The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra answers the exact question I’ve been asking for a while now: what if this ultraportable form factor got a whole lot more powerful?
Don’t get me wrong, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro and Pro 360 are both strong laptops. But their reliance on integrated graphics constrains them from the likes of higher-tier gaming and intense creative app tasks.
But Samsung has gone ahead and stuffed an discrete GPU in the Ultra, increased the battery capacity and the total wattage to all the components inside. This could be the prosumer ultraportable we’ve been waiting for.
Disclaimer: early hands-on
These impressions are based on the key specs and getting our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra for a short amount of time. Due to embargoes from Intel and Nvidia, we can’t share anything specific about the performance of these machines, including any benchmarks.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra price
The Galaxy Book 3 Ultra starts at $2,399 for the base model with an Intel Core i7 CPU with an RTX 4050 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. Bumping up to an Intel Core i9 CPU with an RTX 4070 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage comes in at $2,799. Pre-order at Samsung.com (opens in new tab) and you get a $200 discount and a free upgrade to the next storage tier. Over in the UK, the base model starts at £2,499.
We’d need to wait for more information on how powerful the system is before we can decide where the sweet spot is on value for money.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra design
Aesthetically, think of this as a thicker Galaxy Book 3 Pro. It has that similar wedge-shape form factor and recycled aluminum construction that screams “premium.” The 3.9-pound weight can definitely be felt in the hand, but it’s nowhere near the weight we’re seeing from other laptops with Nvidia RTX 40 Series dedicated GPUs in them.
But the big party trick here is that while it is a little thicker than its siblings, the thinness is still mightily impressive for what you’ll find in here (including a 76Wh battery and quad AKG speakers). Measuring up at 13.9 x 9.9 x 0.6, this is a little smaller than the 16-inch M2 MacBook Pro (14.0 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches), and it is significantly lighter too (the MacBook Pro weighs 4.7 pounds).
This ultra-portability mixed with power is a potential combo breaker for creative pros who need a strong system on the go.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra ports
The Book 3 Ultra packs all the ports you see across all the Book 3 lineup — HDMI 2.0 and 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left, and a microSD card slot, USB 3.2 Type-A and 3.5mm audio jack on the right.
On the other Samsung notebooks, this is a sufficient set of ports. But for a creative pro’s system, I would have loved to see a full size SD card slot and a couple extra USB ports for various accessories.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra display
Samsung’s strength lies in creating gorgeously bright, vivid displays, and the Book 3 Ultra shows that with a 16-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel. The resolution is a crispy 2880 x 1800 with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, and a 16:10 aspect ratio for improved productivity.
Setting my eyes upon a high resolution trailer showed just how luscious this panel is — a sheer flash flood of color that explodes off the screen, which will make for a real beauty for work and gaming. We’ll leave firm impressions for when we have tested the Ultra in our lab, but for now, I can safely say that you’ll love this display.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra keyboard & touchpad
Look at the size of that touchpad! We don’t have any specific dimensions, but I can safely say it's ruddy massive. Not only that, but the smoothness of the surface means your fingers glide over effortlessly, with full multi-touch gesture support to boot.
Meanwhile, the Chiclet style keyboard benefits from a full number pad — great for data entry and setting up macros for any particularly complicated games or pieces of creative software. This, to me, is a warmly welcomed introduction that other companies don’t necessarily add.
For example, the Huawei MateBook 16S (the more premium of the company’s two big screen laptops) ditches the number pad, whereas the cheaper MateBook D16 has it. You notice a lot of OEMs making these same weird choices with the cream of their crop, so it’s great to see Samsung has poured all the keys onto its latest and greatest.
Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra performance
This is the part I’m most excited about, but also frustrated too because I can’t test it properly. On the CPU side, you can choose from either a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 or i9 — both running on a 45W TDP for additional pure power over its cheaper siblings. And here’s where you know Samsung is serious, because you can pick from either an RTX 4050 or RTX 4070 GPU.
For RAM, you’re getting either 16 or 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and the storage options go up to a 1TB PCIe SSD with an additional expansion slot. This is all sounding like it can be quite the beast to stand up to the likes of the new M2 Pro MacBook Pro, but we’ll leave opinions until we’ve benchmarked these.
Outlook
We’re in the very early days of testing the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, but it’s ticking all the right boxes to be a good option for creative pros — bringing that super slim notebook form factor that Samsung is famous for with a ton of power.
Of course, we’re not going to say much more than that right now, as there isn’t much more I can talk about without being quickly silenced by a company representative. However, color me excited for this.
