Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro review

Eyes are all on Samsung now that the company launched a new line of laptops, including the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro. The company is a heavyweight competitor with smartphones, but the Galaxy Books are hit and miss. Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro doesn’t quite hit, but it doesn’t completely miss either. 

Its surprisingly thin chassis packs in a gorgeous 16-inch display, a fresh new 13th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, and a bumpin’ set of speakers. It gets bogged down by a stiff touchpad and slow SSD, but it takes a blow to its metaphorical knee caps with dismally short battery life.

If you’re okay with plugging in more than once a day, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro is a solid laptop, otherwise you can check out our laptops with best battery life page to find notebooks that’ll stick by you when the charging gets tough.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro price and configurations

Price? Never heard of it. What we do know is that our Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro review unit comes with an Intel Core i5-1340P processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD.

On Samsung’s website, you can purchase the Intel Core i7-1360P variant with a 1TB SSD for $1,549. The 14-inch version with the same specs costs $1,449.

If you’re looking for something within a budget, consider checking out our best budget laptops.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro design

Coming up with something to say about the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro’s uncolorful monotony is like pulling teeth. It’s clear that Samsung is trying to compete with Apple. How do I know? Well, “Monkey see, monkey do.” The exterior of the laptop features a silver metal paint alongside a logo — exciting! Competing with Apple shouldn't be the same as becoming Apple. At least give us some fun colors, à la your fire-engine red Galaxy Chromebook 2 or the electric-blue Galaxy Book Flex 15, Samsung.

The interior of the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro goes for that familiar black and metal aesthetic. It features a full edge-to-edge keyboard and a large touchpad. The bezels on the glossy display are also round and tight. But like its competitor, it’s not a touchscreen, for that you need to opt for the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360.

At 3.4 pounds and 14 x 9.9 x 0.5 inches, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro is impressively thin. The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7620) (4.6 pounds, 14.1 x 9.9 x 0.6~0.7 inches) and Asus ZenBook 14 OLED Q409ZA (3.1 pounds, 12.4 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches) couldn’t slim down far enough, while it took the 13.6-inch MacBook Air M2 (2.4 pounds, 12 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches) to match up.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro ports

Despite skimping on ports, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro manages to cover most of the essentials.

On the left side, there’s an HDMI port and two Thunderbolt 4 ports; the right holds room for one USB Type-A port, a headphone jack, and a microSD card slot.

If you need more ports, check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro display

There’s nothing quite like a gorgeous 16-inch, 3K (2880 x 1800) AMOLED display clocked in at a 120Hz refresh rate with booming colors and brightness. Experience all of the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro in an expansive 16:10 aspect ratio.

I watched the Critical Role trying not to sing or dance to legendary hits, and Travis Willingham’s red sweater popped on screen. However, the dark corners of the room caught a lot of glare due to the glossy panel. The panel was sharp enough to capture each delicate strand on Matt Mercer’s glorious head of hair.

According to our colorimeter, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro covered 87.3% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, hovering around the premium laptop average (88.1%). It crushed the Inspiron 16 (69.5%) and MacBook Air (75.9%), but the ZenBook 14 averaged 95.6%.

At 377 nits of brightness, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro was just slightly below the 391-nit category average. Samsung knocked out the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (307 nits) and ZenBook 14 (375 nits), but the MacBook Air hit a whopping 489 nits.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro keyboard and touchpad

While the key travel is shallow, there is a faint bounce and clickiness to the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro keyboard. It's clear that these chiclet keys are meant to be reminiscent of an Apple keyboard, but if Samsung increased the height of the keys, it would make for a more pleasing typing experience. 

I cranked out 79 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is just slightly above my average 78-wpm. I could've typed faster if the edges of the keys were distinct with additional height or texture.

The 5.9 x 4.3-inch touchpad clicks fine, but the texture of the pad is surprisingly stiff despite how sleek it looks. There's enough resistance to prevent my fingers from gliding across it, which is frustrating.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro audio

The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro is rocking side-firing speakers that shook me with their consistency and quality, reproducing some bangin’ tunes. 

I listened to “OUCH!” by Nxdia and it rocked. The gentle percussion and vocals that opened the song were crisp and distinct, complementing one another until the chorus hit. The vocals amplified and the bassy beats sped up until I found myself bobbing my head to the track. Even the ambient sounds that occur during the transitional bridge were clear and enlivened the vocals.

The speakers are backed up with Dolby Access, which provides audio settings for games, movies, and music. I liked the Dynamic mode the most — it amplified the audio without losing quality.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro performance

Under this thin hood, there’s an Intel Core i5-1340P processor with 16GB of RAM. That is more than enough to juggle a couple dozen Google Chrome tabs and a handful of YouTube videos without stuttering.

On the Geekbench 5.4 overall performance test, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro scored 9,746, dominating the average premium laptop (6,977). The Inspiron 16’s Core i7-1260P processor (6,757), ZenBook 14’s Core i5-1240P CPU (8,590), and MacBook Air’s M2 chip (8,919) couldn’t catch up.

The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 6 minutes and 41 seconds, which speeds past the category average (8:48). It also crushed the Inspiron 16 (11:27), ZenBook 14 (8:40), and MacBook Air (7:52).

Unfortunately, Samsung sticks you with a slow SSD despite developing some of the fastest drives you can buy. The 256GB SSD has a transfer rate of a measly 436 megabytes per second, which is paltry compared with the premium average (1,258 MBps). It may have beaten the ZenBook 14 (246 MBps), but it couldn’t touch the Inspiron 16 (802 MBps) or MacBook Air (2,211 MBps).

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro graphics

In terms of graphics, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro is stuck with the unexceptional Intel Iris Xe graphics chip. It does the basic stuff.

On the Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (1080p) benchmark, Samsung managed 33 frames per second, making it playable, but not quite the 49-fps premium average we were looking for. However, it got past the Inspiron 16 (19 fps) and ZenBook 14 (21 fps), which shared similar integrated GPUs. Meanwhile, the MacBook Air’s M2 GPU averaged 40 fps.

On the 3DMark Fire Strike synthetic graphics benchmark, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro scored 4,759, missing the category average (8,194), but beating out the Inspiron 16 (3,869) and ZenBook 14 (4,048).

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro battery life

What really kills Samsung's chances at providing a star laptop is the Galaxy Book 3 Pro's battery life. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, the machine lasted 6 hours and 51 minutes, faltering to the 10:02 premium laptop average. The Inspiron 16 (13:28), ZenBook 14 (10:52), and MacBook Air (14:06) all landed in the double digits. If it were just the Inspiron 16, Samsung could get away with blaming it on the 3K display, but the ZenBook 14 matches its resolution exactly. Samsung, you have no excuse.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro webcam

Samsung’s 1080p webcam isn’t bad.

The color in the My Hero Academia poster looked great, with the crisp blue sky and red shadowed font popping off. The strands of hair on my head and goatee were relatively sharp. However, the contrast completely blew out the window behind me. Although, the light reflecting off of my head didn’t wash me out. I’d still recommend one of the best webcams if you’re doing anything professional.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro heat

Something this thin is bound to heat up, right? Surprisingly, no. After streaming a 15-minute video, the underside clocked in at 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which is safely below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard and touchpad hit 90 and 81 degrees, respectively. Meanwhile, the hottest that the Samsung got was 97 degrees, located on the underside near the hinge.

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro software and warranty

Packed in with the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro is the Galaxy Book Experience app, which gives you the opportunity to check on the health of your laptop and adjust specific system settings. There are also exclusive Samsung apps, such as Bixby, Notes, Gallery and more. If you’re already part of the Samsung ecosystem, you’ll likely have a better time adjusting to this laptop.

The Galaxy Book 3 Pro comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Samsung performed on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking.

Bottom line

Laptops that mimic Apple aren’t my thing, but there’s a lot of quality in the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro. It impressed with its performance, display, and speakers, but that can only get you so far if the battery life can’t even last a workday. There’s some tough competition out here.

If you want to prioritize battery life, check out the ZenBook 14, which nears 11 hours of battery life all for just $749.

However, there’s a lot to like about the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro. You just have to be okay with carrying a charger with you everywhere you go.