Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360 evaluation: Beautiful upgrades, strong worth

Worth When Reviewed

$1699.99

Greatest Costs At the moment: Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360

Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Professional 360 laptop computer packs in a self-contained movie show, a sketchpad for digital artists, and an all-day productiveness machine that may digitally hook up with different Galaxy gadgets 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 nearly all of its rivals and predecessor to disgrace.

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

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: What it gives and the place it matches

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

The Book3 Professional 360, which we check 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 much like the Professional. Since it’s designed for inking, the Book3 Professional 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 have been additionally informed that the Book3 Professional 360 features a 5G possibility. Our evaluation unit doesn’t supply that function, nonetheless, and it wasn’t listed on the index of Galaxy Book3 laptops Samsung has printed.

Mark Hachman / IDG

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

In the event you’re shopping for the Book3 Professional 360, you’ve got solely the choice of 16GB of RAM and both 512GB or 1TB of SSD storage. However Samsung can also be providing a free improve to the 1TB tier, which implies that there’s basically only one, upgraded mannequin of the Professional 360 out there.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: Specs and options

• Processor: Intel Core i7-1360P
• Show: 16-inch (2,880×1,800) contact, 120Hz AMOLED 2X, 400 nits, 120 % DCI-P3 colour quantity
• Reminiscence: 16GB LPDDR5
• Storage: 512GB/1TB SSD (512TB as examined)
• Graphics: Iris Xe
• Ports: 2 Thunderbolt 4, USB Sort-A, HDMI 1.4, microSD, headphone/mic
• Safety: Fingerprint reader
• Digicam: 1080p (user-facing)
• Battery: 76Wh
• Wi-fi: Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+), 802.11 ax 2×2, Bluetooth 5.1
• Audio: AKG Quad Speaker (two 5W woofers, two 2W tweeters), Sensible Amp, Dolby Atmos
• Working system: Home windows 11 House
• Dimensions:  13.99 x 9.93 x 0.50in. (12.7mm)
• Weight: 3.66lbs (rated)
• Colours: Graphite, Beige (Graphite as examined)
• Worth:  $1,699 from Samsung, delivery Feb. 17

The Professional 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 somewhat spacious. Usually, Samsung Galaxy Ebook laptops are identified for being skinny and light-weight, however the further room provides weight: 3.66 kilos isn’t that heavy, but it surely’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 Professional 360 and its charger for a piece journey will most likely really feel lighter than a rival pocket book and its conventional energy brick. The brand 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 Professional 360: An improved OLED show price speaking about

Samsung’s Galaxy Ebook Professional 360 emerges from its field as a svelte, slick slab of aluminum that appears greater than its precise 14 inches or so of width. Open it up with a finger, and the laptop computer’s attractive OLED reveals itself. Simply do watch out with that finger, although. Our Graphite (black) evaluation unit the corporate supplied attracts smudges very simply, particularly oils from fingers. Preserve a material helpful.

Because the boot cycle begins, you’ll see why we expect it’s price speaking first about why the Book3 collection represents such a major improve over the Book2: the up to date AMOLED display. You gained’t see the faint glow of an LED-lit display, since OLEDs emit gentle on a per-pixel foundation. As a substitute, whilst you briefly watch for 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 Professional 360 defaulted to 1080p shows, however now the Book3 Professional 360 features a 16-inch 2,880×1,800 show, which the producer characterizes as a “3K” (versus a 4K) show.

In the event you’re utilizing the Book3 Professional 360 for productiveness, there’s one thing right here for you, too: a brand new 120Hz show refresh price. This can be much less noticeable by way of transferring your mouse round, however inking with the built-in S Pen is markedly smoother when utilizing a high-refresh show. Avid gamers additionally favor 120Hz refresh charges and above, as greater refresh price ends in smoother gameplay. That’s much less vital right here, because the Professional 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 Professional 360 is now VESA ClearMR and DisplayHDR TRUE BLACK 500 licensed, although that isn’t fairly as spectacular because it sounds. Whereas its show can produce some respectable HDR results similar to premium TVs, they gained’t be fairly as profound.

Samsung claims that the laptop computer produces 120 % of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, which merely interprets into brighter, extra vivid colours than a special show. Our colorimeter assessments merely reported the colour gamut as near 100%, although that could possibly be a fault of the testing {hardware}. The Professional 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 colour function that may additionally alter colours relying upon what the laptop computer detects about your atmosphere. That function may be enabled throughout the Home windows settings.

We can also’t but check Samsung’s declare that the AMOLED 2X show reduces blue gentle by 78 % whereas in darkish mode, a noteworthy promoting level if true. Blue gentle can set off migraines and have an effect on sleep. Darkish mode doesn’t seem to skew the show towards heat colours, which is generally the way in which Home windows customers can filter out blue gentle.

Mark Hachman / IDG

In all, the Professional 360’s show emits 392 nits of luminance, based on our assessments, sufficient for the laptop computer for use in a vivid room. Remember, although, that the display is fairly shiny, and displays your background simply.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: Chassis and ports

Structurally, the Professional 360 feels way more like a regular convertible. Flipping the keyboard again works properly for watching films 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 evaluation, however you may join older telephones. There are some advantages to that, which we’ll point out under. In any other case, establishing the Book3 Professional 360 is much like establishing another Home windows pocket book.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Skinny, gentle laptops can deliver tradeoffs, and the Book3 Professional 360 does produce a reasonably loud although impartial hiss as air is sucked in by way of a fantastic grille on the backside and is pushed out by way of the again. Fortuitously, the laptop computer’s followers solely kick in beneath substantial load, which doesn’t embrace film playback. That’s vital, given content material consumption is a crucial purpose to this laptop computer. We couldn’t detect any of the distracting high-pitched whine that some followers produce, although, so you must have the ability to tune it out or alter the efficiency mode within the Samsung Settings app. There are Excessive Efficiency, Quiet, and Silent modes to select from along with the default Optimized mode.

The Professional 360 contains two Thunderbolt 4 ports with a USB-C interface, plus a USB-A port for legacy gadgets 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 adequate for taking part in again 4K video at 24 frames per second—fantastic for watching films, however probably not for high-bit-rate digital video. For that, you’ll want the Galaxy Book3 Extremely, 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 % in half-hour, a declare which bears out in idle mode however not beneath load. Whereas utilizing the laptop computer, the Professional 360 charged 18 % in 35 minutes.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: As soon as once more, a surprisingly good keyboard

I’ve at all times most well-liked deep laptop computer keyboards with roomy journey, and Samsung retains confounding me: I need to dislike their shallow keyboards as uncomfortable, however they’re merely not. The large 16:10, 16-inch type issue show permits Samsung to unfold its keys out, together with a slim island keypad to the correct. I actually felt snug typing on it for a size of time, although I might usually desire a special keyboard for long-term use.

For the reason that Book3 Professional 360 is a thin-and-light convertible, it’s not that stunning that Samsung continued to forego using a depth digicam. As a substitute, the facility button hides a fingerprint reader, which is delicate to smudges and requires repeated faucets to arrange. However, your finger doesn’t change over time, so that you just gained’t must “reset” your finger as some depth cameras do. You possibly can energy up and log into the Book3 Professional 360 with a single faucet.

Mark Hachman / IDG

The Book3 Professional 360 does have some quirks, together with a completely huge touchpad on the backside of the display that’s 24 % greater than the Book2. Some laptops merely refuse to fill this area, however Samsung’s touchpad sprawls throughout and nonetheless offers you an honest palm relaxation on both facet. The touchpad placement skews in the direction of the left, nonetheless, so that you just proper palm may have way more area to relaxation. Sadly, whereas your complete touchpad is tappable, you may solely click on on the underside two thirds.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: A stunning webcam enhances strong audio

The Book3 Professional 360 features a 1080p webcam with a regular 87-degree viewing angle, with a 60fps possibility hidden within the Home windows Digicam app’s settings.

Mark Hachman / IDG

What we have been stunned to see, nonetheless, have 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 Home windows Studio Results usually discovered on AI-capable gadgets just like the Floor Professional 9 (5G) —made their manner onto the Book3 Professional 360, or in the event that they’re enabled by the Movidius AI card Intel stated it might add to “choose” Thirteenth-gen Core PCs.

Our assessments confirmed that Eye Contact labored, not often, to change the webcam picture in a manner that made it seem as in case your eyes have been centered immediately 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 “magnificence” settings to redden your cheeks or slim your face. These aren’t current any longer, and the built-in “face results” make little distinction.

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

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

You could be much less enthusiastic in regards to the built-in Dolby Atmos stereo enlargement system, which often is the one factor that makes laptop computer audio aurally palatable. Right here, leaving Atmos off, which is the default setting, is a brilliant alternative. In any other case, Atmos produced a type of cacophonous impact till I went into the Atmos app and adjusted its settings to “Dynamic,” as an alternative. Not less than there’s nonetheless a headphone jack!

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

The Galaxy Book3 Professional 360 contains an S Pen within the field, and the primary query you will have is, now the place do I put it? Samsung doesn’t actually have a solution, so that you’ll must give you your personal answer.

The S Pen inks with 4,096 ranges of strain, and the Book3 Professional 360 interprets various ranges of strain into ink width in addition to any laptop computer we’ve seen. The massive display space on the Professional 360 implies that I usually carelessly draped or dragged each palms throughout the display to try to hold issues regular, nonetheless, and the laptop computer was just too delicate in attempting to translate my faucets into what it thought have been makes an attempt to entry a menu or different possibility. Generally, 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 alleged to. There was additionally little or no to imperceptible ranges of ink judder, the sinuous line that may be produced whereas attempting to ink slowly with a straight edge. By the way, the Professional 360 ships with Noteshelf, an Android note-taking app.

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

Whether or not or not you got down to purchase a Samsung Galaxy cellphone, pill, and laptop computer, the producer gives you a bonus for those who do: a number of apps that tie the varied gadgets collectively. They embrace Samsung Multi Management and Second Display screen plus the present Fast Share and Non-public Share apps.

Samsung has additionally provided the Hyperlink to Home windows / Cellphone Hyperlink apps on its telephones and Books, respectively, which permit the Ebook to regulate a Galaxy Cellphone a bit higher than the Cellphone Hyperlink app connects to different Android telephones. Mockingly, because the Book3 Professional 360 is an Evo gadget, Intel included its Unison app on board, which does just about the very same factor.

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

Mark Hachman / IDG

In any other case, Samsung offers a ton of preloaded apps you most likely gained’t use. Simply be certain to take a look at the Samsung Galaxy Expertise, Samsung Replace, and the Samsung Settings app for controls that may enable you to handle specialised capabilities like supplying energy to the USB ports when the Professional 360 is sleeping.

Lastly, Samsung (or Home windows itself) gives a OneDrive configuration the place information saved on the Home windows desktop, Paperwork, or Photos are at all times synced with the cloud. This was a bit complicated, as we bumped into an error message early on that stated it was unimaginable to show off this function, one thing that Home windows doesn’t usually do. Then, in a while, the objections disappeared.

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: Efficiency

We’re concluding from our expertise with the Book3 Professional that it’s a content-consumption machine first, although not particularly for gaming. Anecdotally, the laptop computer often 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, an off-the-cuff test on how the laptop computer performs streaming video.

The latter check 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 taking part in it again. (The Book2 Professional 360 dropped about half that when rendering the identical video, although at 1080p.) In any other case, nonetheless, we seen no different glitches.

Lastly, understand that the Book3 Professional 360 is among 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 purposes, video calls, CAD work, and light-weight 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 Professional 360’s efficiency will drop for those who’re utilizing it intensively for greater than a minute or two.

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

PCMark 10 places a laptop computer by way of a battery of assessments: phrase processing, Net shopping, some CAD work, videoconferencing, and extra. It’s a great indicator of general efficiency throughout quite a lot of duties.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Cinebench R15 is an older check, pushing all the cores and threads within the laptop computer’s CPU to their most. Later revisions of this benchmark use extra advanced scenes, however this check is an effective illustration of how a laptop computer handles fast duties. The draw back? Fashionable CPUs deal with this job rapidly, 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 acceptable for storing on a pill. The conversion course of pushes all the cores to the restrict for a chronic interval — wherever from half an hour to 90 minutes. This can be 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 check and 3DMark’s looped Time Spy benchmark, individually benchmarked slightly below. Right here, there was a 7.5 % 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 % of the time. (On this, 96 % 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 ultimate efficiency benchmark is the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, which might be much less important on condition that this laptop computer isn’t designed for gaming. Nonetheless, as our current assessments confirmed, 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 strategy to measure battery life, but it surely mimics a standard state of affairs: bringing a retailer of downloaded films from Netflix or different companies on to your laptop computer for an extended airplane flight.

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

Mark Hachman / IDG

Samsung Galaxy Book3 Professional 360: A lot to supply

We see plenty of laptops which simply push north of $2,000 simply by banking on just a few new options. Right here, Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Professional 360 justifies its worth with many extra, on high of a considerably cheap price ticket. For what you’re paying, the Book3 Professional 360 gives substantial upgrades over the Book2 Professional 360 in addition to some best-of-class options, interval.

Even for those who 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 type issue, its strong audio and webcam expertise, and its presence as a Thirteenth-gen Core Evo laptop computer do too. Shopping for a Samsung laptop computer to accompany a Samsung Galaxy cellphone is an in the end much less compelling want.

We do suppose that the Book3 collection gives one thing distinctive that perhaps solely the Asus Vivobook and Zenbook collection appear to be consciously addressing: laptops centered on exhibiting off content material initially. (Take into account the Vivobook Professional 16 OLED in its place till we handle to check the newest choices.) For all it brings to the desk, Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Professional 360 earns one in every of our first Editor’s Alternative awards of 2023.