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Monitor
I’ll be honest: I can’t tell the difference between an OLED and QLED screen of the same size and resolution. And you may not be able to either. That is, you will have no complaints about Flex’s Full HD display in terms of color reproduction and vibration. I watched multiple episodes of the new Amazon show Rise. The rich fall colors in the lush forests were impressive, and it was easy to make out details even in low-light scenes.
My apartment gets much of light, so it can sometimes be difficult to see the screen of any laptop. Flex’s exterior mode is supposed to combat that by increasing the brightness by an additional 200-600 nits. But turning it on via the keyboard shortcut only helped a little. However, it was much more useful on a somewhat gloomy day.
I wish Samsung hadn’t made this an on / off mode and instead offered it as additional levels on the built-in brightness scale. Sometimes I needed a little more than the built-in max, but in those situations I had to use the outer mode, which burned my retinas. Still, you will probably conserve the battery to increase brightness for so long for short periods of time rather than encouraging you to use it for an extended period.
Outdoor mode also added a strange yellow hue to the screen, as if activating a blue light filter. This was not a big problem other than when I needed to edit photos for color temperatures. In those cases, you will have to disable the outdoor mode and find another way to see your screen without that increased brightness.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Keyboard and trackpad
Because it’s so slim, I was expecting the Book Flex to have shallow keys, but Samsung was able to offer a surprisingly deep amount of travel here. The keyboard is well laid out, with no smaller buttons except the scroll key to the right, which is slightly less wide to make room for the fingerprint sensor next to it.
My only complaint would be that the left scroll key seemed a bit sticky, and too often I tried to capitalize the first letter of a word and end up getting the first two letters. I’d blame it on my lazy little finger, but I haven’t found this on any other laptop.
A quick note about the fingerprint scanner: It was fast and accurate, usually unlocked the laptop without delay. Since it is compatible with Windows Hello, I also used it for authentication in programs like Google Chrome. While the location is rare (most laptops place their fingerprint readers at the top right of the platform or embed it in the power button), Samsung’s choice didn’t feel too strange.
Beneath the space bar is the Flex’s touchpad, which is quite spacious given the laptop’s small footprint. Smaller laptops often have narrow trackpads, but the surface here is generous. It’s not as tall as the XPS 13 or MacBook Air, but it offers enough vertical space. In addition to being large, the Flex’s touchpad is also responsive and smooth, and gestures like scrolling or pinching to zoom worked well.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
S Pen
One of my favorite things about Samsung laptops is the S Pen. Not only is it fun to draw selfies or scribble notes, but it’s also useful for signing urgent PDF files. Just open the document, select “Add a note” from the toolbar, and sign on the dotted line.
The Flex offers the same built-in stylus as the Note 10 – don’t expect a larger, more pen-like version in the Galaxy Tab S series. Still, it’s comfortable enough to wear for hours while drawing a self-portrait. Fans of the Samsung Air Command menu on their Note phones will be happy to know that it also appears here when you slide the S Pen out of its slot.
Performance and in use
The Flex may seem like a delicate machine, but it actually includes a powerful 10th generation Intel Core i7 processor. My review unit came with 16GB of RAM, which is twice the 8GB configuration you can buy in the US. USA (The 15-inch model has the same CPU but 12 GB of RAM.) Please note that this means that my experience, at least when it comes to performance and speed, will not be representative of what you can expect.
With these guts, the Flex deftly handled my daily Slack workflow, dozens of Chrome tabs, spreadsheets, and the inescapable Zoom calls that permeate our lives now. The laptop also kept up with my new needs at home, like running my podcast recording setup and uploading large files for review videos. I also played several rounds of League of Legends after rediscovering it, and the Flex never disappointed me.
That is, until I decided to activate Samsung silent mode. This is meant to keep laptop fans silent if they bother you. It’s pretty easy to activate – just slide a switch in the Samsung Settings app. You don’t have to go into boot mode to access it. I never found the Flex too loud, but I’m guessing those trying to do work in bed alongside a light sleeper or just hate white noise.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
I noticed a significant decrease in sound when I enabled silent mode, although it seemed to speed up CPU performance. When I tried to keep playing League Later, the system delay made it almost impossible: My character barely made it to the first turret before I gave up and restarted (with Silent Mode disabled). This is understandable. You can’t expect high-speed performance when the fans turn off without the computer getting too hot. Silent mode is most useful if you’re really bothered by noise and you’re not running anything intensive.
Battery life and wireless PowerShare
Thanks to Flex’s QLED display and 69.7Whr battery, Samsung promises up to 20 hours of runtime. However, in reality, that number is much lower. Our video loop battery test exhausted the Flex in about 13 and a half hours, which is better than the MacBook Air, but does not reach the 14 and a half hour mark of the XPS 13 2 in 1. However, in the experience of the In the real world, I saw power levels drop below 20 percent after five hours of heavy use. To be fair, that involved energy depletion processes like video playback and more frenzy League games.
One of Flex’s new features is the wireless charger built into its trackpad that can power Qi-compatible devices. It’s the same PowerShare wireless feature that debuted on the Galaxy S10. You can’t use the trackpad while you’re loading something, which makes sense since something is literally obstructing the usable area. I’m not sure how useful this feature is, since wireless charging is usually too slow to be meaningful. I placed the Galaxy S20 Ultra on the touchpad (after the first step required to activate the feature in Settings) and watched the battery level go painfully slow from 79 percent to 85 percent in 20 minutes.
For something smaller, like the Galaxy Buds, you might find this useful in case of need (for example, on an airplane when you’re running out of juice). Otherwise Wireless PowerShare is not something I will use a lot.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
Wrap
I am in love with the Galaxy Book Flex. It is a nice machine with a nice screen, powerful guts and useful S Pen. But I wish there were more settings (for each size) to lower the base price. Sure, $ 1,349 for a Core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM aren’t the most expensive, considering the new MacBook Air tops $ 1,199 for a Core i5, and the similar-spec XPS 13 2-in-1 costs a lot more. at $ 1,700. But with the competition offering options starting at $ 999, it’s hard to accept.
Still, if you’re looking for a beautiful, sturdy laptop with a good display and doesn’t need to last forever, the Galaxy Book Flex is worth considering. More importantly, it shows that it’s time to get serious about Samsung laptops again.
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