There is no doubt the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra is a big and powerful laptop, but you will have to consider a few things before you jump in. Some of them are easy to like—I mean, who wouldn’t like a 16-inch screen with a huge keyboard?
Samsung makes clear it believes this device can cover a lot of bases, be it for productivity or creating content. The basics are there to handle those tasks when you simply look at the spec sheet. Beyond the numbers, however, lie several variables to take into consideration, especially when looking at what this thing costs.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra (as tested):
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What makes the Galaxy Book3 ‘Ultra’
Generally speaking, 16-inch laptops don’t come very thin, but this one feels lighter and thinner than just about anything else I’ve tried at this size. The LG Gram line is an exception, only the power dynamics aren’t always comparable. Samsung positions the Galaxy Book3 Ultra as an elite machine that gets things done, and given the portability involved here, you could presumably do that anywhere. There is one major caveat to that, which I’ll get to further down.
To buttress this point, Samsung put in an HDMI port, plus two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, one USB-A 3.2 port, microSD card slot, and headphone jack. Under the hood, the laptop runs on a 13th-gen Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage. A NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 graphics card steps in to give the laptop the visual boost it promises.
These are good specs, but also somewhat modest by the standard applied here. There are other configurations that boost all of those specs, from an i9 chipset to 32GB RAM and 1TB of storage. Not to mention NVIDIA has since updated its graphics cards to the more powerful 4060 – 4090 range. The higher-spec models aren’t as readily available in Canada, from what I’ve seen, so aside from getting the 1TB upgrade, the others may be hard to come by.
Either way, what also sets this laptop apart is the 16-inch display in a body weighing a very respectable 3.95 pounds. Not to mention the thinner body that puts the “ultra” in ultraportable. Carrying this thing around only feels somewhat cumbersome because of how long it is—and because you will need the charger to come along too.
More details, plus Samsung connection
The 16-inch screen is a 3K display with 400 nits brightness (500 nits max) and an adaptive refresh rate between 48 – 120Hz. A 1080p webcam is always nice, though this is not a touchscreen, nor one compatible with Samsung’s S Pen. For that, you would need to look at the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 instead.
You get a full keyboard with number lock pad on the side in case you like the idea of having one, plus a fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button. The nice thing about all these features is they feel accessible and adaptable, meaning you don’t always notice them, but appreciate that they’re there when you need them.
That’s kind of one way to look at the Samsung integration involved with other devices. If you have a Galaxy smartphone or tablet, you can get them communicating with the Galaxy Book3 Ultra, as in transferring photos from the phone to the computer, for instance. The phone’s display can appear on the laptop in real time, essentially letting you control everything from the laptop, be it taking calls, sending text messages, and more.
This speaks to productivity though integration, where you can multitask between the two devices with less effort. If you’re already in Samsung’s ecosystem, then you may grow to really like the way this all works.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra software and performance
Samsung didn’t build the Galaxy Book3 Ultra to follow one specific need or path. It’s neither a distinct work laptop, nor a dedicated gaming one. It has the specs to effectively function as both, which puts it in a general category of a high-end laptop.
This device can handle pretty much any task, so whether you just want the larger display to do business or edit photos and video, it’s capable of doing it all. The 13th Gen Intel Evo i7 processor is fast, and while benchmark tests I’ve seen don’t put it above all others, I think it matters more how well it performs for the specific tasks you have in mind. For instance, if you have no plans to game on it, yet care about how it renders video, you would probably care more about that part of it.
One could still argue there was room for ramping up certain specs. The NVIDIA RTX 4050 is a formidable graphics chip, but when I played games via Xbox Game Pass, I was left wondering what it would’ve been like if the 4070 was inside. At this price, it’s a reasonable question to ask, even if performance holds up well. I tend to think of laptops like this in 3 – 5 year cycles. Can it hold up well a few years from now, especially when software demands more out of the hardware? That remains to be seen with the Galaxy Book3 Ultra.
Then there were puzzling choices testing my patience. Every time I try a Samsung Galaxy laptop, I always end up hating the left Shift key because it’s half the size of a proper one. When you type as much as I do, it’s a big deal that’s hard to ignore. I also would’ve preferred a standard SD card slot over a microSD one as a photographer. As is, I needed an adapter to bring the card into the mix.
Galaxy Book3 Ultra battery life
This is a big one because it affects everything the laptop can do. In a word, battery life is awful on the Galaxy Book3 Ultra. It’s easily the biggest drawback, and one that requires a lot of careful thought in how you plan to use it. I routinely saw the low battery warning pop up in less than five hours. That mostly happened when doing something more intensive, like editing batches of photos or playing games, but even with more moderate use, I barely cracked six hours.
That’s just not good enough for a laptop of this caliber and price. So, it forces you to adjust how and where you put it. If it’s plugged in, say, 80% of the time, then you can probably feel secure with such low numbers. But if you want to take it with you all the time, know that you won’t make it through a day without plugging in.
This is where I have to cut Samsung some slack; a faster graphics card might’ve only made matters worse. If there is a bright side, it’s that it takes no more than an hour to fully charge it.
Final thoughts on the Galaxy Book3 Ultra
It’s not so much a question of whether Samsung’s high-end laptop can get things done, it’s for how long. That point forks in two directions in that it refers to both the battery life and the device’s overall longevity to produce at a high level for a longer period. I already noted the former, but have no way of knowing the latter. What’s clear enough is there is enough power under the hood to handle just about anything, and you’re best bet to doing it without concern over the battery is to keep it plugged in.
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra is available now on bestbuy.ca.
