07-25-2020, 06:55 AM
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sam...-lakefield
Quote:The Samsung Galaxy Book S is a nice -- but pricey -- system that puts the “ultra” in ultraportable. The design is sleek and lightweight, and I never stopped being impressed by it.
It’s also the first time we’re seeing Intel’s Lakefield processor, and the 5-core CPU seems to largely land within expectations. Intel had previously compared it to its Y-series chips, and that makes sense in this fanless system. The performance isn’t strong by many means, but if you’re using this for word processing, e-mail and web browsing, it should be enough.
In the battle between Windows running on Lakefield’s x86 architecture and Windows on Arm, Intel wins from an experience perspective. After all, every x86 app, 32-bit or 64-bit, runs on this system. But the Microsoft SQ1, a variant of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx found in many Arm laptops, did outperform in some places, even when emulating benchmarks. When more apps are Arm native, Intel will need a more powerful chip.
But the Acer Swift 3, a $650 mid-range ultraportable with a more traditional AMD Ryzen 7 4700U x86 processor beats them both in that area. For almost half the price, you can get a lot more performance. You will, however, get a dull screen and less premium build quality. Samsung is charging way too much for a nice design.
We expect to see Lakefield at least once more this year in the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold. But as for the Galaxy Book S, it’s a nice portable experience if you don’t need powerhouse performance.