Samsung Book5 Pro Review: The Best Windows MacBook Pro Alternative?

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80%

80%

The Good

1. Anti-reflective coating
2. Touchscreen
3. Brilliant battery life

The Not So Good

1. Disappointing speakers
2. No SD card slot

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Need-To-Knows

📏 Surprisingly thin

☀️ Display not as bright as MacBook

👆 Has touchscreen display

💰 Standard RRP for 14” is £1,499/$1,549 (16GB, 1TB) and 16” is £1,599/$1,649 (16GB, 1TB)

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Samsung recently asked if I wanted to check out the new Book5 Pro. Realising that I’ve talked an awful lot about my reliance on – and love for – the Mac and how that has led me to the startling realisation that it’s the only reason I use an iPhone, I said “yes”.

It only seemed fair.

Is the Samsung Book5 Pro a MacBook alternative? Can I shake off my preconceived ideas about Windows and the less-than-favourable memories it dregs up every time I get my hands on that Start Menu?

More importantly, if you’re not a blinkered Apple fanboy, should you buy the Samsung Book5 Pro?

How I reviewed the Samsung Book5 Pro

To get a proper taste of the Samsung Book5 Pro, I used it mainly as my laptop at home. This role is normally undertaken by a 15-inch M2 MacBook Air which is used for writing, general admin, and the occasional team call when I’m working from the kitchen breakfast bar.

I took the Book5 Pro out with me, too, so that I could experience what it’s like as a laptop while out and about. This involved doing the same kind of work in coffee shops, and various other public locations.

The one thing I didn’t do on the Book5 Pro is any form of production work, simply because that isn’t something I do anymore within my business. This review should therefore be considered a reflection of what the laptop is like to use as a regular business-focused computer.

Specs and pricing

The Book5 Pro is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 7 and comes with 16GB of RAM. In the US, there’s an option to upgrade the latter to 32GB, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in the UK at the time of writing.

It comes in two sizes – 14- and 16-inch. Samsung sent me the latter to review, which features a 2,800×1,800 WQXGA+ AMOLED display with an anti-reflective coating and touchscreen capabilities. Graphics are handled by the Intel Arc 140V GPU, which has 8GB of RAM onboard.

There’s a quad-speaker system in the Book5 Pro that’s capable of Dolby Atmos playback. Fingerprint recognition is included on the power button, and we’re promised up to 25 hours of battery life on the 16-inch edition for video playback (21 hours for the 14-inch version).

Running the show is either Windows 11 Home or Pro – your choice.

The pricing for the Book5 Pro is as follows:

• 14” – £1,499/$1,549 (16GB, 1TB)
• 16” – £1,599/$1,649 (16GB, 1TB)

At the time of writing, Samsung does have the usual raft of offers up for grabs, but you’ll have to be quick, I’d guess, if you don’t want to miss out on them.

Design

The Book5 Pro feels very well made. The 16-inch version I was sent to review is surprisingly thin and has more than a whiff of old-school MacBook Air about it, thanks to that tapered design. This is a good thing, by the way – I was always a huge fan of the old MacBook Air aesthetic.

You can do the whole single-hand-lid-lift, too, which is immediately reassuring for a MacBook fanboy like yours truly.

I like the keyboard – it’s soft enough to be comfortable for long typing sessions, and satisfying to use overall. One thing I’m not keen on, however, is the inclusion of a numpad on the 16-inch Book5 Pro. As handy as it might occasionally be, it shifts the rest of the keyboard to the left, and I’m still having trouble acclimatising to that.

The display is lovely. It’s nowhere near as bright as the MacBook Pro (500 nits vs 1,600 nits of peak brightness, respectively), but you don’t really notice that in everyday usage. And it’s a touchscreen, which is something I’ve always enjoyed and actually used whenever I dip my toes into Windows water.

Connectivity is pretty well thought-out, with one HDMI port that supports up to 8K@60Hz, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and one USB-A port. There’s also, inexplicably, a MicroSD card reader, which I’ll get to later.

5 things I like about the Book5 Pro (as a MacBook user)

There’s a lot to like about the Book5 Pro and, to be fair, the Windows experience in 2025.

1. Simple configuration process

As noted earlier, in the UK, there are just two options when it comes to configuring your Book5 Pro – the size of the display, and how much storage you want (either 512GB or 1TB).

Buying any kind of MacBook is a far more involved and confusing process. And, sure, this does suggest that the Book5 Pro isn’t a MacBook Pro competitor, but as I’ve always said, if you know you need a machine as powerful as that, you know that’s the case.

2. Touchscreen

I didn’t find myself using the touchscreen on the Book5 Pro as much as I have on Windows laptops I’ve reviewed previously (maybe the novelty has worn off), but I have reached out and tapped occasionally, and it’s such a nice option to have.

Apple will never do this, and it’s a shame. We’re inherently geared towards touching displays these days, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do so with our laptops.

Samsung has attempted to make the most of this, too, with a feature called AI Select, which is a bit like Circle to Search for your laptop. It works pretty well, but I didn’t personally find a use case for it during my testing.

3. Quick Share

This is an app which works with Android devices like the S25 Ultra to provide a quick way of transferring stuff between your phone and laptop. It works just fine. It’s not as fast or seamless as AirDrop, but it works and indeed demonstrates that there is life outside of the Apple walled garden.

4. Phone Link

This is a bit like iPhone Mirroring on macOS, in so far as it allows you to bring up your phone’s display within Windows and interact with it, but it also provides a Windows app which has direct access to messages, calls, photos, and notifications from your phone.

The mirroring didn’t work very well during my testing – it was incredibly slow and frustrating to use. The rest of Phone Link worked well, though, and seems like a quicker way of transferring files than Quick Share.

5. Super thinness

I really like the design of the Book5 Pro. For a 16-inch laptop, it doesn’t actually feel that big at all; certainly not as cumbersome and backpack-troubling as the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

And the wedge design? Bravo, Samsung.

Oh, and I didn’t hear the fans come on once. Which is unusual for a Windows laptop.

5 things I don’t like about the Book5 Pro (as a MacBook user)

As you might expect from an annoying Apple Person like me, it isn’t all roses with the Book5 Pro. However, I would advise taking the following list of complaints with a pinch of salt.

1. The trackpad

It is huge. And I’m not sure quite why it needs to be that big. Thankfully, it doesn’t get in the way too much, but I don’t like the feel of it at all; it’s nowhere near as smooth or immediately responsive as a MacBook trackpad and I keep hitting the right-click function by mistake.

2. Windows

Yeah, I know – here we go. This is totally unfair, and I always try and shake it off, but whenever I use Windows it just always reminds me of the past. It’s a past where I had a love-hate relationship with Microsoft’s operating system simply because I wasn’t very good at building computers and had a couple of jobs I absolutely despised which forced me to use Windows.

It just feels a bit… foreign. A bit clunky, compared to macOS. And I totally understand that this is simply because I’m so used to the latter (the first thing I always do with a Windows machine is install PowerToys and turn the keyboard into a Mac keyboard).

I will say, however, that Windows has come a long way in recent years, and never appears to crash, slow down, or do outlandish stuff. Window management is also superior to macOS. Still.

3. No MagSafe alternative

By 2019, Apple had removed MagSafe from all of its MacBooks. That was a stupid idea. So stupid, they reintroduced it with the launch of the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2021.

MagSafe is a brilliant invention which, if you weren’t aware, uses magnets to connect the power supply. This means that if anyone walks past your table and trips over your laptop’s power cable, it ejects itself immediately without taking the computer with it.

I wish the Book5 Pro had this.

4. No SD card slot

Along with MagSafe, Apple also reintroduced an SD card reader on those 2021 MacBook Pros. The fact the Book5 Pro doesn’t have one is a shame, but I cannot fathom why it has a MicroSD card reader.

Maybe it’s to satisfy the legion of DJI Osmo Pocket 3 users. Or drone operators. I have no idea. Answers on a postcard, please.

5. The speakers

If there’s one thing Apple is very good at, it’s making small speakers sound much bigger than they are.

The speakers in both the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are great examples of this. They’re surprisingly full-bodied and room-filing. The speakers on the Book5 Pro aren’t. There’s just no depth to them, despite the Dolby Atmos support offering plenty of width.

I would dearly love other manufacturers to give Apple a run for its money when it comes to audio. The time has come.

Conclusion

I won’t be switching to the Samsung Book5 Pro, but that’s only because I’m an annoying MacBook fanboy.

However, this is a great laptop. Ironically, it has given me classic MacBook Air ‘feels’ throughout the testing period; for a big laptop, it’s very easy to live with. The specs are on point for the intended audience, the keyboard is great, and the touchscreen display is lovely.

It looks really good, too, and the battery life is great (although I wish Windows wouldn’t instigate the power-saving mode at 30% – that’s infuriating).

Put it this way – the Book5 Pro is probably the Windows laptop I’d go for if I ever did extract myself from the Apple walled garden.