Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Pro review: every inch the professional

Having produced some of the best smartphones and tablets we’ve ever seen, Samsung should know a thing or two about making a laptop. Yet the South Korean behemoth isn’t a big player in a portable PC space dominated by the likes of Dell and Apple. That could all change with the Galaxy Book 6 range, which for 2026 integrates third-generation Intel Core Ultra processors (Panther Lake) and wears the Copilot+ badge. This Pro model, which sits in the middle of a three-tiered hierarchy, might be the one to get if you’re in the market for a premium, executive laptop that’ll look good in meetings, but it lacks the powerful Nvidia GPU of the Ultra model.

Key specifications

Design, build and display

• Thin and light
• No colour options

Well built and stylish, the Galaxy Book 6 Pro is going to have people wondering where the Apple logo is, as it uses a wedge-shaped casing reminiscent of MacBook Airs of the pre-2024 era. The casing feels like plastic rather than metal, but it’s nice and stiff and, importantly, extremely light. At just 1.24kg, it’s barely going to notice once you’ve slipped it into a messenger bag or executive attache case, and as the machine is barely half an inch thick, it’s all very impressive.

It is rather grey, however, with only one colour option available no matter which model of Galaxy Book 6 you choose. Would it have hurt Samsung to offer the same rather splendid Cobalt Violet or Sky Blue colour options as the Galaxy S26 Ultra smartphone? Just because something’s got ‘Pro’ in the name doesn’t mean it has to be boring.

Among all the grey on the back of the lid there's a small Samsung logo, with the same below the screen that’s almost lost in the black bezel, but there's no Galaxy Book branding anywhere. It’s exquisitely understated, and as a result does more to concentrate attention on the 3K AMOLED touchscreen, which is bright at 500 nits and covers 98% of the P3 colour gamut (as well as 100%of sRGB and 95% of Adobe RGB).

Design score: 4/5

Features

• Thunderbolt 4
• Fingerprint reader

It’s good to see that Thunderbolt has settled into PCs now, rather than being an Apple peculiarity. The versatile USB-C ports mean manufacturers don’t need to have things like HDMI or USB, but Samsung has chosen to put both on the Galaxy Book 6 Pro, with a full-sized HDMI and a USB Type-A alongside the two TB4s. What you don’t get is a dedicated charging port, as all that’s handled by a Thunderbolt, which makes it much more convenient for use with a dock or a monitor’s powered USB hub. And there's no SD card reader either.

Around the front there's a white-backlit keyboard that wouldn’t look out of place on a MacBook, if it weren’t for its Copilot key, which has a discreet fingerprint reader at its top right corner and a curiously stiff action that may require more force than some light typists are used to applying, even with the shallow travel required to fit them in such a thin laptop. There's no numpad, so even on this 14in chassis the keys aren’t tightly crammed together, though the F row and arrow keys are rather small. The touchpad is comfortable and responsive, with a good click action when you press down on it.

Feature score: 3/5

Benchmark scores

We test every one of our laptops using the same benchmarking software suite to give you a thorough overview of its suitability for creatives of all disciplines and levels. This includes:

• Geekbench: Tests the CPU for single-core and multi-core power, and the GPU for the system's potential for gaming, image processing, or video editing. Geekbench AI tests the CPU and GPU on a variety of AI-powered and AI-boosted tasks.
• Cinebench: Tests the CPU and GPU's ability to run Cinema 4D and Redshift.
• UL Procyon: Uses UL Solutions' Procyon software suite to test the system's ability for AI image generation in Stable Diffusion, its Microsoft Office performance and its battery life in a looping video test.
• Topaz Video AI: We use Topaz Video AI to test the system's ability to upscale video and convert video to slow-motion.
• PugetBench for Creators: We use the PugetBench for Creators benchmarking suite to test the system's ability to run several key tasks in Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as its performance when encoding/transcoding video.
• ON1 Resize AI: Tests the system's ability to resize 5 photos to 200% in a batch process. We take the total time taken to resize the images and divide by 5.

Performance

• Efficient CPU
• Not a strong GPU

The new third-generation Core Ultra processors are a bit of a step forward for Intel, as they make gains in both efficiency and graphics processing. The Ultra 7 356H installed here is a 16-core chip that has only four Performance cores, splitting the rest between Efficient (8) and Low-power Efficient (4). It’s a conservative choice, hitting just 4.7GHz, but it makes a good match to what’s likely to be the executive’s choice, as this restrained performance not only matches the machine’s design but allows it to eke out the battery life: it managed nine and a quarter hours in our looping video test,

And so, when subjected to the battery of tests Creative Bloq requires of its review candidates, we see it sitting slightly behind machines such as the HP OmniBook X Flip 14 and the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo, both of which use second-gen chips (an Ultra 9 in the case of the MSI). It even loses out to the Geekom IT13 Max mini PC, which has a first-gen Ultra 9 in it (but isn’t as thin, giving it more room for cooling).

This result is repeated across rendering and AI tests, though the Samsung does better in the Procyon office productivity test, which sees it juggling spreadsheets and presentations, and rises to the level of Apple’s M4 in Geekbench 6’s multi-core workout (it sits halfway between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro of that generation). The little integrated GPU - with four cores rather than the 12 of the flagship Arc B390 module in chips like the Core X9 388H - supports ray-tracing, but there's little reason you’d want to try that out. That said, it is possible to play games on this GPU, as long as you’re happy with 1080p and low to medium settings. However, in the Geekbench 6 GPU test, it scores half as much as the graphics cores in the Apple M5, the 2025 ASUS Zenbook Duo and even the Geekom mini PC, leading to the conclusion that this isn’t a strong GPU for creative work.

Performance score: 3/5

Price

Just as Samsung and Apple vie for supremacy in the smartphone arena, so they will in the court of the laptop. The Galaxy Book 6 Pro starts at $1,799/£1,799, which is slightly more than the base-model MacBook Pro, but is far more than the 13in MacBook Air. The model tested here is a little more, at £2,499/$2,449.99, which makes it more expensive than the ASUS ProArt PZ14 and only a tiny bit less than the Zenbook Duo.

Value score: 2/5

Who is it for?

• The boss

The Galaxy Book Pro is beautifully thin and light, and looks understated and smart. It doesn’t matter if you’re not the former, as walking into a meeting with this under your arm will make you look the latter.

Buy it if...

• You want to look like a pro
• You want something thin and light
• Integrated graphics are enough

Don't buy it if...

• You need a bigger screen
• Or more graphics power
• Or really like RGB backlights on your keyboard

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