Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra Review

Samsung recently released several new laptops, like the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360, to cover a range of prices, and the Galaxy Book3 Ultra (starts at $2,399.99, as tested) sits at the top of the pile. Aimed at professionals and content creators, the Book3 Ultra is a slick get-up, a slim and portable design with a gorgeous 16-inch AMOLED display, long battery life, and 13th Gen Intel Core H Series processing with Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics. This laptop's performance is impressive but takes a bit too much coin to earn it. While that’s expected for laptops in this class, an alternative like the HP Envy 16 is much less expensive with a lower starting price and comparable power. If you have both the need for a media editing laptop, and the budget for a premium laptop (and maybe a Samsung phone to complement it), you'll find a lot to like about the Book3 Ultra. Just know that options both cheaper and gutsier are out there.

One Luxe Galaxy Design

This review isn’t my first opportunity to check out the Book3 Ultra. We published hands-on impressions from a preview event about a month prior to its original announcement, so I began fairly familiar with the design here. What I liked about it then has not changed: This machine is slick and super thin for a 16-inch laptop.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

The metal design and quality build immediately put it up there with top-end competition like the 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro. In fact, the Book3 Ultra is thinner and lighter than every laptop we've compared it with here. It measures 0.64 by 13.9 by 9.8 inches and weighs 3.9 pounds, remaining plenty portable for what can be a powerful laptop. But I’ll get to that power later.

Most 16-inch machines are heavier, like the HP Envy 16 (5.1 pounds), the MacBook Pro (4.8 pounds), the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (4.5 pounds), and even the 15-inch Dell XPS 15 OLED (4.3 pounds). We’ll see if trimming down this much costs the Book3 Ultra in performance further down.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Despite the slim frame, the connectivity is still decent. Laptops this slim (especially smaller ones) are increasingly dropping all but USB Type-C ports, sometimes even including the headphone jack. Here, you still find a USB Type-A port, an HDMI connection, a microSD card slot, and a headphone jack alongside two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, which are also used for charging. The laptop also features a full HD webcam, though I found the camera quality to be underwhelming, easily blown out by bright lighting and not especially sharp.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Samsung's keyboard and touchpad are less remarkable, but they're still overall suitable for regular use. You won't feel a lot of key travel, so typing is just a so-so experience, but it is serviceable, and this keyboard manages to squeeze in a number pad—something we've seen lacking on some other 16-inchers. The Book3 Ultra also joins in on the trend of larger touchpads with an especially roomy one, which tracks and pans smoothly.

The screen size doesn't overly inflate the chassis footprint, so we can celebrate the fact that this is a big and beautiful display with no reservations. This is an AMOLED screen in a 16:10 aspect ratio, with a super-sharp 3K resolution (2,880 by 1,800 pixels) and a 120Hz refresh rate. The latter feature is useful for a variety of visual workloads as well as gaming, and the screen is also DisplayHDR True Black 500 certified.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

The fact that this screen is sharp, bright, and vibrant should be no surprise if you have enjoyed Samsung's AMOLED displays on its flagship Galaxy phones, either. Speaking of which, this laptop works with Samsung Galaxy smartphones in some helpful ways.

Expand Your Workflow: Galaxy Phone Integration

To underscore the travel-friendly nature of the Book3 Ultra, Samsung developed deep integration with its Galaxy phones. This is meant to appeal to the mobile power user, and it realistically aims to replicate the synergy Apple customers enjoy between their Macs and iPhones.

In order to test this, Samsung included a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in the box for our review purposes. Setup is pretty easy (you scan a QR code), and from there, you'll find a number of compatibility features available to you. Multi Control allows you to drag, drop, copy, and paste items between your phone and Galaxy tablets, as well as share a keyboard and mouse between the devices. You can also use a Samsung tablet as a second display for your laptop, which is actually helpful.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Other features include file transfer via Wi-Fi Direct, letting you throw, say, RAW photos from your phone to your laptop for editing. You'll also find the Quick Share and Private Share apps for transferring files between Galaxy devices and doing so securely, respectively, which can add a lot of flexibility to your workflow.

Of course, you’ll need a Galaxy phone, and you'll find a lot of Android options out there, but Samsung remains the most popular Android phone brand, and it’s even more likely Samsung laptop shoppers also use Galaxy phones. After years of using a OnePlus device, I recently upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy S23+ for personal use and love the experience, so I can envision how these features would be useful to many users like myself.

Testing the Galaxy Book3 Ultra: Intel and Nvidia's Latest Parts Combine for Pro Creators

I’ve been alluding to the powerful components inside this slim system, so let’s take a closer look. Despite the thinness, our $2,399.99 test model includes a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700H CPU, a member of the high-performing H-Series. This is a sensible pick since this is for pro users, while smaller thin laptops tend to utilize less powerful but more efficient U-Series chips. Joining this processor are 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

In addition to what we’ve seen to be a well-performing CPU, that last inclusion, an RTX 40 Series GPU, is worth paying attention to. Most thin laptops omit a GPU, and even plenty of laptops with proper CPU horsepower don’t include discrete graphics at all. The Book3 Ultra, aimed as it is at creators and power users, unlocks a tier of graphics performance that many thin laptops don’t. Even if the RTX 4050 is the entry level for the RTX 40 Series, this latest generation’s baseline is powerful, and it’s a big step beyond integrated graphics.

Despite the more-than-competent components in our review unit, it actually represents the lowest-price base model for the Book3 Ultra. That should further underline the idea that this is for enthusiast pro users, and for those that need even more performance, you'll find an upgraded model. For $2,999.99, you can get the Book3 Ultra with an Intel Core i9-13900H, 32GB of RAM, and an RTX 4070 GPU. You won't be able to mix and match here—you can choose between our base model or the $600-higher upgraded version.

To gauge how well our review model performs, we put it through its paces with our usual benchmark test suite. These tests and the results can be found below, but first, these are the alternative laptops we've compared the Book3 Ultra with.

This group represents a wide, but relevant, range of options at or near the same size and price point. The 16-inch MacBook Pro is the obvious (albeit far pricier) Apple alternative, while the Dell XPS 15 OLED is a slightly smaller and cheaper premium Windows option. The affordable HP Envy 16 is perhaps the best 1:1 comparison as a high-end 16-inch laptop for creators. Finally, the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is also a new release, showing how the step-down model in Samsung’s own 2023 laptop lineup performs in comparison.

Since Intel’s 13th Gen silicon is still new, we have only a handful of available comparison systems at this time, and the ones we do have numbers for are big, thick gaming laptops. This above group is more relevant for comparisons, despite mostly being 12th Gen laptops, and you can see what the generational jump brings. Note, too, that the MacBook cannot run a couple of the Windows-based tests and is absent from those charts.

Productivity Tests

Our primary benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks, such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage.

Three further benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro by Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

While it’s not too surprising given the 13th Gen chip, the Book3 Ultra was the best or second-best (to the MacBook) performer here across general productivity and media editing tasks. That’s what you’d hope for and expect given the silicon and price, but you should know you’d be getting top-end performance for this weight class if you take the plunge. You'll find beefier content-creation laptops out there, including a whole class of hefty workstations, but for those that still prioritize portability with style, the Book3 Ultra is a top contender.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We test graphics on Windows systems with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Two more tests from GFXBench 5.0, run offscreen to allow for different display resolutions, wring out OpenGL operations.

These are interesting results, though still positive overall for the Book3 Ultra. Nobody should expect the RTX 4050 to lead the pack, as it's the lowest-available RTX 40 Series entry, but it’s interesting to see how it stacks up against RTX 30 Series alternatives. By and large, it surpassed the RTX 3050 Ti, but was outmuscled by the RTX 3060 to varying degrees. In fairness, much of has to do with how these GPUs are deployed in each laptop according to thermal management and wattage—you won't find a universal truth regarding how these mobile GPUs compare.

Separate from these direct comparisons, the Book3 Ultra can deliver enough graphics potency for midrange graphics workloads. It’s a decent level of power for a mobile machine, suitable for photo and video editing at minimum, even if you can launch into a different stratosphere of performance with the RTX 4070, 4080, and 4090 range.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To test laptop displays, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The Book3 Ultra posted a lengthy result on our battery test, cruising past what we consider “all-day” battery life at nearly 18 hours. This is key in supporting its physical mobile design; you can and should take this with you on the road with confidence.

The display, meanwhile, confirmed its brightness on the eye test with these numbers, and produces an excellent range of color coverage. Its coverage was in line with the rest of these machines, so you pro users shouldn't worry, and the laptop's maximum brightness is a touch above the rest.

Verdict: A Punchy Premium Pick for Power Users

In the world of flagship devices, if you execute a premium product well, the price is the only real downside. That is the case for the Galaxy Book3 Ultra, successfully hitting on the best of what Samsung’s laptops have to offer. This 16-inch laptop is sleekly designed, thin, and lightweight—meanwhile, it packs in a beautiful screen, a marathon-running battery, and a powerful array of the latest components.

Samsung's barrier to entry is high, though, even for the base model. In fairness, the rest of Samsung’s Galaxy lineup is the solution here if you want a laptop like this system, but at a lower price. Some of you may need this level of power, though some of the alternatives are equally fast but less expensive. This system really is for highly mobile pro-level content creators who need the juice (and want those Samsung phone features)—not anyone seeking a more standard everyday laptop.

We’re also in an awkward spot where many major product lines have not yet been updated with 13th Gen Intel chips, so the Book3 Ultra is one of the most cutting-edge options as it stands, versus buying a system with a last-gen CPU. The performance difference won’t hurt you much compared with, say, the HP Envy 16, which will also save you a few hundred dollars if you’re looking for a better deal. If the Galaxy design and latest parts are more appealing to you, we can recommend the Book3 Ultra, as long as your budget can fit it in.