Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

We were recently inundated with a whole host of new Windows laptops. These aren’t your ordinary notebooks, though – they’re part of Microsoft’s innovative Copilot+ PC program, designed with AI and ARM chips in mind from the ground up.

• Design Efficiency
• Galaxy AI
• Pricing Concerns

A significant number of these laptops highlight the same performance and battery life enhancements brought about by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips. These are indeed impressive, but when comparing all these laptops side by side, it’s Samsung’s entry that gets me the most excited.

Design Efficiency

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

When I first heard about the Copilot+ PCs, I wondered if any of these new laptops could measure up to the MacBook Air M3. After all, that’s been Microsoft’s goal with these new devices for quite some time. While many of these Copilot+ laptops seem to rival or even surpass the MacBook Air in terms of performance and battery life, many of them are still thicker than that device. Take the new Surface Laptop, for instance. Although Microsoft has made certain design tweaks, it has left the thickness of the device untouched, remaining at a substantial 0.69 inches thick. The 0.44-inch MacBook Air M3 is noticeably thinner.

I wasn’t just interested in thinness for the sake of it – this kind of design allows for the full utilization of the efficiency of the ARM architecture. It’s what enabled Apple to transform the underpowered Intel MacBook Air into the incredibly thin M2 MacBook Air.

Some of the other Copilot+ laptops come closer, but they don’t quite reach the MacBook Air’s level. Then, I stumbled upon Samsung’s area of the exhibition floor, where they had two unassuming little laptops: the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14 and 16. I could immediately tell how thin they were – especially the smaller model. As it turns out, it’s a mere 0.43 inches thick, while the 16-inch model is 0.48 inches. This means that the 14-inch is officially thinner than the MacBook Air. And in the case of the larger model, Samsung even managed to fit an HDMI port on the side.

This excites me because it shows that these new Qualcomm chips are truly as efficient as Apple Silicon – especially if the Galaxy Book4 Edge lives up to its end of the bargain in terms of performance. What’s even more remarkable is the fact that the MacBook Air is fanless, while the Galaxy Book4 Edge has a fan. This allows for better sustained performance without the need for a thicker chassis.

I’m certain that the Galaxy Book4 Edge won’t be the thinnest Copilot+ PC forever, but I’m glad Samsung took the opportunity to slim down the design.

Galaxy AI

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

One of the key aspects behind Copilot+ is, of course, AI, and here’s another area where the Galaxy Book4 Edge shines. All of these laptops benefit from the new AI features integrated into Windows like Recall, but the Galaxy Book4 Edge has the advantage of being part of the larger Samsung ecosystem.

Specifically, it has a new feature that takes advantage of its position to make Copilot even more useful. When using Copilot and Phone Link on the Galaxy Book4 Edge, you can now control your phone entirely through the natural language capabilities enabled by the AI. So, let’s say you want to send a text message or have the map to your next destination set up on your phone – it can all be done using the natural language on your PC.

This is, of course, in addition to all the other great Galaxy ecosystem features built into Samsung laptops, such as Samsung Flow. This is just the beginning, as more developers start to build tools on top of Copilot and utilize the NPU of these new laptops.

Pricing Concerns

Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

The one concern I have regarding these new Samsung devices is the price. Samsung has limited configuration options available, and they are on the pricier side compared to what’s offered in the Copilot+ lineup. This can be a problem, especially since the M2 MacBook Air is still quite affordable. One of the issues is that the Copilot+ PCs require 16GB of RAM, which means the base configurations can’t be overly cheap.

But if there’s ever a true MacBook Air competitor on the Windows side, the Galaxy Book4 Edge seems well-positioned to fill that role. We won’t know for sure until we can personally review it, but it’s definitely at the top of our list of Copilot+ laptops we want to test further.