The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra Has Apple In Its Sights

If you thought Apple's game was the only one in town when it came to seriously appealing laptops, Samsung wants to reset those expectations. The new Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra may have had to share stage space today with the Galaxy S23 series, but the new flagship Windows notebook is more than capable of holding its own.

Samsung

Pinnacle of the refreshed Galaxy Book3 series for 2023, it's a combination of sleek style along with the sort of performance that could put some desktops to shame. At 3.9 pounds and 16.5 mm thick when closed, it's thicker but lighter than Apple's latest 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Where Apple uses its own chipset, of course, Samsung dips into Intel's latest 13th Gen Core i7 and Core i9 Evo series. That's paired with either NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 or 4050 GPUs, and either 16 GB or 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory. Storage is either 512 GB or 1 TB of PCIe SSD, plus there's an expansion slot.

What's likely to grab your attention first, though, is the screen. For the first time, Samsung is using its Dynamic AMOLED 2X Display technology on its laptops, specifically a 16-inch 3K (2880 x 1800) resolution panel. The 16:10 screen has 400 nits of brightness (or 500 nits in VSA HDR 500 mode) and a 120 Hz refresh rate, and hits 120% of the DCI-P3 color volume.

For sound, there's an AKG Quad Speaker array — with two 5W woofers and two 2W tweeters — with Dolby Atmos support. A 1080p webcam is above the display, and there are dual microphones with noise cancellation. A fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button, and there's a 76 Wh battery plus a compact 100W USB Type-C adapter in the box.

Samsung

Connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.1, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB Type-A, HDMI 2.0, microSD, and a combo headphone/microphone jack. As with Samsung's other Galaxy Book3 models, there's also tight integration between the notebook and the Galaxy smartphone series. Link to Windows, Microsoft Phone Link, and Samsung Multi Control, for example, make controlling the phone from the laptop possible, as well as quickly sharing files and links. Second Screen can be used to turn a Galaxy Tab tablet into a secondary display.

Sales of the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra kick off on February 17, 2023; it'll be priced from $2,399.99, and come in a Graphite finish.