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Samsung releases 2 lightweight laptops
The Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 pair with other Samsung devices and start at $1,000 and $1,200, respectively. The 13-inch Book Pro weighs less than 2 pounds.
Samsung has introduced its latest Galaxy Book laptops aimed at the many people working from home during the pandemic.
Samsung launched the Galaxy Book Pro and the Galaxy Book Pro 360 this week at its Unpacked event. The Galaxy Book Pro is a clamshell laptop, and the Book Pro 360 a 2-in-1 tablet and laptop hybrid.
Samsung, a minor player in the U.S. enterprise PC market, held a virtual marketing event for the latest products to make "a really big splash" at a time when laptop sales are booming, Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said. "The pandemic was actually a great opportunity for them."
The Galaxy Book Pro 13-inch model starts at $1,000 and the 15-inch version at $1,100. The 13-inch Galaxy Book Pro 360 costs $1,200, and the 15-inch model starts at $1,300. Samsung plans to make them available beginning May 14.
Samsung emphasized the ease with which the Galaxy Book Pro and Book Pro 360 pair with other Samsung products, such as the Galaxy Note series of smartphones and Galaxy Tab series of tablets. Customers can use their Galaxy Tab devices as second screens or run their Galaxy Note apps on their laptops.
"When we talk about seamless productivity and creativity, we mean seamless across devices," said Danielle Moten, senior product manager at Samsung. "And that's what makes the Samsung Galaxy Book particularly unique."
In addition to the integration, Samsung highlighted the lightness of the products, calling them the "most mobile Galaxy Books yet." The new Galaxy Book Pro is Samsung's lightest laptop, weighing less than 2 pounds for the 13-inch model. The Book Pro 360 13-inch model weighs about 2.3 pounds. Both are less than a half-inch thick.
The Galaxy Book Pro and the Book Pro 360 use 11th-generation Intel Core processors. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 comes with an Intel Core i7, and the Book Pro comes with either a Core i5 or a Core i7. Both laptops are available with Samsung's active matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays.
Maxim Tamarov is a news writer covering mobile and end-user computing. He previously wrote for The Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C., and the Sun Transcript in Winthrop, Mass. He graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in journalism. He can be found on Twitter at @MaximTamarov.
