Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra Review: Beautiful Beast of a Laptop

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Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Ultra challenges all comers in content creation, a market Samsung hasn’t previously addressed with its Book3 series. But this sleek 16-inch laptop with its stunning OLED screen combines both a 13th-gen Intel Core CPU and a new Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, giving you an entry point into the latest PC hardware.

There’s a lot to love here. You’re getting outstanding battery life, a lovely design, modern Thunderbolt 4 ports, and more. No, the GPU isn’t what you’ll find in a true gaming notebook and the keyboard is a bit shallower than other productivity laptops. You’ll be hard-pressed, however, to find a better notebook PC for content creation.

Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is one of a small family of Book3 laptops that consists of the Book3 Ultra, the Book 3 Pro clamshell, and the Book3 Pro 360 and Book3 360 two-in-one convertibles. The Book3 Ultra is a new addition to the family, sporting an Nvidia RTX GeForce 4050 GPU inside a thicker frame that makes it suitable for content creation and light gaming. It’s a market Samsung hasn’t addressed with its earlier Galaxy Books.

Design and display

• Premium aluminium build
• Excellent 16in OLED display
• Dynamic 120Hz refresh rate

Compared to the other Galaxy Book3 laptops the additional weight and thickness that the Ultra offers is a bit of a shock. The aluminium chassis attracts fingerprints readily, which show up as smudges on the black Graphite surface. The Ultra doesn’t feel especially thick—just more like a traditional laptop than Samsung’s ultrathin Book lineup. At 14in wide and about 1.8kg, however, the weight is noticeable.

We said similar things about the Book3 Pro 360, with the caveat that the relatively tiny charger offset those concerns. Here, the charger adds to them, unfortunately. You probably have older devices that combine the power transformer and the plug into the same unit: “wall warts”. Here, there’s a sizeable power brick (70mm x 75mm, or about three inches on a side) with a plug on one side of it, which can make plugging into the wall or even a power strip a little awkward, depending on the orientation. Samsung might rethink this with its next generation.

The Book3 Ultra’s lid opens up with just the crook of a finger, exposing the gorgeous AMOLED 2X screen inside that fills almost all of the available space; there are no chunky bezels on this device. The new AMOLED 2X OLED is a key selling point of the Book3 lineup and it applies here. It’s simply a gorgeous display, with absolute jet blacks that underscore the terrific contrast ratio.

In the real world, you won’t notice as much impact on day-to-day office work, with its multicolored images and light backgrounds. If you prefer dark mode, however, it’s a bonus. Movies, though, are where it really shines. Dark scenes appear truly dark, which adds an additional layer of visual fidelity to the experience.

Samsung claims that the laptop produces 120 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which simply translates into brighter, more vivid colors, as well as being rated for VESA ClearMR and DisplayHDR TRUE BLACK 500 certified. The Pro 360 OLED display does feature dedicated modes for DCI-P3, AdobeRGB and sRGB, as well as an “Auto” mode that presumably optimises itself for the application. Based on our colorimeter, the Book3 Ultra appears to accommodate the full range of the colour gamuts we tested under.

It’s simply a gorgeous display, with absolute jet blacks that underscore the terrific contrast ratio

Samsung also claims that the display reduces blue light by 78% while in dark mode versus its light mode, which we haven’t been able to verify. It’s an interesting claim, though, because normally laptops reduce blue light while in “light mode,” skewing the display towards yellowish tinges. The Book3 Ultra does the latter, too. However, reducing the amount of light hitting your eyeball while in dark mode and lowering the amount of blue light certainly should appeal to migraine sufferers.

Samsung’s new AMOLED 2X offers more than just visual improvements, though. Like the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, the Book3 Ultra’s display is a “dynamic” 120Hz. When needed, the display can dial down to a more conservative 60Hz when idling, saving power. When necessary the display can increase its refresh rate to 120Hz, offering smoother mousing and gameplay. Normally, this helps inking, too. However, the Galaxy Book3 Ultra does not ship with a touchscreen, or a pen. For that, there’s the Book3 Pro 360 instead.

Chassis and ports

• Fans can get noisy
• Good port selection

When we first opened up the Book3 and began setting it up, we noticed the distinct high-pitched tones that indicate coil whine, when the fans speed up to cool the laptop down. In fairness, however, we haven’t heard them since. Instead, the Book3 Ultra sucks in air through a small matrix of holes in the bottom of the chassis and pushes it out the back, though the hinge. The hiss produced by the fans is noticeable, but not overwhelming. We’d expect more noise, though, if you opt for the Core i9/RTX 4070 option instead.

The hiss produced by the fans is noticeable, but not overwhelming

On the left side of the Book3 Ultra are a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can be used to connect to a Thunderbolt dock, including for external storage or a pair of 4K displays. Failing that, the Book3 Ultra also offers a dedicated HDMI 2.0 port, which can project to a single external 4K monitor, as well. On the right side, Samsung includes a microSD slot and a legacy USB-A port for a mouse, plus a headphone jack.

Samsung is a little less pushy than Microsoft in terms of encouraging you to connect your laptop to Samsung’s network of apps, services, and devices, but the Book3 Ultra does ask for (but doesn’t demand) a Samsung password when you set up the system. Doing so provides some benefits if you own other Samsung devices, and also enables some specific Samsung applications, which we’ll talk about later.

Keyboard, trackpad and audio

• Decent keyboard with separate number pad
• Huge trackpad
• Hit-and-miss speakers

Samsung’s 1.6:1 display ratio allows for a roomy keyboard, with a narrow number pad to the right-hand side—if you’re a right-handed person, that might just be a convenience. As a lefty, though, the number pad is the equivalent of the WASD keys right-handers use, so any laptop with gaming potential earns a plus in that regard. Given that Samsung offers 16-inch options across most of its Book3 line, I would assume that any device you buy in this family will have the same keyboard, and they all should be equally usable.

However, Samsung’s chiclet keyboards always make me wonder if they’ll actually be usable, as their key travel is often shallower than I’d like. While I’m still not sure if I’d prefer them for long-term use, they’re comfortable enough. Keyboards have become shallower over time, however, as manufacturers prefer to design thinner systems with less room for deep key travel. That’s not a trend I endorse, but Samsung at least has managed a compromise. There are three levels of backlighting.

Samsung again chooses to use a fingerprint reader, mounted inside the power button. Pushing it when the laptop is off or in standby allows you to power on and log in at the same time. While depth cameras can log you in quickly, they can become fooled by facial hair, wrinkles, or glasses. The Book3 lineup lacks depth cameras, using the fingerprint reader instead.

Fingerprint readers tend to be more consistent, but they can also become less accurate over time as the sensor becomes smudged. They’re also sensitive to dirt on your finger either during setup or authentication, as the Book3 Ultra was. Put another way, the fingerprint sensor worked acceptably during our time with the Book3, but this means little compared to the long term.

Taken together, the trackpad and keyboard are acceptable, though not outstanding

All of the new Book3 models seem to share an additional quirk. The gigantic touchpad at the bottom of the keyboard, which measures a massive 6in wide by about 4.25in deep. While you can tap upon its full breadth, the upper fifth or so isn’t clickable. Even with such an enormous input device, there’s still enough room for your palms on either side, though the touchpad is skewed toward the left-hand side. Taken together, the trackpad and keyboard are acceptable, though not outstanding.

In terms of audio, the Book3 lineup excels at voice playback, whether in terms of music or the spoken word, but falls a bit short everywhere else. Out of the box, the Book3 Ultra and Pro 360 don’t sound all that great, and require some tuning of the pre-installed Dolby Atmos app to arrive at an acceptable setting. (As far as I can tell, the Book 3 Pro 360 and the Book3 Ultra produce about the same audio quality.) Otherwise, the audio just sounds a bit distorted, though the volume level is excellent.

The Book3 Ultra uses a pair of downward facing speakers with discrete 5W woofers and 2W tweeters, sufficient to full the room with whatever you’re playing back. None of the Book3 lineup provides poor audio; it’s just that some other laptops I’ve heard do better. Again, some tweaking will resolve most issues, and there’s a headphone jack, too.

Webcam and microphones

• Solid 1080p webcam
• Impressive AI effects
• Good built-in mics

Unlike many laptops, the Book3 Ultra includes the AI-powered Studio Effects suite, which features an on-device replica of the background blurring effects you can find in Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet. HDR effects don’t do much. You’ll be more impressed with the webcam’s ability to automatically pan and zoom, keeping you in frame. Indulge your vanity and turn on Face Effects, which can subtly remove the bags under your eyes from too many late nights.

Otherwise, the 1080p webcam is one of the better built-in sensors you’ll find on a laptop, with good colour balance but a slightly soft focus. Like the Pro 360, Samsung does use AI to help cancel noise in video calls, however, and does so very well via a pair of studio mics.

The 1080p webcam is one of the better built-in sensors you’ll find on a laptop

Specs and performance

• 13th-gen Intel CPUs and Nvidia RTX 40 GPUs
• Excellent content-creation performance
• Works well for some gaming, but not all

Content-creation notebooks represent a small and evolving niche of PCs, somewhere midway between a traditional gaming notebook and a productivity machine.

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