Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Review

Design and Keyboard

• Pleasant aluminium chassis
• Decent port selection
• Tactile keyboard and trackpad

Samsung follows a bit of a formula when it comes to the looks of its Galaxy Book devices, and the most affordable option of its 2026 lineup thus far doesn’t deviate too much.

This means it features the usual space grey colourway, complete with a solid aluminium chassis, that sustains the MacBook Pro comparisons I’ve made with this laptop’s beefier brothers. It’s a well put together machine, and at 1.35kg, is decently portable, given the more compact size. It is still a bit heavier than other 14-inch ultrabook, though.

Port-wise, things are surprisingly feature-rich. The left side houses two USB-C ports and a full-size HDMI, while on the right is a USB-A and headphone jack. A caveat to this is that the USB-C ports are more basic than the Thunderbolt 4-capable ones we see on other modern ultrabooks, being USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports.

Open up the lid of the Galaxy Book6, and you’ll find a smaller form-factor layout keyboard with arrow keys and a function row. The travel is short and shallow, and there’s a decent amount of tactility under finger. I did find the actual material of the keys to be a little scratchy, though.

The trackpad here has more of a matte finish, and the clicks have a pleasant mechanical feel to them. It’s a smaller trackpad than the competition, though, leaving your fingers a little short on real estate for navigation against other choices.

Display and Sound

• IPS screen is okay
• Reasonable brightness and decent contrast
• Middling colour accuracy and speakers

On paper, the Galaxy Book6 comes with a decently specced screen, with a serviceable 1920×1200 IPS panel, although 60Hz feels quite basic given the price. A fair few other rivals also fall foul of the same refresh rate issue, meaning the screen lacks a bit of extra zippiness even for basic navigation.

In a general sense, this panel performs as you’d expect a decent IPS option to, with reasonably deep blacks (0.15 at 50%, rising to a weaker 0.56 at peak brightness) and solid contrast (1430:1 contrast ratio). I also measured 371 nits of peak SDR brightness here, making this decent for indoor and outdoor workloads, although not as bright as others I’ve tested.

Where this panel disappointed me, though, was in terms of colour accuracy. My colourimeter measured just 66% coverage of the mainstream sRGB gamut, alongside 50% DCI-P3 and 49% Adobe RGB results. This means colours tended to look quite washed out, and lacked the sharpness you’ll find on other IPS screens.

As for the speakers, this laptop comes with downward-firing units that are just fine for casual listening with some okay volume, although they lack the crispness and body of stronger options.

Performance

• New Wildcat Lake chip inside
• Decent single-core performance
• Fast SSD and solid RAM headroom

It’s inside where things become quite interesting with the Galaxy Book6, although not for the reason you may expect. This laptop features an Intel Core Ultra 5 315 chip inside, which is one of the brand’s newer Wildcat Lake processors designed for more affordable laptops.

The key difference is the lack of ‘Ultra’ in the product title, although Intel has essentially cut down a Panther Lake chip in a lot of ways to get to these more value-oriented chips. Everything from the core count to the integrated graphics has been cut down to make these chips more efficient and suitable for lower-cost laptops. 

The Core Ultra 5 315 I have here features six cores and six threads, with the core count split between two Performance cores and four Low Power Efficiency cores, and a boost clock of up to 4.5GHz. 

Where it counts for a laptop like this is with single-core performance, and in both Geekbench 6 and Cinebench R23, the Galaxy Book6 manages to keep up with higher-end Panther Lake parts. There is around a 15-20% gulf in Cinebench especially, but the laptop still feels zippy for day-to-day tasks in my experience.

Given this chip only has six cores, it’s in the multi-threaded department, and this laptop falls down a smidgen. It’s fine for more basic tasks, although if you want to step up to much more intensive workloads, then stepping up to a beefier chip will yield much stronger performance.

The same also goes for the Galaxy Book6’s 3D performance. Intel has cut down the integrated graphics against the beefier iGPUs found in some of the top-end Panther Lake chips to provide similar results to Qualcomm’s first-gen Snapdragon X chips, meaning performance is fine at best.

Samsung has put 16GB of RAM inside this laptop, providing adequate room for intensive multi-tasking and more difficult tasks, and a reasonable 512GB SSD. The speeds on offer are surprisingly brisk, too, with measured reads and writes of 7028.09 MB/s and 6072.56 MB/s, respectively.

Software

• Reasonably clean Windows 11 install
• Some Samsung software pre-installed
• Lots of integration with Samsung Galaxy phones

This Samsung laptop comes running Windows 11, featuring a reasonably clean install. Samsung has kitted this laptop out with an array of first-party software if you want to use it, though.

For instance, it has some of its own AI features, such as the brand’s own Bixby voice assistant, plus AI Select, which allows you to hover over text and images and translate them. There is also Galaxy Book Experience, which is a central hub of sorts for accessing features such as SmartThings control for any smart home devices, or Live Wallpaper for keeping your desktop fresh with a new wallpaper every two weeks.

Naturally, you can also hook up a Galaxy handset to reap even more benefits with the Galaxy Book6’s software, including the ability to use the laptop’s mouse and keyboard to control a nearby Galaxy phone or tablet. Likewise, you can monitor and control SmartThings devices or use a Galaxy tablet as a second screen in the Galaxy Connect app.

That said, there isn’t enough AI horsepower inside the Galaxy Book6 for it to be classified as a Copilot+ PC, so you miss out on Microsoft’s own AI features, such as the generative stuff in Photos and Paint, and the clever Windows Studio webcam effects.

Battery Life

• Lasted for 20 hours 24 minutes in the battery test
• Capable of lasting for two to three working days

Samsung has kitted the Galaxy Book6 out with a more modest capacity 61.2Whr battery, although with the purported efficiency of the Wildcat Lake chip inside, I had high hopes for its endurance. The brand says this laptop should be good for up to 25 hours of runtime, for reference.

In running a PCMark 10 video loop test at the requisite 150 nits of brightness, this Samsung laptop lasted for 20 hours and 24 minutes, meaning you’ll get between two and three working days before needing to recharge this laptop. That’s some strong performance against key rivals, and puts it only a few hours off some of the top performers I’ve tested.

As is becoming more customary with a lot of modern laptops, the Galaxy Book6 doesn’t come with its own charger. Nonetheless, using my high-wattage Ugreen option, it was only average in terms of speed, taking 45 minutes to get back to 50%, while a full charge took two hours.

Should you buy it?