The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra was the most interesting laptop unveiled during the Samsung Unpacked event. That’s not to diminish the Galaxy Book 3 Pro or the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360. Those are perfectly solid refreshes of the Galaxy Book line.
However, the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is the first Samsung laptop with the “Ultra” moniker — with features that justify the name. It's the most powerful Samsung laptop yet.
In my Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra hands-on review I expressed enthusiasm for Samsung’s upcoming laptop. It has everything I want from the best Windows laptops, namely a large AMOLED display, a discrete graphics card and a sleek design. I need to put the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra through its paces to see how it stacks up performance-wise. But given what I’ve seen so far, it has the makings of being a superb laptop.
This is why I’m excited about the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra.
Seriously powerful specs
With one exception, the 7 best gaming laptops of CES 2023 all featured the latest Nvidia RTX 40-series mobile GPUs. While the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra isn’t directly being marketed as a gaming laptop, the RTX 4070 GPU under its hood — not to mention its Core i7 or Core i9 CPU — is what you'd expect from a proper gaming laptop.
Nvidia says the RTX 4070 and RTX 4050 GPUs that come in either the entry-level or high-end models of the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra “deliver up to RTX 3080 flagship-class performance at one-third of the power.” We’ll need to run the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra through our benchmark tests to see what it's capable of. But we can reasonably assume it will perform better than a notebook packing a last-gen CPU and GPU.
I'm a big-time gamer who loves playing the best PC games on the best gaming laptops. If the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is all it seems, it could potentially become my favorite gaming laptop to date.
Lightweight design: 3.9 pounds for a 16-inch laptop?
The main thing that stood out when I went hands-on with the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra was how light it was. In fact, I almost thought it was the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 until I noticed it didn’t have a hinge like Samsung’s new convertible 2–in-1 laptop. I use the 4.8-pound MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021) outside of work and the 3.9-pound Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is feather-light in comparison.
But the real reason I was stunned by the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra’s lightweight design is that gaming laptops have historically been big and bulky. This has changed recently, as evidenced by svelte machines like the Alienware x14 and Razer Blade 15. But the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is lighter than both of these, which is remarkable considering its large profile.
I want to say that the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra makes a nice alternative to the big-ass laptops announced at CES 2023. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about laptops like the Alienware m18 and Razer Blade 18. However, those aren't laptops I want to lug around when I'm out and about. The Galaxy Book 3 Ultra has a large display and plenty of power for my needs.
Samsung Multi Control: Galaxy phone goodness
This feature isn’t exclusive to the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, but I’m eager to fully try out Samsung Multi Control.
For the uninitiated, Samsung Multi Control lets you control your Galaxy smartphone with the laptop’s keyboard and touchpad. This enables you to copy, paste or drag and drop files between devices. The Second Screen feature also turns Galaxy tablets into an additional monitor.
Like I said in my Galaxy Book 3 Ultra hands-on, a Samsung PR rep demonstrated how Multi Control functions. I tested it myself and it works pretty seamlessly, even if dragging a mouse cursor between a phone and laptop screen feels odd at first. I no longer have a Samsung phone since I switched from Android to iPhone, but I own a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE and would like to use it as a secondary monitor for the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra.
Outlook
The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is arguably the most exciting laptop Samsung has ever released. Given all of its features, it could be the surprise hit gaming laptop of 2023. It could also be a legit rival to premium Apple laptops like the new MacBook Pro 16-inch. It's certainly the most powerful ultraportable the Korean tech giant has released to date, and we can't wait to get one in for testing and review.
