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00:00Look at this, I'm gaming on a Samsung Galaxy Book and it's not even plugged in.
00:05This is one of the most exciting laptops I've reviewed in a long time.
00:10Can NVIDIA's brand new RTX 40 series of graphics cards, this gorgeous 16-inch 120Hz
00:16AMOLED display and also the most oversized trackpad I have ever seen make this the dream
00:21creator laptop and one to properly rival the Dell XPS's, ZenBook Pro's and MacBook Pro's
00:26of this world?
00:28Or do a few slightly annoying decisions and a few compromises and also a pretty hefty
00:33price tag actually make this one to miss?
00:36And could this be the first of a new breed of laptop, the gaming ultrabook?
00:40Well before we get stuck in, if you do enjoy this video and find it useful then a cheeky
00:44like and subscribe would be very much appreciated and I'll also leave links to this in the
00:47description below if you fancy checking it out.
00:50So the Book 3 Ultra, Samsung's fancy new top of the line laptop for 2023 and also their
00:55first with a dedicated graphics card.
00:58And they arrive alongside the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, which is lighter and more portable
01:02but has lower power CPUs and also integrated graphics.
01:06But it is this Ultra that gets all the power and, as you would expect, the highest price
01:10as well.
01:11This starts at a hair under £2,500 or around $2,200.
01:16And for that you get an RTX 4050, a 13th gen i7, 512GB of storage, this is also an Intel
01:23Evo certified laptop and in its base configuration it is about £250 less than a base MacBook
01:30Pro 16 with an M2 Pro and I'll do a proper comparison of this later in the video.
01:35If you do want to max this out though, you can get a 4070, an i9 processor and a terabyte
01:39of storage for around £3,000.
01:44Now both CPU options, either the i7 or the i9, are 45W Intel 13th gen H series chips,
01:50meaning they're much more powerful than the usual P series that we get in smaller
01:53and lighter laptops.
01:55Beyond that there is either 16 or 32GB of RAM, a fairly average sized 76Wh battery,
02:01we get WiFi 6E, a fingerprint reader, a very impressive 1080p webcam and also some pretty
02:06decent quad speakers.
02:07However, straight away, there's a bit of a problem.
02:10Because with the top spec version, here in the UK at least, it tops out with 16GB of
02:16RAM.
02:17Which with a 4070 and an i9 is ridiculous, it's a deal breaker.
02:21In the US they have updated the store to show a 32GB version skew of this because the worst
02:27part is it's soldered on memory, you can't get it yourself and if you are going to go
02:31for a top spec model you need at least 32GB of RAM.
02:34I mean my MacBook Pro has up to 96GB, the Dell XPS 17 has 64GB, it's a very strange
02:39choice and so I think unless they do add a 32GB option or skew here in the UK and other
02:45regions, I would avoid the higher spec version of this.
02:48It just doesn't make sense, I think it would be a bottleneck.
02:50But the entry level model with the 4050 and the i7 and 16GB of RAM I think is still definitely
02:54worth considering.
02:55In better news, this gets Nvidia's 4050 and 4070 GPUs.
03:00Now I've got the top dog here with all of it's 4608 CUDA cores, it's 8GB of GDDR6
03:06VRAM and also it's 60W TGP which makes it kind of a mid-level model for this GPU.
03:12And while you do get far, far higher frame rates in your games and performance in your
03:17applications compared to an integrated XE chip like we get in it's less beefy brother
03:21the Galaxy Book 3 Pro, as you would expect for this form factor, it doesn't really
03:25compete with a proper gaming laptop.
03:27In fact, even versus a last gen RTX 3070 Ti mobile GPU, this 4070 has 28% fewer CUDA cores,
03:36it's memory bus is only half as wide and we also get a lot less bandwidth.
03:40Also with this, we're trading some of that raw power for much greater portability.
03:45Let's talk about this screen because it is a whopper of an upgrade over the previous
03:48Galaxy Books which were always pretty good and I love the fact that Samsung gave us AMOLED
03:52displays but they were always stuck to 60Hz and 16x9 which made them feel a bit dated.
03:58I am very happy to report that not only do we get a better AMOLED panel this time around
04:02but it's also 16x10 and 120Hz so everything feels so much faster.
04:08This is the kind of screen we should be getting on a laptop like this.
04:11And Samsung reckon their new Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel is brighter with better HDR and more
04:16accurate colours.
04:18The 3K resolution is nice and sharp and it's kind of like a halfway house between QHD+,
04:22and 4K so it's a good balance for battery and performance and very similar to what you
04:26get on the MacBook Pro but of course it's not ideal if you do want to watch or edit
04:304K natively.
04:31And it's also very, very glossy.
04:35This picks up every reflection in the room and you could literally read my script for
04:39me through the laptop reflection there.
04:41Colour accuracy though is fantastic.
04:43I measured 100% sRGB, 95% AdobeRGB and 99% DCI-P3 which makes this ideal for graphics
04:50artists, designers and anyone doing colour sensitive work.
04:53Brightness is also impressive and in fact I measured a much higher max brightness than
04:57even Samsung claims.
04:59I recorded around 530 nits in SDR and 740 in HDR.
05:04It also hits the DisplayHDR 500 True Black standard and HDR content in particular looks
05:09incredible on this.
05:11This is an absolutely standout display.
05:14Build quality is also top notch as well.
05:16We have this aluminium chassis, there's no flex or anything.
05:20It's a really well made laptop and of course incredibly thin and light given the performance
05:24and also the 16-inch screen size.
05:26Now you can open it with one finger which adds to that premium-ness a little bit and
05:31that is as far as the screen goes back although you'll notice we do get quite a bit of screen
05:36wobble.
05:37Not ideal.
05:38And actually if I just sort of put it into a comfortable viewing position and then sort
05:42of pick it up and let's pretend I'm on a train or a plane, there's a bit of shaking, it is...
05:47That screen wobble is a bit annoying I have to say and it does eventually start pushing
05:51the screen down as well so a beefier hinge would have been nice to see.
05:54Also I'm sure Samsung are compensating for something because look at the size of that
05:58trackpad.
05:59It is massive and it's very nice to use.
06:02The problem is it kind of just squashes the keyboard up a little bit.
06:05We have these tiny, tiny arrow keys, these shortened function row keys, there is room
06:09for a numpad on the side which is nice, I would have preferred if they just made this
06:12a bit smaller but then expanded the keyboard a little bit and also the keys aren't really
06:17my favourite.
06:18There's a sort of very rubbery softness to them which isn't particularly satisfying.
06:24Perfectly fine, just not one of my favourite keyboards.
06:27But no complaints about the size of this thing.
06:29It's just 1.79kg or a hair under 4lbs which for a 16-inch laptop with these specs is very
06:35impressive although if portability is your top priority then you should definitely consider
06:38it's smaller 14-inch brother.
06:41As for connectivity we have dual Thunderbolt 4 USB-C's, one USB-A 3.2, a micro SD card
06:47reader, audio jack and HDMI 2 port.
06:50Again it's just one of those frustrations, given the price of this thing and also it's
06:53target audience with these specs you really would expect an HDMI 2.1 port and also a full
06:59size SD so that is a bit of a shame, I guess they were just prioritising keeping it as
07:03thin as possible.
07:04On the inside we have this vapour chamber cooler, dual fans and also the PCIe 4 SSD
07:10is upgradable.
07:11There's also a second SSD slot so lots of potential for upgrading the storage but not
07:15the RAM and then we also have this 76Wh battery.
07:19And speaking of battery, I'm getting around 7-8 hours of general light use and maybe a
07:23like an hour and a half of gaming using the GPU without the power.
07:27Keep in mind though that all gaming potential is pretty dependent on being plugged in.
07:31On battery, Cyberpunk and Timespy performance dropped to around 45% and I lost close to
07:3680% of my FPS in Siege, taking it from well over 100 to just over 30 FPS, ouch.
07:43You will of course get the best performance plugged in and actually I should say it is
07:46just this USB-C cable, there is no big power adapter or brick that you have to lug around
07:52with you.
07:53It's 100W charging so in 90 minutes I believe you can go from 0 to 100 and of course being
07:58USB-C you can charge your phone with it as well, well as long as you haven't got an
08:02iPhone.
08:03But the next question is just how fast is this thing?
08:05Well firing up a bit of Premiere Pro and opening my 4K project, everything was nice and fast
08:10even with processing effects and colour correction.
08:12And of course in any 3D apps like Blender or of course gaming, having this 4050 or in
08:17my case 4070 makes all the difference.
08:20For example in F1-22 at QHD I maxed out this 120Hz panel using medium settings and I got
08:27around 80 FPS at ultra.
08:29Of course ray tracing does tank that figure considerably although frame generation, Nvidia's
08:34new frame interpolation tech which is exclusive to these new 40 series cards, definitely helped
08:39to boost the FPS.
08:40In Cyberpunk, which is still a hugely demanding title, you can actually max out the settings
08:45with ray tracing and still get 43 FPS at QHD plus with DLSS set to performance.
08:51Drop to high settings without RT and with DLSS and this will manage just over 100 frames
08:56per second.
08:57In Forza Horizon 5 I hit a solid 60 on medium to high settings and low 40s with everything
09:02cranked to the extreme.
09:03And then in my old benchmarking favourite, Rainbow Six Siege, the Samsung hit a super
09:07smooth 144 FPS with DLSS set to balanced.
09:11And just as importantly, the Book 3 Ultra performed well in the Time Spy frame stability
09:15stress test meaning that there was really hardly any GPU throttling.
09:19And so I think that vapor chamber and the dual fans are doing a really good job here.
09:24And most of the time it's basically silent, really only if you're running sustained loads
09:28or gaming do you hear that fan wire up and you do have different fan profiles and performance
09:33profiles within the Samsung settings as well which you can tinker with.
09:36But compared to some of its Windows rivals, the fans, the cooling, the temps and also
09:41the performance, particularly on battery life, is all very impressive.
09:45And as for sound quality, the quad AKG tuned speakers, and they get decently loud and clear
09:51and importantly they don't sound tinny.
09:54So this is being recorded on the webcam as I let the screen settle and stop shaking.
09:59Tinty P video and actually the quality is really nice.
10:03One of the better webcams I've tested.
10:04We are in studio lighting here, you can see my little inception going on there.
10:09Let me know how it sounds as well.
10:10This is using the built in speakers, speakers, microphones.
10:13I do quite like that we get a few extra little tools to play with.
10:16We have the eye contact mode, which is supposed to make your eyes always appear to be looking
10:20at the camera.
10:21We've got background blur, we've got auto framing, so lots of nice like Samsung extras
10:25to improve the webcam.
10:26Although bizarrely this webcam, this camera up here does not support Windows Hello for
10:30face unlocking.
10:31You have to rely on the fingerprint reader.
10:33What a boring behind the scenes.
10:36The other advantage of going for this, a Samsung device, is we get extra connectivity
10:40and smart features with other Galaxy devices.
10:44For example, multi control lets you share your mouse and keyboard with your Galaxy S
10:47series phone or tablet.
10:49We get instant hotspot.
10:50You can make it where your Galaxy phone automatically transfers raw photos directly to the laptop
10:55and there's also quick share, which is basically the Samsung Galaxy version of Apple's AirDrop.
11:00Last question.
11:01How does this compare to this?
11:03Because if you're going to spend like £2,500, then you're already firmly in the ballpark
11:07of a new MacBook Pro 16 with an M2 Pro.
11:11This does cost about £250 more in its base spec compared to this, both with 512 storage,
11:16both with 16 gigs of RAM, but an i7 13th gen versus an M2 Pro.
11:20Now for some people, this is a completely pointless and academic comparison because
11:24you either go for one or the other because you want macOS or Windows 11 and that's completely
11:28fair enough.
11:29In my experience, generally, the MacBook Pro M2 is faster, it's quieter under load and
11:34the big one for me is you get the exact same peak performance whether you're on battery
11:37or connected to the power.
11:39We get HDMI 2.1, more Thunderbolt 4 ports, a full size SD, better speakers, a better
11:44webcam, in my opinion, a better keyboard and trackpad and also a brighter screen with thinner
11:49bezels, although I know a lot of people don't really like this notch.
11:52As for the Samsung, while it is very impressive by Windows laptop standards, particularly
11:56in terms of performance, also on battery life, it stays cool and reasonably quiet,
12:01the build quality is certainly up to Apple's standards and the AMOLED screen, while not
12:04quite as bright, does win in terms of having higher contrast and deeper blacks, although
12:09the MacBook's mini LED isn't that far behind.
12:11I know these Windows versus Mac comparisons can be quite controversial, but frankly, I
12:15don't care.
12:16I just use whatever the best tech is at that moment in time.
12:18For me and my use cases, it's a clear win for MacBook Pro 16, but if you want Windows,
12:23if you want to play proper games and not just stream them over the cloud or play Apple Arcade
12:27or you really want the performance of the 4050 or 4070, then this is definitely still
12:31worth considering.
12:32Okay, let's wrap this up.
12:34And the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is a very capable, thin and light, semi-workstation laptop.
12:40I think there's a lot of strong competition out there and I do have a few issues.
12:43The screen's a little wobbly, there's no full size SD, no HDMI 2.1, the keyboard isn't my
12:48favorite and the lack of a 32 gig RAM option on the highest spec, at least for now, is
12:52just baffling to be honest.
12:54But aside from that, performance is good, battery life is decent, the webcam's fantastic,
12:59I think the build quality generally is really nice, the thermals are good, I like the trackpad,
13:04but it is worth bearing in mind that this is a whole lot lighter than your MacBook Pro
13:0816s or Dell XPS 17s of the world.
13:11So in terms of that pursuit of performance and portability, maybe Samsung's cracked it.
13:16I think my recommendation would be to stick with the base option of this, the i7-4050
13:21with 16 gigs of RAM.
13:22But what do you reckon?
13:23If you've got two and a half grand burning a hole in your pocket, would you be tempted
13:26by this?
13:27Thank you so much for watching, guys.
13:28I'll see you next time, right here on The Tech Chat.