Benchmarking Galaxy Books on Benchmarks: 14-inch vs. 16-inch Pro360, Pro 360, Ultra, 360, Multi Control and Second Screen

The Galaxy Book’s strong everyday speeds are all the more impressive when you see how it stacks up on our benchmark tests. The Surface Laptop 5 and the Dell XPS 13 both had strong results on Geekbench 5, but the flip side of that is that the Samsung laptop scored over 9500 on the test, the best result we have seen.

That all sounds promising, but with starting prices ranging from $1,450 for the Pro to a whopping $2,400 for the Ultra, these premium PCs don’t come cheap. Wondering if they are worth the money? After some early hands-on time, we think the new notebooks from Samsung stack up to the best laptops.

The 14-inch and 16-inch versions of the book are available for purchase, with a starting price of $1,450. The 16-inch Book 3 Pro 360 starts at $1,900 in the same colors, while the 16-inch Book 3 Ultra will run you at least $2,400 and comes only in Graphite.

I appreciate that the Book 3 Pro 360 has a healthy port selection, and is one of the few laptops to still include a USB-A connection — something particularly handy if you use lots of older accessories. You’ll also get the typical duo of USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, as well as an HDMI port and microSD card slot. The 360’s keyboard was responsive but a bit shallow for my liking; I had a much better time typing on the standard Pro and Ultra. I’m disappointed that there is no place to store the stylus in the notebook itself, it’s better to have a secure place on the laptop.

The Pro 360 I tested was synced up with a Galaxy Tab S8, which allowed me to try out Multi Control (which lets you control multiple devices from your laptop’s keyboard and touchpad) as well as Second Screen (which turns your tablet into an additional monitor). Moving between the laptop and tablet from a single trackpad mostly felt intuitive, though I did notice a bit of lag on the latter. This feature is available on the entire previous and current generation of Galaxy Books, and seems like a nice perk for folks who primarily use Samsung devices.

The Book 3 Pro 360 is an impressive 0.5 inches thin and feels very light at 3.7 pounds; despite its wide frame, I had no issues carrying it from room to room as I went about my day. My review unit looked nice enough in grayish Graphite (there’s also a more alluring Beige model), but be warned — this thing is a fingerprint magnet.

While you might want to keep a cloth handy when you take this thing out on the road, you can at least leave your adapters in the house. At a time when most modern laptop makers are happy to slap on two USB-C ports and call it a day, the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 is refreshingly generous when it comes to connectivity. On top of the usual Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports (for most modern accessories, chargers and displays), you get a microSD card slot, an HDMI 1.4 port for TVs and older monitors, a headphone jack and a USB-A port — the latter of which was missing from last year’s Book 2 Pro 360. I appreciate when a laptop includes a connection for my older peripherals, and I also like the fact that a notebook with one of those connections is 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465 888-282-0465.

Samsung’s 2-in-1 laptop may not be made for gaming, but you can get some modern titles running after tweaking some settings. The Book 3 Pro 360’s integrated Intel Iris X graphics couldn’t handle our standard Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark (which loops the game at 1080p with all settings maxed out), delivering a stuttery 18 frames per second (fps). However, we were able to achieve a playable 31 fps after turning the graphics settings down to Lowest. If you just plan on playing a bit of Minecraft or The Sims (or don’t mind keeping your visual settings low), you’ll be just fine. Same goes for basic video editing.

This laptop comes ready for a full day on the road, enduring exactly eight hours on our intensive 4K video playback test and lasting much longer during casual on-and-off use. The Galaxy Book’s run time falls right in line with the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro and Surface Laptop 5, though we got much longer endurance (but also much worse performance) out of the latest Surface Pro 9 5G edition, which lasted a whopping 11 hours and 43 minutes.

I use the MacBook Air M2), but the Book 3 Pro 360 is reliable for video calls, although it isn’t as good as the best I have used. As an extra perk, there’s a Studio Mode toolbar that pops up every time your camera is active, letting you do things like blur your background, apply various effects to your face and enable Auto Framing so you always stay in the shot. The features mostly worked well, though Apple has similar Center Stage tech, and the app does not seem to enhance how I look.

I give props to the Book 3 Pro 360, which is one of the few two-in-1 laptops with a stylus. There isn’t a safe place to store it. The S Pen is good for when you are sitting at a desk, but not great for when you are out on the go, and you don’t want the stylus to fall off in your bag. The Surface Pro 9 requires you to buy a keyboard and stylus separately, but Microsoft’s Signature Keyboard comes with a nook for securely storing your Surface Pen when everything’s folded up.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing using the Book 3 Pro 350 for my daily needs. When basic programs crashed, I had to restart to get things working, which I found less problematic after updating Windows. I was let down by how messy the software was, even though the bugs I ran into were not very frequent.

As previously mentioned, there are more than a dozen preinstalled Samsung apps, and using them often results in a glut of disparate windows clogging up your screen. The Galaxy Book Experience software serves as a central hub for all of Samsung’s offerings, but once you click on a feature — such as SmartThings or Samsung Flow — you’re taken to a page that prompts you to open a new window just to use it. And while Samsung’s laptop paired instantly to my Galaxy Buds, I had to install what was basically an emulated version of the Android Galaxy Buds app to adjust things like active noise cancellation and sound profile. Quick Share let me beam photos from my Galaxy phone to my Galaxy Book, but it took longer than, say, AirDropping content between Apple devices.

While perks are there for SAMSUNG users, the implementation is sloppy and disorganized, and a far cry from the seamless integration you will find on a MacBook.