The first wave of Copilot+ PCs has crashed into our testing labs this week, and our expert testers are hard at work running a blend of synthetic and real-world tests on them to gauge performance, battery life, and more before handing them off to our reviewers.Naturally, we reviewers are eagerly awaiting these laptops in our hands, but for now, we can only press our faces up against the metaphorical glass of the testing lab and look on as new results come in. Some of the astounding benchmarks are making the wait that much harder.We highlighted the HP EliteBook Ultra’s battery life, but I’m waiting for the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge. As the lone Copilot+ PC is currently available with Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100, performance is the metric that I have a close eye on, and it has not been disappointing so far.Our lab hasn’t finished all of the tests yet, but most of our performance tests are done, and Samsung is putting up impressive performances. To be clear, I don’t just mean it’s beating Copilot+ PCs with lesser Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips; even the MacBook Pro 14 with M3 Pro can’t keep up with it on some tests. Let’s dive into the hard numbers.Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge vs. MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro: Geekbench 6We can lead off with the Geekbench 6 test, where the Book 4 Edge averaged an incredible 15,818 for multi-core and 2,935 for single-core. That’s solidly ahead of the MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro, which recorded scores of 14,357 and 3,154, respectively. One of our favorite recent Intel Core Ultra laptops, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, came in behind them at 12,615 and 2,453. Multi-core performance is more relevant for modern computing, so this is a meaningful victory for Samsung and Qualcomm despite Apple retaining that single-core advantage. Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0 Samsung Galaxy Book4 EdgeMacBook Pro 14 M3 ProAsus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425)Geekbench 6 (Multi-core)15,81814,35712,615Geekbench 6 (Single-core)2,9353,1542,453Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge vs. MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro: HandbrakeTurning to our Handbrake test, which involves converting a video from 4K to 1080p using the Fast 1080p30 preset, the Galaxy Book 4 Edge acquitted itself well. It finished the conversion in 4 minutes and 59 seconds, but it wasn’t quite fast enough to beat the 14 Pro’s 4-minute and 26-second finish. Once again our Intel competitor slots in behind at 6 minutes and 36 seconds.Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0 Samsung Galaxy Book4 EdgeMacBook Pro 14 M3 ProAsus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425)Handbrake 1.74:594:266:36Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge vs. MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro: 3D Mark Wildlife ExtremeFor graphics testing, we use the synthetic 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test and this is where Apple claims a decisive victory with a score of 11,938 compared to 7,311 for the Galaxy Book 4 Edge. This test looks at the device’s ability to handle heavy performance tasks over short periods, which does not bode well for gaming on the Galaxy Book 4 Edge. This is an ARM-optimized test so that the x86 Zenbook couldn’t participate.Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0 Samsung Galaxy Book4 EdgeMacBook Pro 14 M3 ProAsus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425)3DMark Wildlife Extreme11,9387,311N/ASamsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge vs. MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro: GamingWhile we haven’t completed all of our gaming benchmarks yet, we have Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm in. Despite the previous test results, the Galaxy Book 4 Edge outperformed the MacBook Pro, although neither covered itself in glory. Samsung came out victorious with 24 frames per second in 1080p, while Apple averaged 18.6 frames per second. Finally a win for the Intel laptop, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED notched 30.5 frames per second.Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0 Samsung Galaxy Book4 EdgeMacBook Pro 14 M3 ProAsus Zenbook 14 OLED (Q425)Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm24 fps18.6 fps30.5Bottom lineThat’s an early look at the performance and graphics testing on the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge. We naturally have many other test results to come, including display benchmarks, battery life testing, and additional performance and graphics tests.While the MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro does still hold the edge in some areas, Qualcomm and Samsung are beating this third-generation Apple Silicon in any metrics, which is impressive. Notably, the Galaxy Book 4 Edge is also cheaper at $1,749. The comparable MacBook Pro 14 M3 Pro with 1TB of storage is $2,199, and the 16-inch model (matching the size of this Galaxy Book) is $2,699.We’ll need to finish our full review before we can crown an overall winner, but this early look is undoubtedly favorable for Samsung and the rest of the Copilot+ PC makers. The second half of 2024 will be an intriguing time to be in the market for a new laptop.MORE FROM LAPTOP MAGToday’s best Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 Pro (2023) deals
