The WebThe recently launched Galaxy Book lineup is very tempting, especially if you are into Samsung ecosystem. If you are planning to buy a laptop, and you are having an eye on the Galaxy Book 3 Pro. Then here is my detailed review of the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 14 inch core i7 1360P variant with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of ssd.
Look And Feel of Galaxy Book 3 Pro
The laptop is 100% built like the Macbook Air M1 except for the display part. It has the same aluminium build and almost similar density to the laptop as well. The backlit keyboard is copied from Apple’s bad choice of keyboards yes the butterfly keyboard is not that great because keys travel less. Once you will adapt to it, it won’t be a big problem unless you use any other keyboard and get to compare it side-by-side. The hinge feels solid because it’s the same hinge from Macbook Air and not the hinge that is usually used in other Windows laptops. This particular 14-inch model feels light when carried around but doesn’t feel flimsy like LG Gram or other lightweight laptops. The backlit lights up automatically according to the ambient light sensor and it has a smooth transition of turning on and off which feels good.
Also Read- How To Fix Camera Crashing On Galaxy S22
Trackpad
The trackpad is on the bigger side, probably the biggest trackpad on a 14-inch laptop. It is smooth and precise my only complaint is it should have been a forced haptic trackpad just like Mac instead of a diving board design because why not copy the good stuff as well?
The Most Beautiful Part of the Laptop – The Display
This one is a long one. Just like any other Samsung flagship phone, this one also tops the display category. Best AMOLED display. The HDR is just top-notch, and watching content on this is a delight. Even working on this laptop feels good because of the display, I have compared it to a 13-inch Macbook Pro, and it’s nowhere near the GalaxyBook’s display even though the HDr is brighter despite both of them topping at 600 nits HDR on paper.
Samsung bumped up the resolution from FHD to QHD and 120HZ from 60HZ is a nice upgrade. The laptop feels smooth and as smooth as a Mac because of 120 Hz only. however, Samsung is using a kind of adaptive refresh rate display that switches between 60 and 120 which I think isn’t optimized that well, because I see frame drops in some animations like switching desktops or opening the start menu. I hope Samsung/Windows fixes this soon. One more thing I wanted to add is the reflective display is very much annoying and it sometimes bothers me a lot when working in a well-lit condition or outside. Samsung should have used a better anti-reflective coating.
The Webcam Of the Galaxy Book 3
Sadly, the webcam doesn’t double as a Windows Hello face recognition to sign in, but the overall webcam is very good. It has HDR and auto framing and you can also choose from various different backgrounds. The webcam is a 1080p camera with good clarity. So, for biometrics Galaxy books only comes with a fingerprint scanner and no points for guessing its placement. Top right corner because why not.
Speakers and Sound
Like any other premium Windows laptop with great speakers but feels short compared to Macbooks, this one is no exception. It has a good 4-speaker sound system but nowhere near to a 14-inch MBP. Even though the speeakers of the Galaxy Book 3 Pro are tuned by AKG but it isnt very loud. Maybe it’s almost as loud as the MBA. Still better than other Windows laptops. It comes with Dolby Atmos support too.
Battery
Initially the battery was draining a bit fast, but right before i started writing the review of Galaxy Book 3 Pro, i saw some improvements on the battery life. The battery life which I am getting is around 5-530 hours of screen time on a 100-15%. My usage is web development coding, connecting to servers and browsing a lot. Usually, most of the time around 20-30 tabs were opened all the time. so, IMO if you are a light user then you can expect around 6-630 hours of screen time. The charging time is decent with the 65w included charger. I am almost satisfied with the battery life, but I expect it to at least touch 8-9 hours on moderate usage. But everything compensates for the quality of the display Samsung has put.
Performance from the Core i7 1360P
I am coming from a 10th gen Intel i7, this one is the i7 1360P. The performance of this laptop is too good. Never felt it is slow in doing any kind of task. Except for the animation frame drops which isn’t a CPU issue. The laptop is fast and snappy. On speedometer 2.0 I got a score of around 300 and GB 6 scored a single core of around 2400 while multi-core was 9500. Overall no complaints from the performance point. Didnt, feel any major heating issues. The only time my laptop gets a bit hot is while charging and using the laptop. Otherwise, it is slightly warm when using the laptop casually for browsing and coding.
Ports- The Galaxy Book 3 Pro has almost all the required ports – 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports which is also the charging port, I wish one of the TB 4 ports was on the other side for the ease of charging. besides we have USB A 3.2 port, an HDMI port and a headphone jack along with a microSD card slot. Not focusing much on the performance in my review because we all know the performance of the intel’s latest core i7 13th gen chips. This one is no exception.
The Samsung Ecosystem and Features
There is an app called Galaxy book Experience, that’s the place where all the ecosystem features are lying around. You get Samsung Notes, Samsung quick search which should have been integrated on the Windows level but it’s just an app. A live wallpaper can be set according to the daytime, similar to the wallpaper service on Samsung phones.
An added benefit of the ecosystem is it uses Samsung Pass, so your passwords are in one place. If you are using Google Chrome then both the password service can work simultaneously Google Password as well as Pass.
Next, you get Samsung smart things which can be used to control smart home appliances and find your devices.
One advantage that Samsung laptops have over others is that it comes with a screen recorder as well, you don’t need to use the game bar of Windows or any other 3rd party app.
The link to the phone is a generic Windows/android feature so I am not counting it in the Samsung ecosystem. While writing the review of the Galaxy Book 3 Pro I tried the Quickshare to transfer a 10 GB file from my S22 Ultra to GalaxyBook, and it took less than 4 minutes which is decent.
Multi-control is one thing which gives ecosystem benefits. I tried dragging and dropping files from one device to another using multi control and it works just the way it should. It’s fast and reliable.
The second screen is also present, but then again it’s a generic Windows/Samsung feature and not exclusive to Samsung laptops. You can use any Windows laptop with Galaxy tablets to make it a second screen.
There is a Samsung settings app for Windows which depicts that it’s a Samsung laptop because it is similar to one UI settings. It has similar settings as well.
There is a focus mode – which makes the background dark when using an app in a windowed size and not fullscreen.
I think there should have been more eco-system features, like unlocking the laptop with the Galaxy Watch or if the phone is around. The calls/text on other devices which works natively on one ui should have an option for Galaxybook as well, for now, it’s only supported between Galaxy phones and tablets and watches. To gets calls and texts you need to set up link to Windows which is a bit of a hassle.
The Galaxy Buds does have a seamless connection where it switches to the phone from the laptop if you get/make a call on your phone, but it doesn’t work exactly the way it should. I mean it doesn’t switch back to the laptop if it was earlier connected to your laptop and you got a call on the phone. You sure get the popup to connect to the buds every time you open the case the buds
Final Verdict
So, this was my complete review of Galaxy Book 3 Pro. This laptop is a Macbook of Windows. Just like MKBHD quoted Galaxy S22 as the iPhone of the Android. This one has a good build, great display, and above average battery. The GalaxyBook 3 Pro feels super premium in hand and when carrying around, the build is also very premium.
A few things which I think should have been better are – battery life, heating while charging, forced trackpad, and speakers. The rest of the things are just unmatched by any other Windows laptop. This definitely comes under the territory of Dell XPS and MacBook. If you are looking for a premium laptop with good CPU performance and nothing major from a GPU then this laptop is a good to go. Since its lightweight and has a very powerful processor along with decent battery life. If you want to go all-out and have plans on rendering some videos or play games, go with the Galaxy Book Ultra with the Nvidia 4070 GPU.
