By One of the first laptops to come with Intel’s new Lunar Lake chipset is the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360. Compared to laptops powered by Intel Meteor Lake from the previous generation, Lunar Lake offers significant power efficiency gains under the hood. For Lunar Lake to shine, Samsung also offers a great 16-inch laptop with a stunning AMOLED screen, a 360-degree hinge, and a pen for some two-in-one functionality. But the display is better than the keyboard.
Specification
The Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU is a feature of the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360. This processor is an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2), sometimes referred to as Lunar Lake. To meet Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC criteria, it has eight cores: four performance cores, four low-power efficiency cores, integrated Intel Arc graphics, and an NPU that can execute up to 47 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
We were given a review unit by Samsung that had different hardware from the one it sells now. Our evaluation machine was equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor and 32GB of RAM. At the moment, Samsung does not sell that combination. The computer that Samsung is selling includes an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V CPU and 16GB of RAM. That model is available from Samsung for $1,699.
- CPU: 258V Intel Core Ultra 7
- 32 GB of LPDDR5X RAM
- Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics as the graphics/GPU
- Intel AI Boost (47 TOPS) as the NPU
- Display: 16-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, 2880 x 1800
- 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD for storage
- The 1080p webcam
- Two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB Type-A (USB 3.2) port, one HDMI 2.1a port, one microSD card reader, and one combination headphone jack are all connected.
- Networking: Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi 7.
- Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint reader
- Battery dimensions: 13.99 x 9.93 x 0.50 inches; capacity: 76 Watt-hours
- 3.73 pounds in weight
- MSRP: $1,699
Design and build quality
The design of the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 is remarkably similar to that of the most current Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, which I recently evaluated. Its 16-inch nearly all-metal design feels beautiful and high-end because its chassis is made entirely of solid aluminum. It is entirely silver or gray, with black keyboard keys and a black bezel surrounding the screen.
Although it is not the lightest laptop—it weighs 3.73 pounds—it is a fairly manageable weight for a 16-inch, all-metal device. This is particularly true given that it is a two-in-one device that has a touchscreen, a built-in “S Pen” stylus, and a 360-degree hinge that allows you to fully spin the screen. Even when adjusting or opening the laptop with one hand, the hinge is sturdy and operates smoothly with little wobbling.
Connectivity
There are a fair number of connectors available on the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360. It has two Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) connectors and an HDMI 2.1 port on the left side. Keep in mind that one of those ports will be utilized for charging because this laptop charges via USB-C. This device features a microSD card reader, a combination headphone jack, and a single USB Type-A connector (USB 3.2) on the right side.
It is a sensible choice all around. More USB-C ports, more USB Type-A ports, or other connections like an Ethernet jack for a wired network connection are all desired by different people. Fortunately, adding a dongle is always an option. Additionally, this laptop supports the most recent Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7 standards and offers excellent wireless connectivity. It is wonderful to see that contemporary laptops are beginning to come with Wi-Fi 7 capability out of the box, and these are now standard as part of Intel’s Lunar Lake bundle.
Performance
I mostly used the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 on battery power, and it performed admirably in my daily desktop office programs. That is precisely what I was hoping for. As usual, we evaluated the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360’s performance using our common benchmarks. To gauge the overall performance of the machine, we first run PCMark 10. With its previous-generation Core Ultra Series 1 (Meteor Lake) CPU, the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 outperformed the Dell Inspiron 16 with an overall PCMark 10 score of 7,220.
Additionally, this laptop’s Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor outperformed the Core Ultra 7 256V chip in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition, another Lunar Lake-powered device that we just examined. Its raw performance, however, was slower than that of the AMD Ryzen AI-powered computers I previously evaluated, such as the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 and Asus ProArt PX13.
We then do Cinebench R20. This benchmark is highly multithreaded and concentrates on CPU performance overall. Since it is a fast benchmark, cooling during prolonged workloads is irrelevant. Nevertheless, because of its heavy multithreading, CPUs with more cores are far more advantageous.
The Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 scored 4355 on this multithreaded test. In this benchmark, Intel’s Lunar Lake chips simply perform poorly. Given that multithreaded performance is the main focus of this benchmark, it should come as no great surprise. Four “performance” cores and four “efficient” cores make up their meager eight cores. In this comparison, the AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370 and 375 processors have twelve cores each.
These workstations do not feel like they are operating at half the speed of a system with a modern AMD CPU when used for everyday desktop tasks, therefore this is not reflective of how desktop applications are used in the real world! However, in highly multithreaded programs, these CPUs just are not designed for optimal performance. However, in our tests, Lunar Lake does provide a longer battery life than those AMD Ryzen AI-powered computers.
Battery life
There is a 76-watt-hour battery included with the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360. The laptop simply kept running and has a great battery life for daily PC use. I am thrilled that laptops with the newest processors—Intel’s Lunar Lake, AMD’s Ryzen AI, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X—all offer respectable battery life after my inconsistent experience with Intel Meteor Lake-powered models. Intel has not just caught up, though. In our benchmark, Lunar Lake produced some astounding battery life figures. Given how power-hungry OLED screens can be, it is particularly impressive on this laptop.
We repeatedly play a 4K version of Tears of Steel on Windows 11 with airplane mode turned on until the laptop suspends itself to test the battery life. Since local video playback is so effective, this is the best-case situation for any laptop; in actual use, day-to-day battery life will always be lower than this. For our battery evaluations, we set the screen brightness to 250 nits. It is important to note that this machine’s OLED display offers a slight advantage because OLED panels require less power to display the black bars surrounding the video. OLED screens, however, also tend to consume a lot of power.
The Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 has an average battery life of 1,401 minutes in our benchmark. That is almost twenty-three and a half hours. That is significantly more than what the most recent AMD Ryzen AI 9-powered computers produced. Additionally, it lasts longer than the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge with a Snapdragon processor, which I tested despite having a smaller battery. It is difficult to fault the performance when battery life figures like these are displayed! You are giving up some multi-threaded performance in exchange for a significant increase in battery life. That will be well worth it for a lot of folks.
Conclusion
The latest Intel hardware offers “excellent battery life, average performance, [and] unexpectedly decent gaming,” according to the bestcomputerfinder evaluation of the Intel Lunar Lake. You are receiving precisely that here, in addition to a really good laptop body: A sturdy chassis with tons of metal, an incredibly gorgeous AMOLED display, and a two-in-one experience with a touch screen and S Pen. All I want is a slightly more comfortable keyboard with a slightly different layout and more key travel.
However, this equipment is just what the doctor prescribed for a lot of people: A classic Intel-powered laptop with a very long battery life, more graphics capability than you might think, and the ability to run x86 software without any issues. Additionally, regular PC performance with online browsers, office programs, and standard productivity tools is flawless! A Lunar Lake computer like this one is not the best choice if you want more raw CPU performance, particularly in multithreaded apps. A gaming laptop or something with AMD’s newest chipset would be worth looking at.
For some, the cost will be a bit excessive. At $1,699, this laptop is priced to reflect its higher-end design. That seems a bit pricey for a laptop, but the bundle includes a large, gorgeous OLED screen, a long battery life, and a 2-in-1 experience with a S Pen included. (Even though they support them, many less-cost laptops do not come with pens.) If that is what you want, this machine offers a lot of value.
