Samsung’s Galaxy Book Go is here. It starts at $349, and it still weighs in at just three pounds, packing a Qualcomm processor.
When I think of a laptop that costs under $400, I think of something that no one should buy under any circumstances. I think of thick, heavy laptops with terrible battery life and often, underpowered processors. But now, the Samsung Galaxy Book Go is on my desk, and my first impressions are not what I expected them to be. After using it for about a day, it’s important to remember that this is still an inexpensive laptop. There are things that blow me away, but there are other things where I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t be expecting too much. There are some variants in the spec sheet, such as the ability to get it with a proper 8GB of RAM and 4G LTE. There’s also a 5G model with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2. None of these are available yet. The only one you can buy on Samsung’s website is the base model, which sadly, only has Wi-Fi connectivity. When I took the Samsung Galaxy Book Go out of the box, my first impression was that it’s game-changing. It’s wildly light at 3.04 pounds (for the price point), and it’s thin at 14.9mm. This isn’t supposed to exist. Here’s an example. HP once sent me a Pavilion x360 14, which also had a 14-inch screen, but the price was $699, double the price of the Samsung Galaxy Book Go. It weighed 3.55 pounds, and it was 18.8mm thick; that’s more along the lines of what I’d expect at this price point. It also feels premium when you hold it. If I picked up this Samsung laptop and didn’t know what it was, I’d assume that it costs a thousand dollars like the Samsung Galaxy Book S. Then I’d turn it on. The display is 14 inches and has a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is fine.
