Samsung is expanding its laptop lineup with the addition of the Galaxy Book Flex a. The “a” is actually the Greek letter alpha in Samsung’s promotional material, which would technically make this the Galaxy Book Flex alpha.
This mid-tier 2-in-1, running Windows 10, looks a lot like Samsung’s earlier Chromebook designs, with a silver housing and two 360-degree hinges that rotate the 13.3-inch QLED display so it will lie flat on the laptop’s housing for use as a tablet. The display has 1080p resolution, with up to 600 nits of brightness to ensure you can see the screen in nearly any type of lighting, including direct sunlight.
Pricing for the Flex a will start at $829 for the base model, which comes with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. It will work with Samsung’s Active Pen for jotting notes or drawing on the screen, but you’ll have to purchase that separately. You can get the Flex a with up to 12GB of memory and 512GB of storage. The Flex a will use Intel’s 10th-generation Core i7 processor.
A fingerprint sensor is built into the keyboard, taking up some space that the right shift key normally would occupy. The fingerprint sensor will presumably work with Windows Hello for signing into your user account.
Overall, the Flex a measures 12 by 8 by 0.55 inches (304.9 by 202 by 13.9 millimeters) and weighs about 2.62 pounds (1.19 kilograms), thanks to its aluminum housing.
It should be compact and light enough for a student to carry around campus, and powerful enough for typical coursework that doesn’t require any resource-heavy tasks like video or photo editing.
Battery life is estimated to be 17.5 hours, according to Samsung, and if you happen to run out of power, you can fast charge it through the USB-C port.
The Flex a will begin shipping in the first half of 2020, but we don’t have a more specific date than that.
At the end of October, Samsung announced the Galaxy Book Flex, a more powerful version of the Flex a. Samsung hasn’t announced a ship date or pricing for the regular Flex model, but based on the specification sheet alone, it’s clear it’ll be more expensive than the Flex a.
It’s evident that Samsung is getting more serious about providing a complete laptop lineup for users and use cases across the spectrum, and the Flex a is just one more option for Samsung users.
Samsung also announced that the Galaxy Book S will begin shipping later in the first quarter of 2020.
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Note: The prices above reflect the retailer’s listed price at the time of publication.