A New Contender For Apple’s Fastest MacBook Pro

A month after Apple announced the new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with its homegrown M2 Pro and M2 Max chips in January, Samsung Electronics emerged with new competition for the Mac giant’s premium notebook brand in the form of the Galaxy Book3 Ultra.

Samsung’s new premium laptop is the most powerful offering in the company’s latest Galaxy Book3 series, making it the top adversary to Apple’s flagship 2023 laptop, the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

[Related: Samsung Galaxy S23 Series Vs. Galaxy S22 Series: Head-To-Head]

The South Korean electronics giant announced the latest Galaxy Book laptops alongside its flagship Galaxy S23 smartphone series at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event in early February.

The decision to reveal the laptops at its premiere smartphone event, along with Samsung’s increased emphasis on connecting its PCs and phones with software, is why analyst Bob O’Donnell believes the company “could end up becoming a serious PC competitor in the premium market.”

“These are premium devices with sleek, premium designs and high-end components. For buyers seeking these kinds of machines, the Galaxy Book3 line presents an intriguing new option. More importantly, it seems to represent the start of a more serious effort to break into the PC market, and that’s something that is going to be interesting to watch,” wrote O’Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research.

What follows is a breakdown of how Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Ultra compares to Apple’s MacBook Pro 16-inch model, including the CPU and GPU, memory and storage, display, expansion ports and external display support, battery and power, and price. Both devices are available now.