightness, and a Corning Gorilla Glass panel. There isn't a prime spread betwixt the 2 displays -- some person arsenic fantastic screens.

It besides supports Samsung's Vision Booster. According to the tech giant, this diagnostic analyzes ambient lighting and on-screen contented to amended visibility and colour accuracy erstwhile outside. It does enactment to immoderate extent, but the show inactive struggles to support wide visibility nether direct, harsh sunlight.

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Audio show is arsenic impressive. The six-speaker strategy delivers room-filling dependable with fantabulous instrumentality separation. Listening to jazz tracks felt similar the set was successful beforehand of me, quality videos sounded lifelike, and stone euphony had a satisfying punch and presence. I did announcement immoderate distortion occurring with definite creation tracks, though that whitethorn person been much of an contented with the YouTube videos themselves.

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Ultra-level power

The astir notable quality betwixt the Pro and Ultra models is the hardware. My reappraisal portion housed an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor, 32GB of RAM, and the integrated Intel Arc graphics card. That's a coagulated setup, but not arsenic almighty arsenic the Galaxy Book 6 Ultra, which comes with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series GPU. There is simply a show spread betwixt them, though it's not large.

Below is simply a examination array showing however the Galaxy Book 6 Pro stacks up against the Ultra model, different laptop with released this twelvemonth with the aforesaid processor: the Acer Swift 16 AI, and the Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 8 -- a high-end 16-inch laptop from 2025.

As the numbers show, each 3 laptops performed astir the aforesaid successful the single-core tests. That means web browsing, bureau work, and wide multitasking volition consciousness conscionable arsenic accelerated connected the Book 6 Pro arsenic they bash connected the different machines. The existent separation appears successful the multi-core performance, wherever the Pro exemplary falls somewhat down the higher-end chip. 

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This implies it's not arsenic well-suited to the astir demanding tasks similar 3D animation oregon video editing. However, that doesn't mean the Galaxy Book 6 Pro is low-power by immoderate stretch.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

Quite the opposite; it's inactive a high-performing laptop. Look astatine the multi-core scores, and you'll spot that the Book 6 Pro doesn't way acold down the others. In 3DMark Night Raid, a benchmark focused connected integrated GPUs, the Pro scored 37,234, which is adjacent to the Ultra's people of 40,615. These are each coagulated results, confirming that the laptop is highly susceptible astatine handling contented instauration among different demanding workloads.

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That spot showed up successful my hands-on testing. I was capable to edit aggregate abbreviated 4K videos without contented and export ample batches of photographs quickly. I was adjacent capable to compression successful immoderate airy gaming. Indie titles similar Hollow Knight and Mewgenics ran arsenic creaseless arsenic butter.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

Thermals are different agleam spot. According to Samsung, the Galaxy Book 6 Pro is the archetypal of its Pro laptops to diagnostic a vapor enclosure cooling system, and it works beauteous well. During testing, the laptop would get lukewarm nether dense workloads, but ne'er uncomfortably hot. 

Battery longevity is besides rather solid. Because of its little almighty hardware, I expected the Pro to past longer than the Ultra, but the artillery lasted the aforesaid magnitude of time: 20 hours connected a azygous charge, which is simply a large runtime, marque nary mistake.

ZDNET's buying advice

Samsung's Galaxy Book 6 Pro launches connected March 11 and volition travel successful a 14-inch and 16-inch model. I had the second for my reappraisal unit. Prices volition commencement astatine $1,600. If you're looking for a reliable mundane laptop that tin grip originative workloads, it's a beardown proposal from me. It delivers a level of show adjacent to the Ultra exemplary portion costing astir $1,000 less. That said, if you privation the champion of the best, past get the Galaxy Book 6 Ultra.