Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 15.6" NP950XDB-KE6US Mystic Silver 2021

The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro is an ultra-light 15.6-inch laptop with a stunning OLED display that makes movies and web browsing look fantastic. Performance from the older Core i5 and 8GB of RAM is strictly for everyday tasks, and gaming is basically off the table. At around $315 used, it's a great pick if screen quality and portability matter more to you than raw speed.

Let's be real about what this Core i5-1135G7 can and can't do. In our database, the CPU sits at the 23rd percentile among all laptops, which means it's slower than roughly three out of four machines we've tested. For everyday stuff like Chrome with a dozen tabs, Spotify, and a Word doc, you won't notice much lag. But try to push it with anything heavier like 4K video editing or running a local dev environment and you'll feel the age of that quad-core chip pretty quickly.

The 8GB of RAM is the bigger bottleneck honestly. It ranks in the 14th percentile, and Windows 11 alone likes to chew through a few gigs just sitting there. Multitasking is fine up to a point, but you'll hit that ceiling faster than you'd like. The 512GB SSD is middle-of-the-pack at the 40th percentile, fast enough for booting and loading apps but nothing special. The integrated Iris Xe graphics land at the 19th percentile, so while you can technically run older or lighter games at low settings, this is not a machine anyone should buy with gaming in mind. The screen, though, is a standout at the 71st percentile. Deep blacks, vibrant colors, and that infinite contrast ratio you only get from OLED. It makes streaming movies an absolute joy.

Stacked against something like the Apple MacBook Pro MWP72LL/A, the Samsung gets absolutely demolished on performance. Apple's M-series chips run circles around the i5-1135G7, and the build quality is in a different league. But you're also paying a lot more for that MacBook. The HP OmniBook X Flip and Lenovo Yoga 7 83JR0001US both offer newer processors and convertible designs if you want a 2-in-1, though their displays won't match the OLED here unless you step up to pricier configurations. The ASUS Zenbook UX3405CA-U7512 is probably the closest rival in spirit. It's also thin and light with a great screen, but you'll typically find it with newer internals and a higher price tag. The Microsoft Surface Laptop ZXX-00026 has a better keyboard and trackpad, but again, you're paying more for that premium feel. The Galaxy Book Pro's main advantage is that OLED panel at a budget price point.

At around $315 on the used market, the Galaxy Book Pro makes a decent case for itself if your priorities are screen quality and portability above raw power. You're getting a big, beautiful OLED panel in a package that weighs less than some 13-inch laptops. The trade-off is that you're buying into older silicon and non-upgradeable RAM. For the same money you could snag a refurbished business laptop with a faster CPU and more memory, but you'd be giving up that screen and the lightweight design. If you spend most of your time in a browser and want something that's easy to carry and great for Netflix, this is a solid deal. If you need to run demanding software, keep looking.

The Samsung Galaxy Book Pro NP950XDB-KE6US is one of those laptops that makes a killer first impression. You pick it up and it's almost shockingly light at just 1.31kg, and then you open the lid and that 15.6-inch 1080p OLED screen lights up and suddenly every other laptop display looks a little washed out. Samsung built this thing for people who want a big screen without the back pain, and at around $315 these days, it's landed in a pretty interesting spot on the used and refurbished market.

Under the hood you're getting an 11th-gen Intel Core i5-1135G7, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD, though some configurations shipped with 256GB so you'll want to double-check the listing. This isn't a powerhouse by any stretch. The integrated Iris Xe graphics and that older quad-core chip put it firmly in the "everyday tasks" camp. Web browsing, Office apps, streaming video, maybe some light photo editing. That's the sweet spot. And for those things, the OLED panel makes everything look better than it has any right to.

Connectivity is solid for such a thin machine. You get Thunderbolt, a full-size HDMI port, and Wi-Fi 6E, which is more than a lot of modern ultrabooks bother to include. The backlit keyboard is a nice touch for late-night typing sessions. Just don't expect to fire up any modern games on this thing. Our database puts its gaming capability at a 10 out of 100, which is about as low as it gets.

Skip the Galaxy Book Pro if you do any kind of gaming, video editing, 3D modeling, or heavy multitasking. The 8GB of soldered RAM and older quad-core CPU will hold you back in a big way. It's also not the right pick if you need all-day battery life away from an outlet, since we don't have solid numbers on longevity and older Intel chips aren't known for efficiency. If you need more power at a similar price, look at refurbished business laptops with 16GB of RAM and newer Ryzen or Core i7 processors. You'll lose the OLED screen, but you'll gain a machine that can actually keep up with a heavier workload.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro in 2025? If you find one in good shape for around $300 and your daily workload is mostly web browsing, document editing, and streaming video, it's a surprisingly nice machine. That OLED screen genuinely elevates the experience of using it, and the weight makes it a joy to carry around. It's a great couch laptop or a secondary machine for travel.

But if you need a primary computer that'll handle multitasking, creative work, or anything beyond the basics, the 8GB of RAM and aging processor will frustrate you sooner rather than later. This is a laptop you buy for the screen and the portability, not for the performance. Know what you're getting into and you'll be happy. Expect it to be a workhorse and you'll be disappointed.