Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro review: The perfect blend of power & portability

I have been testing the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro as my daily driver along with the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and here is my full review of the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro and a detailed analysis of how it fares against its rival — MacBook Air (M2).

The laptop comes with a full metal unibody design. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/Indian Express)

Design: Premium and practical

Just like the latest MacBook Air, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro also comes with a premium metal unibody design with a matte finish. The laptop looks and feels premium and despite being a thin machine, the company has managed to include a full-sized USB-A port and an HDMI port. Besides, the power button also doubles as a fingerprint sensor, which makes it easy to authenticate and log in to the device.

For someone like me, who uses an external monitor and a wireless mouse with a dongle, these connectivity options ensured that I could use this laptop without any dongle. And the inclusion of a microSD card was also a nice touch, although a full-sized SD card slot would have been a better choice.

The laptop features a 3K 120Hz AMOLED screen. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/Indian Express)

Display: Inspired by smartphones

Samsung is known for its display technology, and even iPhones are equipped with Samsung-made OLED screens. The Galaxy Book 3 Pro comes with a gorgeous 14-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X 120Hz screen with 3k resolution with high contrast and excellent brightness levels. The display makes it possible for one to use the laptop outdoors.

The rounded off corners on all four sides reminds me of the smartphone display, and this is indeed one of the best displays for content creation and consumption. If you are a movie buff, who binge-watches on weekends, this is a great notebook to consider just for its display.

The laptop is equipped with low-travel keys with backlight support. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/Indian Express)

Keyboard, trackpad, and web camera

The low travel keys on the Galaxy Book 3 Pro reminded me of the last gen butterfly keyboard on MacBooks. While it took a while for me to get used to the keyboard, I really enjoyed drafting 100s of stories on this laptop once I got attuned to the keyboard.

The same goes for the trackpad, it’s large and there is also gesture support. Again, as I have mentioned before, I am an external mouse guy, and I didn’t have much to complain about this trackpad. However, although it’s one of the best trackpads on a Windows laptop that I have used, it’s still nowhere near as good as a MacBook trackpad.

The 1080p camera is again one of the best web cameras that I have used on a laptop and is plenty good for attending e-meetings. The speakers are quite loud, tuned by AKG, and with support for Dolby Atmos, they sound wholesome with a significant bass effect.

The notebook is powered by the Intel Core i7-1360P processor. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/Indian Express)

Performance: Can handle any task, except gaming

I have been testing the laptop with the 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1360P processor with 16 GB of LPDDR5 type RAM (not upgradable) and 512 GB storage with an additional NVMe slot for easy storage upgrade. The laptop guides through tasks like web browsing, and content consumption, and can even handle Word documents and Excel sheets without any issue, thanks to four performance (P) cores and eight efficient (E) cores with up to 5 GHz clock speed.

According to Geekbench 6 scores, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro is slightly more capable than the MacBook Air and posts 2278 and 9120 points on single-core and multi-core CPU tests. And the CrossMark benchmark testifies that the laptop can even handle tasks like video editing with an overall score of 1672. As the laptop does not have a dedicated GPU, this isn’t much of a gaming laptop.

However, unlike MacBook Air, which doesn’t heat up much during normal usage, the bottom portion of Galaxy Book 3 Pro does pretty hot. Hence, there was a momentary discomfort while using it on laps for an extended period.

The laptop charges via the USB Type-C thunderbolt port. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/Indian Express)

Charging and battery life

Under normal load, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro can deliver around 5 to 6 hours of battery life and it comes with a 65W fast charger and a 63 Whr battery. Again, the MacBook Air is slightly ahead of the Galaxy Book 3 Pro in this division, which could easily deliver over 8 hours of battery life. When compared to other Windows laptops of this price range, the battery backup of the Galaxy Book 3 Pro is definitely on par with the best.

A great alternative to MacBook Air. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/Indian Express)

Verdict: A great MacBook Air alternative

When I paired my Samsung phone with the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, my workflow became pretty simple, where, I don’t have to look at my phone every time I get a notification and I could even answer phone calls directly from the laptop.

If you have a Samsung phone and looking for a premium laptop, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro is a great choice. While iPhone users can also consider this laptop, however, they are better with a MacBook Air, primarily for seamless connectivity between the devices.

Overall, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro is an easy-to-carry-around and premium Windows work machine that has enough power to handle most tasks.