The most exciting laptop of the year has been announced — Samsung Galaxy Book3 series. What can make the product an alternative to the many you have in the market? Integration, compatibility, ecosystem… whatever you want to call it. There are millions of Samsung smartphone and tablet users around the globe. Now think of this: Samsung offers these smartphone users options like easy file sharing, hardware integration and so on. Life will become easy for these users, like it is for any MacBook, iPhone and iPad user.
We had a chance to spend a couple of hours with the new series of laptops at Samsung’s launch event in San Francisco and there are plenty of goodies for users.
There are four machines — Galaxy Book 3 Pro (16/14 inch), Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 (16 inch) and Galaxy Book3 Ultra (16 inch). This is the first time Samsung has had an Ultra laptop.
There are a few things to remember about these laptops. They are very thin, lightweight and, at the same time, powerful. Samsung can easily attract the enterprise customer as well as content creators. So it can easily be a travel companion as much as the device you need on your desk at home or office.
For India, it is an interesting and important launch because it was only last year that Samsung introduced its Galaxy Book series in the form of Book2, which has three models.
Book3 Ultra and Pro series are built on the latest 13th Generation Intel processors. There is a connected experience which enables devices to work together. Like I mentioned, it’s about a multi-device connected experience. There’s something called MultiControl that lets you directly control your Galaxy smartphone and Galaxy tablet using the Galaxy Book3 Ultra and Pro series keyboard and trackpad. You can also copy-paste or drag-drop between devices.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360
When you need more screen real estate, Second Screen lets you expand your workspace to the Galaxy Tab wirelessly. The other popular feature is Link to Windows for Galaxy smartphones and Phone Link for Windows PCs. Besides, Galaxy Book3 Ultra and Pro series now feature Instant Hotspot, which connects your Galaxy Book to your Galaxy Phone with just one click without turning on your mobile hotspot. The Link for Windows feature has competition in the form of Intel Unison, which brings your iPhone or Android phone closer together to your PC. You can see your phone’s photos, transfer files, answer phone calls, and even send messages on your laptop or PC.
Without stopping at this one feature, Samsung has added something called Recent Websites that multitasks between phone and PC while web browsing. Start looking up your travel details on your phone and continue the same on your laptop when you reach office on the default web browser on your Galaxy Book3 Ultra and Pro series.
The other highlight of the launch is the collaboration with Adobe through which you get a couple of months of free subscription to Adobe Lightroom.
Speaking of Lightroom, try to use the app Expert Raw. You can automatically transfer RAW files taken on your Galaxy S23 series to your Galaxy Book3 Ultra and Pro series and open them in Adobe Lightroom for studio-level editing postshoot.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra is a new offering from the South Korean company.
Picture: The TelegraphThe Ultra model also features NVIDIA RTX series graphics card, a high-performance GPU that is ideal for most intensive creation, gaming and heavy data analytics.
And with the Ultra and Pro Series… Samsung is introducing a 16-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X 3K display with enhanced colour visualisation. The new 16:10 screen ratio keeps more content visible on the screen, allowing you to see 11 per cent more information at a glance. There is 120Hz refresh rate. There is also 1080p webcam, studio quality Dual Mic with ANC, woofer max 5Wx2 and tweeter max 2Wx2.
What remains to be seen is how Samsung straddles the fine line dividing the laptop from the tablet and phones. For Apple, it’s like one big ecosystem where every device has a target audience. People who like to work on laptops, most of the time don’t like to touch the screen for long periods because it tires the hand. But youngsters are growing up with touch-driven screens, so they are looking for tablets more than laptops.
By cutting down on blue light, maximising battery and connecting a chain of devices, Samsung seems to have hit written all over the new Galaxy Book3 series. What would be interesting to see is how Samsung takes forward its collaboration with Adobe, Google and Microsoft to make their new products compelling across age groups.
