Last year, Samsung introduced the Samsung Galaxy Book Flex, which came in both 13- and 15-inch variants. Today, ahead of CES, the company has announced a new, presumably lower-cost member of the family, the Galaxy Book Flex α.
This new device shares a lot with the original, with a convertible form factor, a 13.3-inch Full HD QLED touch screen, and 10th-generation Intel processors. The display also supports active styli, just like before, but it doesn't come with an S Pen. The storage configurations are also the same, with up to 1TB of NVMe SSD storage.
The differences start in the amount of RAM, which maxes out at 12GB in the Flex α, instead of 16GB on the original Flex. The processors are also apparently not exactly the same, since the device only has Intel UHD Graphics. Though Samsung's press release doesn't clarify, it's likely that the Flex α will come with the lower-end Ice Lake Core i3 and Core i5 chips, which don't have Iris Plus graphics. Alternatively, they might come with Comet Lake processors instead, but so does the Galaxy Book Ion, which might create some confusion. We've reached out to Samsung for clarification.
The Flex α also misses out on some connectivity options, and it comes with one USB Type-C port, two USB Type-A 3.0 ports, HDMI, a microSD card slot, and a combo 3.5mm audio jack. Unlike the original Flex family, there's no Thunderbolt 3. The battery is also smaller on the Flex α, with a 54Wh unit promising up to 17.5 hours of battery life. Finally, the Flex α doesn't seem to come with AKG speakers, and just has two 1.5W stereo speakers.
The Samsung Galaxy Book Flex α will be available in the United States in the first half of the year, starting at $829.99. It will come in a Royal Silver color. It's not clear how much cheaper this is compared to the original Flex, since Samsung still hasn't provided pricing information for it. Those laptops are also coming sometime this year.
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