Samsung’s $999 Galaxy Book S Becomes First Snapdragon 8cx Always-on Notebook

Qualcomm first announced its Snapdragon 8cx Always-on Windows PC platform back in December at its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit, and at Computex some six months later, we were briefed on a lot more about what will make 8cx tick. At that event, we saw folks from UL on-hand to tout PCMark support, which tests Windows in such a way to represent performance from real usage, especially revolving around office work. To see Qualcomm touting support for an industry standard benchmark highlights 8cx’s performance potential.

At Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event held in New York City this week, we’re finally able to take a look at the first 8cx notebook, called Galaxy Book S. As you can see from the photos, it’s a rather attractive offering that almost looks razor-thin.

Under the hood of the Galaxy Book S is the 7nm eight-core 8cx processor, consisting of a quad-core peaking at 2.84GHz, and another peaking at 1.8GHz. As with the Snapdragon 855 featured in many premium Android smartphones, the 8cx includes Qualcomm’s top-end Adreno 640 for gaming duties. Presumably, since the 855 is backed by the company’s Snapdragon Elite Gaming branding, the 8cx would likely be also.

While these notebooks are aimed more at the mobile worker than the gamer, Qualcomm has talked games a lot when boasting about its latest top SoCS, and recently, the company even teamed up with Tencent Games to help it eke as much gaming goodness out of Snapdragon as possible. This is the publisher of the popular PUBG mobile version, so we look forward to seeing what becomes of this partnership.

As a full-blown Windows notebook, at least 8GB of memory is what we’d expect to see, and Samsung has delivered that here (though speeds are not disclosed). In addition, the notebook comes with either 256GB or 512GB internal SSD storage, and interestingly, it even includes a microSD slot for adding up to 1TB of storage with a super-small footprint (though to be clear, microSD storage may not be suitable for app installs.)

For network duties, the Galaxy Book S can use nano-SIM for LTE, and 802.11ac for Wi-Fi. Connectivity is then expanded with the help of Bluetooth 5.0, as well as GPS. Other perks of the notebook include a finger print reader, light sensor for the keyboard LEDs, and a 720p HD webcam. And speaking of resolutions, the notebook’s 13.3″ screen comes in at 1080p, and has a touch-screen (but it isn’t a convertible, so don’t try your luck!) For battery, the promise is 22-hours, which we’d assume would more like 14-16 hours of real hands-on work given previous experiences with ACPCs.

The Galaxy Book S weighs in at 0.96 kg, and measures at 305.2 x 203.2 x 6.2-11.8mm. For colors, it’s available in both Earthy Gold and Mercury Gray. It’s currently available for $999 for the base model, immediately. Currently, it’s available on sale at both Samsung’s own website, as well as Verizon’s site and stores.