The Samsung Galaxy Book 4 series will get a new family member later this month: the Galaxy Book 4 Edge. The laptop runs on Qualcomm’s ARM chipsets for Windows.
Specifically, this concerns Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chipsets. With these ARM chipsets, the chip developer wants to offer a serious counterpart to Apple’s Silicon M series. In any case, Microsoft would use the new Snapdragon X chipsets on its new Surface laptops – Samsung is now joining that list. Later this month, the South Korean brand will launch its first laptop based on the chipsets, the Galaxy Book 4 Edge, SamMobile reports.
The publication reports that the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge will be equipped with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset: the most expensive ARM chip that Qualcomm offers. Samsung also provides the ARM laptop with a 14-inch screen, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. The Galaxy Book 4 Edge will not be very cheap: prices reportedly start at 1,800 euros.
Galaxy Book 4 Edge launch date
Such details have already leaked in recent months. One detail was always missing: the launch date. SamMobile also knows how to name it this time: at the end of May. It’s possible that Samsung will release the Galaxy laptop at the same time as the new Surface laptops. For the time being, however, this remains guesswork.
It also remains a mystery why the Galaxy Book 4 Edge carries the ‘Edge’ title. Previously, that name was used for devices with rounded screens, such as the Galaxy S7 Edge. Samsung could also give the laptop such a rounded screen, but that seems unlikely.
It is also possible that Samsung wants to give a new twist to the Edge title. After all, the brand has not released products with such rounded screens for a while.
ARM architecture for Windows
Presumably, the housing of the Galaxy Book 4 Edge is also identical to other Galaxy Book 4 models. What makes the laptop unique, as mentioned, is the ARM architecture. ARM is a lot more economical than the existing x86 instruction set for processors. Moreover, the arrival of ARM chipsets is creating more competition in the processor landscape.
Time will tell whether ARM on Windows will be a success. Microsoft has already set its sights on it: all standard Windows apps are suitable for ARM. In addition, the software giant has developed a transition layer that may be faster than Apple’s Rosetta 2. Apps that are not made for ARM should still work smoothly on Windows. As time goes on, that layer will become less and less necessary: developers will then make their apps suitable for ARM.
However, to date, ARM has not been very popular on Windows. Chips built on the architecture were often slower than comparable x86 processors.
