Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event saw the unveiling of not just the Galaxy S23 series smartphones, but also the Galaxy Book3 series laptops. These laptops aim at offering powerful computing and continuity experience with Samsung ecosystem devices. There are three different models, the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro, the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360, and the star of the show, the Galaxy Book3 Ultra. We had a few minutes to play around with the laptops, and here are our first impressions.
Galaxy Book3 price and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro starts at $1,249 whereas the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 starts at $1,399. These laptops are already available on pre-orders and will start shipping from February 17 onwards. The flagship, Galaxy Book3 Ultra starts at $2,199. Pre-orders for the Ultra start on February 14 and it will go on sale starting February 22.
WATCH: Samsung Galaxy Book3 Series First Look
Sleek design, quad speakers, 1080p cameras
All the Samsung Galaxy Book3 series laptops are built with portability and ease of use in mind. They feature a sleek and slim design, yet pack powerful hardware, which we will talk about in a bit. Both the Pro and Ultra series laptops share similar multimedia features, one where you get a quad-speaker setup. These include two 2W tweeters and two 5W woofers, tuned by AKG and featuring Dolby Atmos certification. They also come with dual stereo-quality microphones and a 1080p webcam. All these are meaningful additions considering the current hybrid work scenario, and virtual calls over platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more. One of the other interesting things about the laptops is the larger trackpad surface area for more comfortable use when you are not using a mouse for content editing and other stuff.
Designed for work and play: Powerful hardware for everyday use
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra
Talking about the hardware, the Galaxy Book3 Ultra is Samsung’s most powerful laptop in the Book3 series. Under the hood is Intel’s latest 13th gen Core i9-13900H or Core i7-13700H 45W Evo processors, paired with up to 1TB SSD (PCIe 4.0) and up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM. The laptop also comes with discrete graphics options, where you can choose between the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 or the RTX 4070 laptop GPUs. The configuration is good enough for playing casual games and content creation on the go.
The laptop also features a 16-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with 3K resolution (2880×1800 pixels), and 16:10 aspect ratio. In the brief amount of time we used the laptop, the screen was bright and color reproduction was punchy. The screen also supports a refresh rate of 120Hz. To keep things ticking, there is a 76Wh battery, and the laptop ships with a 100W USB-C charger.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro, Book3 Pro 360
While the Galaxy Book3 Pro is available in two different screen sizes – 14-inch and 16-inch, the Galaxy Book3 360 is only available in a 16-inch screen size. On the display side, both laptops share the same AMOLED panel with a 2880 x 1800 pixels resolution. As the name suggests, the Galaxy Book3 360 comes with a 360-degree swiveling touchscreen, and it supports S Pen too, which comes in the box. We tried the S Pen to simply doodle and found it to be quite smooth and responsive, thanks to its low-latency.
The changes come on the processor side, where users can choose between Intel’s 13th-gen 28W processors – Core i5-1340P or Core i7-1360P. The base model comes with 8GB of RAM (LPDDR5) and 256GB storage (PCIe 4.0 SSD), and it can be configured further to 12GB RAM with 512GB storage or 16GB RAM with 1TB storage.
Book3 Pro 14-inch model features a 63Wh battery whereas the 16-inch variant comes with the same 76Wh battery as the Ultra. These laptops ship with a 65W USC-C adapter, which can also be used to charge your Galaxy smartphone or tablet. The Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 also comes with an optional 5G Sub-6 model to offer integrated connectivity experience.
Connected ecosystem to drive user experience
During the pre-briefing, Samsung spent some time talking about the connected ecosystem experience. All the Galaxy Book3 series laptops are deeply integrated with the Galaxy devices – including the Galaxy smartphones and tablets – Galaxy Tab S7-series and above. We saw some of these demos, and these features surely bring convenience to the ecosystem users.
Features such as multi-control allow you to control your smartphone right from the laptop. You can copy-paste text, and drag and drop images and files, among other things. Users can also use their tablets as a second screen to extend the laptop display or mirror the screen.
There is a ‘Phone Link’ feature using which you can activate the phone’s hotspot from the laptop itself. You can also continue browsing your web session from Galaxy S23 smartphones to your Galaxy Book3 laptop. Samsung spoke about the Expert RAW app that lets you capture DNG images to edit later in apps like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop among others. With the connected ecosystem and continuity feature, you can now sync RAW files from your Galaxy smartphone to the Galaxy Book3 laptop seamlessly and automatically.
There were two more features that Samsung mentioned during the briefing. The first is the Smart Switch feature which allows users to easily migrate content from the older Galaxy Book to the new Galaxy Book3 series. And lastly, there is also support for Samsung Pass, allowing you to sign-in to websites using IDs and passwords saved on the smartphone.
Key Takeaways:
• The Galaxy Book3 series laptops bring a sleek and slim design.
• These laptops are aimed at every day and productivity users.
• The Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 offers the best of laptops and tablets in one device.
• S Pen support on the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is a good value addition for taking quick notes, sketching and more.
• The Galaxy Book3 Ultra is a great package for content creators and casual gamers on the go.
• One of the key highlights of the new laptops is the connected ecosystem story and how seamlessly they connect with other Galaxy and Samsung IoT products like AC, washers, TV, and much more.
• Features like multi-screen, Phone Link, and Samsung Pass are good additions showcasing deep integration of services across Windows and Android platforms.
