Samsung's $829 Galaxy Book Flex alpha could be the laptop value of the year
The Galaxy Book Flex alpha has truly compelling specs for a low price
This could be one of the best laptop values of the year. Samsung just took the wraps off of the Galaxy Book Flex α (alpha), which packs a QLED display and promises 17.5 hours of battery life for a very competitive starting price of just $829.
This affordable 2-in-1 sports a sleek, attractive aluminum design with diamond-cut edges that measure just 0.5 inches thick. The notebook's 13.3-inch, 1080p QLED display also packs Samsung's signature QLED technology, which uses quantum dots to deliver rich, OLED-quality colors at an affordable price point.
In terms of specs, the Galaxy Book Flex alpha sports a 10th Gen Intel Core CPU, though Samsung has yet to specify which model (we'd expect a Core i3 at this price). But its real killer feature could end up being its 54Wh battery, which Samsung says can last 17.5 hours on a charge complete with Fast Charge support for quickly juicing back up.
The laptop sports up to 12GB of RAM, up to 512GB of NVMe SSD storage, Wi-Fi 6 support and a fingerprint reader. For ports, you'll get a USB-C port, two USB 3.0 connections, a HDMI port, a microSD slot and a headphone jack. The Flex α also supports Samsung's Active Pen (sold separately), should you want to use it to take notes and sketch out some drawings.
The Galaxy Book Flex alpha is slated to launch in the first half of 2020, and could give competitors like the Dell XPS 13 and HP Envy 13t a serious run for their money given its specs for the price. We'll be on the ground at CES 2020, so stay tuned for impressions on the Flex alpha, as well as all of the other hottest upcoming laptops of the year.
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Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored. He was formerly Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, where he wrote extensively on gaming, as well as running the show on the news front. When not at work, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.