display
What do you literally say about a farmer who doesn't know what he wants?
“Into the potatoes, out of the potatoes.” The situation is similar with Samsung: In 2014, the South Koreans said goodbye to the European notebook market.
The Galaxy Book then made a tentative comeback in mid-2020.
Now it goes on with the Galaxy Book Flex 2 5G.
How is the device equipped?
How fast does it work?
And how good is the workmanship?
"Computer Bild" had the Samsung Galaxy Book Flex 2 5G in the test.
Galaxy Book Flex 2 5G in the test: Versatile noble bolide
And this is by no means a run-of-the-mill device - in addition to the price of almost 2,000 euros, the first touch makes it clear.
The housing is made of high-quality aluminum, the workmanship is really great.
On the left side there is a memory card reader (1), a headset connection (2) and two USB-C sockets (3) with Thunderbolt 4 technology
Source: Computer Bild
display
Only a few manufacturers succeed: Samsung has perfectly balanced the Flex 2.
The display lid can be opened with one hand without the base assembly lifting off.
Speaking of the display: It can be rotated 360 degrees, which means that the Galaxy can be used in a variety of ways:
-
Notebook:
As a normal notebook with the screen open.
display
-
Tablet:
If the owner folds the display onto the back of the keyboard, it works like a tablet.
-
Presentation mode: place the
display and keyboard like an upside-down V to conveniently view photos and videos.
Great display with a "but"
With the included pen, you can easily take notes on the touchscreen.
And the image quality of the display was also convincing: the testers particularly liked the color accuracy (96 percent) and high-contrast (1318: 1) reproduction.
display
Only when changing images did the Galaxy take a bit of time with 20.5 milliseconds - but there were no ugly streaks in fast film scenes.
With the pen you can easily make drawings and notes
Source: Computer Bild
With such an expensive notebook, however, customers can expect a display with a higher resolution.
The Galaxy shows content “only” in Full HD with 1920x1080 pixels.
Because the 2,073,600 pixels are jostled on a comparatively compact 13.3-inch display, the pixel density of 167 dpi is okay, and there was no noticeable loss of sharpness.
Galaxy Book Flex 2 5G is a nimble worker
And what's under the hood?
The upper-class Core i7-1165G7 processor from Intel's current Tiger Lake range serves as the motor.
The CPU is supported by a generous 16 gigabyte RAM, the Windows 10 operating system, programs and data are stored on a fast M.2 SSD with PCI Express 3.0 connection and an effective 477 gigabytes of memory.
This is also really poor in view of the price of almost 2000 euros - a 1 terabyte SSD would have been required here.
At least the SSD can be exchanged for a model with more memory if necessary.
Great, on the other hand: The Galaxy passed the pace tests without flinching - whether it was for simple office tasks or complex photo and video editing.
Very economical notebook
And the hardware dealt so tightly with the energy stored in the battery (69.7 watt hours) during the tests that it only had to be plugged in after ten and a half hours for video playback or six and a half hours for work.
The Galaxy is the new number one among notebooks with the longest battery life.
display
In addition, the Galaxy is one of the first notebooks to have two USB Type-C ports with fast Thunderbolt 4 technology.
And you can access the network not only at home via a nimble WLAN-ax (also known as Wi-Fi 6), but also mobile via super-fast 5G or LTE.
Conclusion:
With the Galaxy Book Flex 2 5G, Samsung delivers the almost perfect notebook: It works quickly, is currently unbeatable in terms of battery life, has fast Thunderbolt 4 sockets and thanks to 5G allows fast internet access even when on the move.
The comparatively small SSD memory and the display with full HD resolution do not really fit into a notebook that costs almost 2000 euros.
Strengths:
high work speed, high image quality, very long battery life, WLAN-ax, LTE and 5G, Thunderbolt 4 connections
Weaknesses:
very high price, display with higher resolution and SSD with more memory would be desirable at the price
Test grade:
good (2.1)
Test table Samsung Galaxy Book 2 5G
Source: Computer Bild