Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro review: The ‘MacBook’ of Windows laptops.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro Review: When it comes to Windows laptops—and especially thin and light laptops—that are designed for everyday work while being light, portable, and powerful, there are very few options. Most don’t have particularly good battery life, and some just aren’t powerful enough to handle the day-to-day demanding tasks that users throw at them.

With the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, Samsung set out to do just that – and in a way, it’s achieved most of it. The laptop screams premium, is very light, has powerful internals, and battery life is not an Achilles heel. This is our full review of the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro.

Our unit has a 13th generation Intel Core i7-1360P, a clock frequency of 2.20 GHz and 16 GB of RAM. It’s certainly expensive, with a sticker price of Rs 1,55,990, but it promises a premium Windows experience that few others can match. Read on to find out if the latest Galaxy Book 3 Pro is worth your money.

Display: AMOLED Goodness, all day, every day!

Before going into the Galaxy Book 3 Pro review session, I tested the ASUS ROG M16 with a 16-inch mini-LED panel, but when I switched to the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, I immediately noticed how good Samsung’s 14-inch panel was for its deep ink, accurate colors playback, while being super sharp at 3K (2880 x 1800) resolution. Like the last couple of MacBook Pros, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro offers a 120Hz refresh rate, and it’s smooth.

Browsing the Internet, watching YouTube and OTT on the 14-inch AMOLED panel is a joy. And with OLED panels, which are notorious for burning in, I tested the panel for signs of burn-in and even held a blank image for nearly 12 hours straight overnight for several days, but I’m happy to say that the screen has yet to show any signs of burn-in. You’ll also have no problem using the laptop in bright sunlight – say, sitting in a coffee shop – because it’s very bright.

The display also supports 120% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, so editing photos in Photoshop or reviewing files will be a great experience.

When we talk about Photoshop, we talk about performance.

Performance: Don’t have high expectations, but it’s surprisingly powerful

As mentioned earlier, our unit has a 13th generation Intel Core i7-1360P processor, but you can also opt for a cheaper Core i5 model, but it wouldn’t be as powerful. On paper, being a P-series processor, you’d think the Galaxy Book 3 Pro wouldn’t be able to do much, but that’s not true. And while it’s not a performance champ—able to play the latest AAA games or handle multiple layers of 4K LOG footage in Adobe Premiere Pro—the Galaxy Book 3 Pro holds its own in applications like Photoshop, Lightroom, and basic DaVinci editing. Solution 18. I tested all the apps mentioned above and with 16GB of DDR5 memory, the laptop handles everything well and barely jumps after more than an hour. I did notice that it got uncomfortably hot after a while – when in high performance mode – but with a metal body, that’s to be expected and it cools down. After an hour of intensive work, you can expect it to throttle down, which will reduce performance.

Also, just for fun, I installed Xbox GamePass and Death’s Door on it. You will get a perfect gaming experience if you drop the resolution to 1080P. So you can expect it to work for most indie games that don’t require a lot of horsepower.

But if I were you, I wouldn’t buy the Galaxy Book 3 Pro for its performance, but for the balance it offers between portability, power, and good aesthetics.

Design and keyboard: Great build, better keyboard

I’ll start with the build quality first, and here it’s safe to say it rivals the best, including MacBooks. With an all-metal body, a large glass trackpad, a well-designed hinge, and a lightweight Galaxy Book 3 Pro, it’s top-of-the-line.

Honestly, the design and form factor is why anyone should consider buying this laptop. Not only does it look minimal and just the right professional for a business environment, but the laptop is also quite comfortable to travel with – weighing only 1.17 kg (14-inch version). Yes, it’s quite similar to MacBooks, but that’s okay, and I’m glad Samsung went that route.

Now, as for the keyboard, I’m equally impressed. Not only is it pleasant to type on, but as I type this review on the same keyboard, I notice that it’s barely worn. Trust me, I type a lot, and within a month of using the MacBook Air M1, it started to show wear and tear – a glossy glow replaced the matte finish of the keys. But with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, I haven’t seen it yet. It has been in use for over a month and still looks like new.

I also write quite comfortably on it, but I have a little heartburn on it. While typing, the edges of the body can hurt your wrist after long typing, but it’s not the keyboard, it’s the sharp edges of the bottom of the case. I hope Samsung bends it a bit in future releases.

In terms of I/O, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro has a modest selection of ports – one full-size HDMI, one microSD card slot, a USB 3.2 Type-A port, and a pair of USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4. I would have preferred an SD card port instead of a microSD port, but I’ll take it.

Battery life and charging: Okay, not great

Compared to most ultra-slim Windows laptops, the Galaxy Book 3 is a huge improvement, but far from Samsung’s claims. The 63Wh battery lasts for around 3-4.5 hours at 50% brightness – when you’re doing light tasks like browsing the web or writing a Word document.

But if you’re going to do heavy duty work like editing a RAW file in Adobe Photoshop, expect it to take around three hours or so at most. I want to clarify that battery life can vary depending on how you use your machine, but for me this was average if used daily.

Samsung has included a 65-watt charger in the package, which can charge the laptop from zero to full in less than two hours. The brick itself is small and should easily fit into most backpacks.

Minor disturbances

I don’t know if it’s just me or the MacBook’s fingerprint sensor has messed me up, but the Galaxy Book 3 Pro’s fingerprint sensor isn’t as accurate as some other readers I’ve read. It doesn’t recognize my finger often – even though it re-registers it several times.

Another gripe I have with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro is its speakers. They’re not as loud as, say, the MacBook Air M2, and can sound hollow at maximum volume. Now that the summers are in full swing, I could barely hear Sheldon fiddling with his science talk while watching Big Bang Theory on the laptop — but when I turned off the ceiling fan and turned on the AC, I heard him again. This is not expected from a laptop that costs this much.

As mentioned earlier, the laptop heats up and the heat flows to and next to where the trackpad is – which makes it uncomfortable and makes your palms sweaty if you’re not in air-conditioned conditions.

But apart from these, I can’t find anything else to complain about with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, except maybe its price. But what I can say is that it’s meant to be sold as a premium product – part of the Samsung ecosystem, and that’s where it delivers the most.

Ecosystem: real value

Like Apple, brands like Samsung strive to create a diverse ecosystem of products that work with each other and complement everything. This is where the Galaxy Book 3 Pro excels. I’ve been using the laptop with the Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro — basically the entire ecosystem, and to be honest, the experience has been nothing short of phenomenal. Transferring files like AirDrop is easy, you can use your Galaxy mobile device as a secondary extended display, you can drag and drop files between them, answer calls – it just works.

Honestly, the experience is coming pretty close, if not better in certain aspects, to what Apple offers on their devices, and it’s just great to see. I hope Samsung continues to use the features and make it even better over time, because let’s be honest, that’s where the most value is.

Verdict: A solid Premium Windows laptop that unfortunately costs a lot

As good as the laptop is – with a class-leading 3K AMOLED panel, excellent build quality, keyboard and multimedia experience, it’s hard to recommend the Galaxy Book 3 Pro for the price unless you have a Windows laptop. The Galaxy Book 3 Pro’s use case isn’t well-defined, and at Rs 1,55,990, the laptop finds itself in the middle of both Apple’s silicon-clad high-end MacBook Pro and the equally fine entry-level MacBook Air M1. and M2. Don’t forget, if you’re a power user, there are options like ASUS ROG gaming laptops.

So, unless you absolutely want to enter the Samsung ecosystem, skip it.

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