Microsoft has made a big deal introducing Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets to new so-called Copilot+ PCs, including on its own Surface Pro and Surface Laptop hardware. The tech giant is promising fast performance to match Apple’s M3 chips and much better battery life than we’ve come to expect from most Windows 11 computers.

It’s all a little confusing. In basic terms, there are several new expensive laptops on the market that have a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset rather than one made by traditional Windows chip provider Intel. Microsoft has made sure to slap new dedicated artificial intelligence features into Windows and rebranded its AI chatbot as Copilot – and all the new X Elite laptops have a Copilot key right there on the keyboard.

Why they have to be referred to a Copilot+ laptops is another confusing decision. What you really want to know is: are these laptops as good as Microsoft says?

I’ve been testing the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge, a 16-inch laptop with the most powerful X Elite processor available, the X1E-84-100. You have to get the larger screen to get the boosted chip. Cheaper Copilot+ laptops can also have the different X Plus chip.

This model will set you back a cool £1,699, and while it’s the best Windows laptop I’ve used for some time, it can’t quite justify the cost.

Performance is noticeably better than on recent Intel laptops I’ve tested, but the battery life claim of up to 22 hours is absurd – in a bad way. From 100 percent I got just about eight hours of constant use out of the Book 4 Edge before it was clamouring for the charger – and all I was doing generally was working in Chrome, Google Docs, and some light photo editing in Photoshop. Samsung says the 22 hour mark is for video playback, but I expected more given the claims from Microsoft and Samsung about the efficiency of the X Elite chip.

Thankfully the laptop is great to work on. It took me a little while to get used to the keyboard, but mainly because it has a number pad so the keys are offset. I prefer a central keyboard. The keys are nicely clacky even if the travel is a little shallow, and there’s a handy fingerprint sensor in the power button for unlocking and biometric access to apps (but no facial recognition via the webcam for Windows Hello). I was also surprised the key caps showed visible wear after less than a month’s use.

Samsung’s design is also impressive. Despite the size of this 16-inch clamshell it only weighs 1.55kg and I didn’t feel it was too weighty in my bag. The base seems to have every unnecessary corner shaved off, and it looks good in a silvery blue hue. Impressively for the thinness, there are two USB4 USB-C ports, plus one USB-A and one HDMI, a microSD slot and a headphone jack. Great stuff.

The large OLED display here is excellent. It has great brightness and colour reproduction – I have no complaints. It’s also touchscreen, like all laptops should be in 2024 for quickly pinching to zoom or tapping buttons and the 120Hz refresh rate means everything is very smooth.

The trackpad is also enormous, presumably because Samsung had the space, but I’d have preferred some better speakers. They’re underneath the unit, so audio isn’t great because they don’t fire up at you, even though they do get plenty loud. I also found the palm rest was so big that my metal watch strap annoyingly scratched against the metal of the laptop but for the naked wristed among us it’ll be great.

Happily, you can avoid all the AI features of this laptop if you want to. Tapping the Copilot button brings up the new assistant, but it’s not as useful or interesting as the marketing will have you believe. It’s good to gather information quickly but it’s not that smart – it’s only mining the internet like a Google search might, and turning out original chat-style replies rather than traditional search results.

Samsung’s own Galaxy AI features are so hidden that I couldn’t even find them without looking up how. I prefer this, as I’ve used a few smartphones that shove these tools in your face whether you want them or not. If the added AI and the new processor are the exact reasons this laptop is £1,699, it’s not worth the extra spend.

In day to day use, I did feel the Galaxy Book ran better than the Asus Zenbook 14 I reviewed recently, but I wouldn’t call it £350 extra in performance, the rough difference in price. It’s also odd that Samsung caps the available RAM at 16GB, as the Galaxy Book needs a fair bit of memory to convert some apps designed for Intel PCs to be able to be used on the Snapdragon chip, which runs on the different Arm architecture.

Apps such as Steam lag a little, but Photoshop runs without a hitch. Others I expected to install and use with no issue won’t install at all, such as the Google Drive desktop software. Microsoft and Google should sort this out, because it’s unacceptable for globally popular software like this not to run on a £1,699 Windows 11 laptop. The buyer should not be finding this out after purchase.

I have mostly used a MacBook for work for several years but I really enjoyed Windows 11 on the Galaxy Book. I’ve ended up loving using the clean software thanks to the snappy performance, great touchscreen and (just about) all-day battery life. It’s actually surprisingly difficult to find a Windows laptop these days that truly delivers all this. Many MacBook reviews are gushing because Apple manages to nail the basics of laptop computing compared to many Windows laptops around the £1,000 mark, and that may well remain true given this Samsung effort costs £700 more than a MacBook Air to achieve the same goal.

This Galaxy Book 4 Edge feels overpriced, but it is the maxed out version. Hopefully Samsung can push a few software updates to bring the battery life in line with expectations, and some work needs to be done to address app compatibility. For now, this is a promising start for Copilot+ PCs but ironically I think that’s because the AI features are quite easy to totally ignore.

You can view all configurations of the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge from Samsung UK here.