Samsung Galaxy Book2 is coming soon, priced from $999

by Mark Tyson on 19 October 2018, 11:11

Tags: Samsung (005935.KS), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)

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Microsoft has revealed some background details about the soon-to-launch Samsung Galaxy Book2. In brief, this is a new Always Connected PC (AKA Cellular PC or Snapdragon PC) running Windows 10, and it is powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 850 for improved performance and battery life.

If you own a laptop for work on the go, then thin and light physical qualities, long battery life, and extended mobile connectivity (thanks to features like gigabit LTE support), are highly desirable. This is what Microsoft, Qualcomm and hardware partners wish to deliver. The first generation of the devices were launched almost a year ago, delivering 'impossibly thin' forms, boasting 20hr+ battery life, 30hrs connected standby, and instant-on resume features. However the designed-for-mobile SD835 inside was seen by some as a bit underpowered.

A couple of months ago we saw some leaked benchmarks that indicated the SD850 was indeed faster than the SD835 in a Windows environment but perhaps not quite as good as Qualcomm's presentation slides (e.g. above) attested.

Features of the new upcoming Samsung Galaxy Book2, as highlighted by Microsoft, include the following:

  • 12-inch 2K Super AMOLED touch display
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 850
  • Fast gigabit LTE
  • Adaptive Fast Charging
  • 20hr+ battery life
  • Dolby Atmos audio and speakers tuned by AKG
  • Fingerprint scanner
  • Rear/front cameras
  • Matching backlit keyboard plus pressure sensitive S Pen (neither needs charging)
  • Windows 10 in S Mode
  • Samsung Flow file transfers, sync and messaging with Galaxy smartphones

You can watch a video presentation of the new Samsung Galaxy Book2, that Microsoft shared on Facebook, here.

Samsung will make this convertible PC available from 2nd November. It will be available from outlets like Amazon, Microsoft and others (including some telecoms companies like Verizon, Sprint and AT&T), as well as direct from Samsung. Pricing starts at $999 and the machine comes with a keyboard and S Pen.

HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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Posted by nobodyspecial - Fri 19 Oct 2018 11:23
Bring the perf up to whatever makes it a 10hr battery life and we'll talk. This all day crap sucks. MORE POWER, or at least put it in there so I can downclock it if desired. Shipping as UNDERPOWERED for $999 is a sin punishable by death ;) JK of course. Well, nah, you should be shot for doing this. 10hrs is just over a work day with some time to spare so you should lean toward that goal outright, and just give us the setting for say 20hrs life or 10hr life. Clock it to 10hr for gaming/power apps or something then 20hr for web browsing crap/light work. I hope this sells 1 unit…LOL. Just like cell phones, tired of slinder useless battery phones, double the back and I'm in. Phones don't even feel REAL in my hands these days and I'd rather have MEGA perf for a bit more weight, or better yet offer phones with two back sizes :) I'm guessing thin phones would DIE a quick death or become niche. Most would rather have more perf or longer life via mega battery power and it only has to last 10yrs or so as we all plug in at home anyway if needed.

MORE PERF people, and LARGER battery…PERIOD. How about 4ghz ;)
Posted by philehidiot - Fri 19 Oct 2018 11:23
I'm guessing they know the price is stupid and are just aiming at the luxury market, going for low volume and high margin.

Windows RT 2.0?
Posted by peterb - Fri 19 Oct 2018 11:53
nobodyspecial
Bring the perf up to whatever makes it a 10hr battery life and we'll talk. This all day crap sucks. MORE POWER, or at least put it in there so I can downclock it if desired. Shipping as UNDERPOWERED for $999 is a sin punishable by death ;) JK of course. Well, nah, you should be shot for doing this. 10hrs is just over a work day with some time to spare so you should lean toward that goal outright, and just give us the setting for say 20hrs life or 10hr life. Clock it to 10hr for gaming/power apps or something then 20hr for web browsing crap/light work. I hope this sells 1 unit…LOL. Just like cell phones, tired of slinder useless battery phones, double the back and I'm in. Phones don't even feel REAL in my hands these days and I'd rather have MEGA perf for a bit more weight, or better yet offer phones with two back sizes :) I'm guessing thin phones would DIE a quick death or become niche. Most would rather have more perf or longer life via mega battery power and it only has to last 10yrs or so as we all plug in at home anyway if needed.

MORE PERF people, and LARGER battery…PERIOD. How about 4ghz ;)

Why do you want it perforated? Ventilation? Cooling? :)
Posted by TooNice - Fri 19 Oct 2018 12:14
nobodyspecial
Just like cell phones, tired of slinder useless battery phones, double the back and I'm in. Phones don't even feel REAL in my hands these days and I'd rather have MEGA perf for a bit more weight, or better yet offer phones with two back sizes :) I'm guessing thin phones would DIE a quick death or become niche. Most would rather have more perf or longer life via mega battery power and it only has to last 10yrs or so as we all plug in at home anyway if needed.
M'well, for mobiles, slap in a large battery (e.g. one of those Zero Lemon) and you have the brick you want.

Personally, I kind of lament the size of phones nowadays. They are too big (length/width) for comfortable one handed use as someone with small hands, yet too thin to include a battery that last a decent amount of time. That is pretty much why I usually get one of those extended batteries/battery case - since I need two hands to use anyway, might as well have a phone that lasts. Need to point out for that for phones, I do care about them lasting over 10 hours. My life isn't just going to an office and coming home, long battery life is handy during travels (reduces the need to hunt for a place to charge), and some outdoor excursions lasting over 10 hours before I can charge. Tablets, at first glance may not need that requirements as they are often in places where it can be charged, but I've seen them used, for instance alongside DSLR for photography work where it can be used to more easily change settings, have a bigger screen to preview shots taken etc. And those again can be used places where charging is not readily available.
Posted by nobodyspecial - Fri 19 Oct 2018 12:15
This is a tablet, but yeah if needed…LOL. Surely they can do something to cool it more. Not sure it's even needed much, as I doubt these running at 2.9ghz will be heaters at 7nm. It's just trying to claim all day battery life crap. Tablets aren't prone to water much, so ventilate it or make it thicker etc.

That said, same for phone. I think they concentrate so much on thinner and lighter we don't know what a bigger one could dissipate in most cases. Hopefully a 7nm phone will come with mega battery and up the clocks so we can see, but I doubt it. Make the chip bigger/wider or something, apple gets a tons of perf due to always having the largest chips and that perf doesn't cause hand burning (well a few of everything with china parts lights on fire at some point right? LOL). Quit trying to make $25 socs, and start making $50-100 versions (that double as laptop versions and low-end desktops too). I'm thinking of a $1 part on a space shuttle blowing it all up right now :(

Where is my full laptop with this chip running 4ghz with a fan/heatsink? Where is the desktop running with a massive hyper212evo or some such. They need to build one prototype just to try this. How far can they go if a heatsink/fan is strapped to it, or do they need to totally revamp it for higher hz? Not sure AFAIK. ARM's side should be working on 85w chips and working with a few heatsink/fan vendors to get this done. If you doubled the size of these chips you'd end up in Intel chip territory anyway, so lets go head to head and find out :) Even if they just upped the battery and gpu some I'd be more happy. GAMING! No point in hooking a slouch up to TV for gaming. These are expensive light work machines at best.

Apple conquered phones with games (pushes home users) and exchange support (rimm death). Nobody else seems to get why apple is at or on top. GAMES and of course the ecosystem around it. But it was the GAMES the made it worth having in the pocket over others for quite a while. I was hoping NV would spend far more on GAMES themselves or buying small firms to make exclusives now that they fat rich to some extent, but they haven't got it yet. Same with roku, plop in a NV soc, sell a game pad with or on the side, and BOOM you sell far more than 8-10mil so far over YEARS. You'd be doing that yearly then, instead of TOTAL over ~5 gens. Why is it stuck streaming only? GET GAMES, and sell a ton more units, and NV's soc plays the most cool stuff with great perf (well duh, it's running desktop/console ports all day on PC, console etc) on ARM side. Not sure why they don't get it. GAMES sell parts. I just bought Intel not long ago just due to the game hits on AMD (well and watts/heat still an issues, waiting 7nm to buy AMD and dump 8700k on dad). NV's socs don't cost that much more. I'd shell out an extra 20-30 for NV soc in a roku, and make it work with xbox/sony controllers to save us costs and sell more. Tired of new roku's with lacking power in under 2yrs. Roku2 almost useless, 3 telling me to add mem sticks, only 4 is still running seemingly great still. They are ALWAYS “just good enough” to stream for a bit after you buy it. Yeah, I want more power in everything…ROFL

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