At a look

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Stunning OLED improve in decision, efficiency, extra
• One of the primary Thirteenth-gen Core laptops
• Top-notch battery life
• Solid inking
• 1080p webcam and excellent audio

Cons

• Good, not nice, efficiency
• Webcam results are iffy

Our Verdict

Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 affords important worth throughout quite a lot of fronts: video, audio, the webcam, and battery life. Only as a laptop computer is it considerably unusual.

Price When Reviewed

$1699.99

Best Prices Today: Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360

Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 laptop computer packs in a self-contained movie show, a sketchpad for digital artists, and an all-day productiveness machine that may digitally connect with different Galaxy units inside a single, 16-inch, 360-degree convertible laptop computer. Capping all of it off is a beautiful, highly effective new OLED show that places virtually all of its rivals and predecessor to disgrace.

Consider this $1,699 (MSRP) laptop computer for what it may well do after hours in addition to your workday. While its Thirteenth-gen Intel Core processor doesn’t outperform the whole lot in its class, you’ll discover a ton beneath its hood that few rivals provide. So buckle up—there’s so much to speak about.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: What it affords and the place it matches

Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is one in all a small family of new Book3 laptops that consists of the Book3 Ultra, the Book3 Pro, the Book3 Pro 360, and the Book3 360. The Book3 Ultra is a brand new addition to the household, sporting an Nvidia RTX GeForce 4xxx GPU inside a thicker body. The Book3 Pro is Samsung’s conventional clamshell, transport in both a 14-inch or 16-inch dimension, with a pound of weight’s price of a distinction between the 2.

The Book3 Pro 360, which we take a look at right here, is a single 16-inch 360-degree convertible laptop computer that may be folded again into pill mode, however is in any other case just like the Pro. Since it’s designed for inking, the Book3 Pro 360 additionally contains an built-in S Pen contained in the field. The cheaper Book3 360 doesn’t and makes use of the extra conventional 1080p show decision as an alternative. We had been additionally informed that the Book3 Pro 360 features a 5G possibility. Our assessment unit doesn’t provide that function, nevertheless, and it wasn’t listed on the index of Galaxy Book3 laptops Samsung has printed.

Mark Hachman / IDG

We reviewed Samsung’s Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 final yr. This yr, Samsung affords substantial upgrades from high to backside. Save for the Book3 360, all members of the Book3 household—the Pro, Pro 360 and Ultra—now ship with a considerably improved AMOLED 2X show, which we’ll talk about under.

If you’re shopping for the Book3 Pro 360, you’ve solely the choice of 16GB of RAM and both 512GB or 1TB of SSD storage. But Samsung can be providing a free improve to the 1TB tier, which signifies that there’s basically only one, upgraded mannequin of the Pro 360 accessible.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Specifications and options

• Processor: Intel Core i7-1360P
• Display: 16-inch (2,880×1,800) contact, 120Hz AMOLED 2X, 400 nits, 120 p.c DCI-P3 coloration quantity
• Memory: 16GB LPDDR5
• Storage: 512GB/1TB SSD (512TB as examined)
• Graphics: Iris Xe
• Ports: 2 Thunderbolt 4, USB Type-A, HDMI 1.4, microSD, headphone/mic
• Security: Fingerprint reader
• Camera: 1080p (user-facing)
• Battery: 76Wh
• Wireless: Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+), 802.11 ax 2×2, Bluetooth 5.1
• Audio: AKG Quad Speaker (two 5W woofers, two 2W tweeters), Smart Amp, Dolby Atmos
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home
• Dimensions:  13.99 x 9.93 x 0.50in. (12.7mm)
• Weight: 3.66lbs (rated)
• Colors: Graphite, Beige (Graphite as examined)
• Price:  $1,699 from Samsung, transport Feb. 17

The Pro 360 is the premium possibility of the 2 360-degree convertibles Samsung ships throughout the Book3 household, which permits it to fold again on itself in both laptop computer, tent, or pill modes.

Laptops have sometimes shipped with both 15-inch or 17-inch choices, so this 16-inch mannequin with a 16:10 show feels slightly spacious. Normally, Samsung Galaxy Book laptops are recognized for being skinny and lightweight, however the additional room provides weight: 3.66 kilos isn’t that heavy, nevertheless it’s noticeable in your bag. The upside is that these notebooks cost with the identical tiny gallium nitrate (GaN) charger that accompanies its Galaxy telephones, so packing the Book3 Pro 360 and its charger for a piece journey will in all probability really feel lighter than a rival pocket book and its conventional energy brick. The new Book3 convertible continues to be surprisingly skinny, although—not as completely skinny because the 0.44 inches Apple cites for its MacBook Air (M2), however at 0.50 inches, shut sufficient.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: An improved OLED show price speaking about

Samsung’s Galaxy Book Pro 360 emerges from its field as a svelte, slick slab of aluminum that appears larger than its precise 14 inches or so of width. Open it up with a finger, and the laptop computer’s beautiful OLED reveals itself. Just do watch out with that finger, although. Our Graphite (black) assessment unit the corporate offered attracts smudges very simply, particularly oils from fingers. Keep a fabric helpful.

As the boot cycle begins, you’ll see why we predict it’s price speaking first about why the Book3 sequence represents such a major improve over the Book2: the up to date AMOLED display screen. You received’t see the faint glow of an LED-lit display screen, since OLEDs emit mild on a per-pixel foundation. Instead, when you briefly look forward to the white “Samsung Galaxy” font to be displayed on the jet-black background, don’t be stunned in case your first thought is, is that this factor really on?

Put merely, Samsung’s newest AMOLED 2X show claims enhancements in each visible efficiency and visible high quality. First, there’s merely the dramatic enchancment in decision. The Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 defaulted to 1080p shows, however now the Book3 Pro 360 features a 16-inch 2,880×1,800 show, which the producer characterizes as a “3K” (versus a 4K) show.

If you’re utilizing the Book3 Pro 360 for productiveness, there’s one thing right here for you, too: a brand new 120Hz show refresh price. This could also be much less noticeable when it comes to shifting your mouse round, however inking with the built-in S Pen is markedly smoother when utilizing a high-refresh show. Gamers additionally favor 120Hz refresh charges and above, as greater refresh price leads to smoother gameplay. That’s much less essential right here, because the Pro 360 merely makes use of Intel’s built-in GPU for graphics.

OLED shows’ inky blacks already present a marked visible improve in comparison with the glowy backgrounds of darkish scenes lit by LED-backed show. The Book3 Pro 360 is now VESA ClearMR and DisplayHDR TRUE BLACK 500 licensed, although that isn’t fairly as spectacular because it sounds. While its show can produce some respectable HDR effects just like premium TVs, they received’t be fairly as profound.

Samsung claims that the laptop computer produces 120 p.c of the DCI-P3 coloration gamut, which merely interprets into brighter, extra vivid colours than a unique show. Our colorimeter assessments merely reported the colour gamut as near 100%, although that may very well be a fault of the testing {hardware}. The Pro 360 OLED show does function devoted modes for DCI-P3, AdobeRGB and sRGB, in addition to an “Auto” mode that presumably optimizes itself for the appliance. We examined with out utilizing an adaptive coloration function that may additionally modify colours relying upon what the laptop computer detects about your setting. That function could be enabled throughout the Windows settings.

We can also’t but take a look at Samsung’s declare that the AMOLED 2X show reduces blue mild by 78 p.c whereas in darkish mode, a noteworthy promoting level if true. Blue mild can set off migraines and have an effect on sleep. Dark mode doesn’t seem to skew the show towards heat colours, which is generally the best way Windows customers can filter out blue mild.

Mark Hachman / IDG

In all, the Pro 360’s show emits 392 nits of luminance, in accordance with our assessments, sufficient for the laptop computer for use in a brilliant room. Be conscious, although, that the display screen is fairly shiny, and displays your background simply.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Chassis and ports

Structurally, the Pro 360 feels rather more like a typical convertible. Flipping the keyboard again works properly for watching motion pictures or an impromptu enterprise presentation. As anticipated, the laptop computer’s hinge was robust sufficient to help it in both context.

The setup course of encourages you to combine your Galaxy Book3 with different members of the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem, particularly your cellphone. We weren’t supplied with the newest Galaxy S23 smartphone for assessment, however you may join older telephones. There are some advantages to that, which we’ll point out under. Otherwise, organising the Book3 Pro 360 is just like organising every other Windows pocket book.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Thin, mild laptops can deliver tradeoffs, and the Book3 Pro 360 does produce a reasonably loud although impartial hiss as air is sucked in via a positive grille on the backside and is pushed out via the again. Fortunately, the laptop computer’s followers solely kick in beneath substantial load, which doesn’t embody film playback. That’s essential, given content material consumption is a vital cause to this laptop computer. We couldn’t detect any of the distracting high-pitched whine that some followers produce, although, so you need to be capable of tune it out or modify the efficiency mode within the Samsung Settings app. There are High Performance, Quiet, and Silent modes to select from along with the default Optimized mode.

The Pro 360 contains two Thunderbolt 4 ports with a USB-C interface, plus a USB-A port for legacy units like a wired mouse. Samsung additionally features a microSD slot of an undisclosed nature and an HDMI port, which a Samsung consultant informed us is an HDMI 1.4 port. That’s enough for taking part in again 4K video at 24 frames per second—positive for watching motion pictures, however not likely for high-bit-rate digital video. For that, you’ll want the Galaxy Book3 Ultra, its HDMI 2.0 port, and its give attention to content material creation.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Samsung’s USB-C charger claims that it may well cost the laptop computer about 35 p.c in half-hour, a declare which bears out in idle mode however not beneath load. While utilizing the laptop computer, the Pro 360 charged 18 p.c in 35 minutes.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Once once more, a surprisingly good keyboard

I’ve all the time most popular deep laptop computer keyboards with roomy journey, and Samsung retains confounding me: I wish to dislike their shallow keyboards as uncomfortable, however they’re merely not. The vast 16:10, 16-inch kind issue show permits Samsung to unfold its keys out, together with a slender island keypad to the best. I actually felt comfy typing on it for a size of time, although I might usually want a unique keyboard for long-term use.

Since the Book3 Pro 360 is a thin-and-light convertible, it’s not that shocking that Samsung continued to forego using a depth digicam. Instead, the facility button hides a fingerprint reader, which is delicate to smudges and requires repeated faucets to arrange. On the opposite hand, your finger doesn’t change over time, so that you simply received’t have to “reset” your finger as some depth cameras do. You can energy up and log into the Book3 Pro 360 with a single faucet.

Mark Hachman / IDG

The Book3 Pro 360 does have some quirks, together with a fully huge touchpad on the backside of the display screen that’s 24 p.c larger than the Book2. Some laptops merely refuse to fill this house, however Samsung’s touchpad sprawls throughout and nonetheless offers you an honest palm relaxation on both aspect. The touchpad placement skews in direction of the left, nevertheless, so that you simply proper palm can have rather more house to relaxation. Unfortunately, whereas all the touchpad is tappable, you may solely click on on the underside two thirds.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: A shocking webcam enhances stable audio

The Book3 Pro 360 features a 1080p webcam with a typical 87-degree viewing angle, with a 60fps possibility hidden within the Windows Camera app’s settings.

Mark Hachman / IDG

What we had been stunned to see, nevertheless, had been “Studio Mode” results utilized to the webcam; face results, HDR, auto framing, background blur, and eye contact. It’s not clear how these results—which mirror the Windows Studio Effects usually discovered on AI-capable units just like the Surface Pro 9 (5G) —made their means onto the Book3 Pro 360, or in the event that they’re enabled by the Movidius AI card Intel said it would add to “select” Thirteenth-gen Core PCs.

Our assessments confirmed that Eye Contact labored, not often, to change the webcam picture in a means that made it seem as in case your eyes had been centered straight on the digicam. Apps like Zoom do a greater job of blurring or changing the background than these algorithms do, however auto framing works marvelously, panning and zooming out and in to border your face within the digicam’s imaginative and prescient. Samsung has traditionally included “beauty” settings to redden your cheeks or slim your face. These aren’t current any longer, and the built-in “face effects” make little distinction.

Samsung does use AI to assist cancel noise in video calls, nevertheless, and does so very properly. A pair of studio mics seize your voice.

Samsung’s audio system, in the meantime, are normally wonderful, and the Pro 360’s aren’t any exception. AKG tuned the Book3 Pro 360’s audio system, with a pair of 5W woofers and two 2W tweeters. The former elevate the Pro 360’s audio into one thing you’ll wish to take heed to, with substantial quantity that may decently fill a small room.

You could also be much less enthusiastic concerning the built-in Dolby Atmos stereo growth system, which normally is the one factor that makes laptop computer audio aurally palatable. Here, leaving Atmos off, which is the default setting, is a great alternative. Otherwise, Atmos produced a type of cacophonous impact till I went into the Atmos app and adjusted its settings to “Dynamic,” as an alternative. At least there’s nonetheless a headphone jack!

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Finicky inking is in any other case good

The Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 contains an S Pen within the field, and the primary query you could have is, now the place do I put it? Samsung doesn’t actually have a solution, so that you’ll should provide you with your individual resolution.

The S Pen inks with 4,096 ranges of stress, and the Book3 Pro 360 interprets various ranges of stress into ink width in addition to any laptop computer we’ve seen. The massive display screen space on the Pro 360 signifies that I typically carelessly draped or dragged each fingers throughout the display screen to attempt to preserve issues regular, nevertheless, and the laptop computer was just too delicate in making an attempt to translate my faucets into what it thought had been makes an attempt to entry a menu or different possibility. Sometimes, after I thought I used to be inking… I wasn’t. I’m additionally not a fan of how the S Pen’s single button is positioned far down, the place your fingers naturally grip the pen.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Ink flowed easily from the tip of the pen, because it was presupposed to. There was additionally little or no to imperceptible ranges of ink judder, the sinuous line that may be produced whereas making an attempt to ink slowly with a straight edge. Incidentally, the Pro 360 ships with Noteshelf, an Android note-taking app.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Integration ties throughout the Galaxy ecosystem

Whether or not you got down to purchase a Samsung Galaxy cellphone, pill, and laptop computer, the producer affords you a bonus in the event you do: a number of apps that tie the assorted units collectively. They embody Samsung Multi Control and Second Screen plus the prevailing Quick Share and Private Share apps.

Samsung has additionally supplied the Link to Windows / Phone Link apps on its telephones and Books, respectively, which permit the Book to regulate a Galaxy Phone a bit higher than the Phone Link app connects to other Android phones. Ironically, for the reason that Book3 Pro 360 is an Evo system, Intel included its Unison app on board, which does pretty much the exact same thing.

We weren’t given a Galaxy S23 cellphone to check a brand new functionality: how Samsung Flow can join a Samsung Galaxy Tab pill, S23 cellphone, and Book3 collectively through the use of the mouse to mouse between and switch recordsdata between all three units. The producer additionally has a brand new “Expert Raw Auto Share” app that may take uncompressed uncooked recordsdata from the cellphone and switch them to the Book3 for modifying. The firm additionally supplies a two-month trial of Adobe Lightroom.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Otherwise, Samsung supplies a ton of preloaded apps you in all probability received’t use. Just be sure that to take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Experience, Samsung Update, and the Samsung Settings app for controls that may show you how to handle specialised features like supplying energy to the USB ports when the Pro 360 is sleeping.

Finally, Samsung (or Windows itself) affords a OneDrive configuration the place recordsdata saved on the Windows desktop, Documents, or Pictures are all the time synced with the cloud. This was just a little complicated, as we bumped into an error message early on that mentioned it was not possible to show off this function, one thing that Windows doesn’t usually do. Then, in a while, the objections disappeared.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Performance

We’re concluding from our expertise with the Book3 Pro that it’s a content-consumption machine first, although not particularly for gaming. Anecdotally, the laptop computer sometimes hiccupped, pausing exercise for a second whereas switching on its Dolby audio, for instance. There was additionally a little bit of lag when opening a 4K60 YouTube video, a casual verify on how the laptop computer performs streaming video.

The latter take a look at is beneficial, since there’s a hidden management that reveals in what decision YouTube is delivering the video, and what number of frames are dropped. In our assessments, that translated into 164 dropped frames out of 10,000, which generated only a tiny little bit of shaky video when enjoying it again. (The Book2 Pro 360 dropped about half that when rendering the identical video, although at 1080p.) Otherwise, nevertheless, we seen no different glitches.

Finally, remember the fact that the Book3 Pro 360 is without doubt one of the first Thirteenth-gen Core laptops out of the gate, which helps its placement in efficiency standings.

We use 4 key assessments to find out a laptop computer’s efficiency: PCMark 10, which measures day-to-day efficiency in workplace functions, video calls, CAD work, and lightweight gaming; Cinebench, a pure CPU benchmark; 3DMark, which does the identical for the laptop computer’s GPU; and Handbrake, a software which we use to measure extended efficiency. Two extra stress assessments in Cinebench and 3DMark may also help us additional decide if the Pro 360’s efficiency will drop in the event you’re utilizing it intensively for greater than a minute or two.

Thin-and-light notebooks are likely to run on the smaller aspect, and OLED shows wander between content material creation and consumption. So we’re evaluating the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 with a large swathe of opponents: the chunkier although cheaper Asus VivoBook Pro 16X OLED; the 14-inch, high-resolution Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X and Lenovo Yoga 9i 14; 2022’s outdated-at-launch, beautiful HP Spectre x360 16; and a pair of smaller convertibles, the HP Elite Dragonfly Max and the Folio G3. We shut with one other mild laptop computer, the Lenovo ThinkpadX1 Nano, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 5. (We thought of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, however that appears aimed toward content material creation.) We’ve additionally famous the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro2 360 in orange, to point out off any generation-to-generation variations.

PCMark 10 places a laptop computer via a battery of assessments: phrase processing, Web searching, some CAD work, videoconferencing, and extra. It’s a great indicator of total efficiency throughout quite a lot of duties.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Cinebench R15 is an older take a look at, pushing the entire cores and threads within the laptop computer’s CPU to their most. Later revisions of this benchmark use extra advanced scenes, however this take a look at is an effective illustration of how a laptop computer handles fast duties. The draw back? Modern CPUs deal with this activity shortly, so extended assessments measure how the laptop computer performs over time.

Mark Hachman / IDG

We use the Handbrake utility to transcode a Hollywood film right into a format applicable for storing on a pill. The conversion course of pushes the entire cores to the restrict for a protracted interval — anyplace from half an hour to 90 minutes. This is a measurement of how properly the laptop computer can carry out beneath extended thermal load.

Mark Hachman / IDG

We additionally examined extended efficiency utilizing Cinebench R23’s thermal stress take a look at and 3DMark’s looped Time Spy benchmark, individually benchmarked slightly below. Here, there was a 7.5 p.c drop in CPU efficiency over the lifetime of the Cinebench benchmark, which ran for a number of minutes. In extended 3D efficiency, the laptop computer fared higher: it wasn’t capable of maintain its framerate over repeated loops of the benchmark, however did so 95 p.c of the time. (In this, 96 p.c is taken into account a passing grade.) Put merely, strenuous workloads that activate the laptop computer’s fan will barely diminish in efficiency if run for lengthy intervals.

Our closing efficiency benchmark is the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, which might be much less important provided that this laptop computer isn’t designed for gaming. Still, as our recent tests showed, even built-in GPUs can ship low-end “gaming-class” efficiency.

Mark Hachman / IDG

We measure battery life by looping a 4K video time and again till the laptop computer shuts down for need of energy. Video playback is probably not the one option to measure battery life, nevertheless it mimics a standard state of affairs: bringing a retailer of downloaded motion pictures from Netflix or different providers on to your laptop computer for an extended airplane flight.

This is an actual energy of the Book3 360 Pro, although not fairly as robust as its predecessor. (That could also be due to the elevated show decision—lighting extra pixels takes extra energy.) Still, 812 minutes is simply over 13.5 hours of battery life, on common, which is superb.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: So a lot to supply

We see numerous laptops which simply push north of $2,000 simply by banking on a number of new options. Here, Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 justifies its worth with many extra, on high of a considerably affordable price ticket. For what you’re paying, the Book3 Pro 360 affords substantial upgrades over the Book2 Pro 360 in addition to some best-of-class options, interval.

Even in the event you aren’t as in love with OLEDs as we’re, the upper decision OLED and refresh price actually assist promote this laptop computer. Inking, the convertible kind issue, its stable audio and webcam expertise, and its presence as a Thirteenth-gen Core Evo laptop computer do too. Buying a Samsung laptop computer to accompany a Samsung Galaxy cellphone is an finally much less compelling want.

We do assume that the Book3 sequence affords one thing distinctive that possibly solely the Asus Vivobook and Zenbook series appear to be consciously addressing: laptops centered on displaying off content material at first. (Consider the Vivobook Pro 16 OLED as a substitute till we handle to check the newest choices.) For all it brings to the desk, Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 earns one in all our first Editor’s Choice awards of 2023.