The 4 best Samsung laptops for work and play in 2024

Samsung has one of the biggest ecosystems besides Apple, especially when you consider all the things it makes, such as TVs, tablets, phones, home appliances, and a ton more. If you like said ecosystem and want to maintain it with your computer, then grabbing a Samsung laptop makes a lot of sense. Much like some might buy a MacBook to stay in the Apple ecosystem, Samsung laptops allow you to keep enjoying its ecosystem while having an excellent laptop that’s thin and powerful, much like MacBooks.

While Samsung does have a good but relatively small selection of laptops, it can still be a bit overwhelming if you don’t have familiarity with laptops or Samsung computers. To that end, we’ve collected some of our favorite Samsung laptop picks in various price ranges and performance categories. That way, you can focus on your actual needs rather than being overwhelmed with deciphering the very similarly-named Samsung laptops.

The Best Samsung Laptops in 2024

Galaxy Book3 Pro 360

Best overall Samsung laptop

The Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 balances specs vs price pretty well, probably the best out of all the Samsung laptops, and that’s why it takes the top spot on this list. Unlike a lot of other laptops, this one comes with a 16-inch screen, giving you more space and a somewhat better 16:10 aspect ratio. It also runs a 2880 x 1800 resolution and has a gorgeous AMOLED screen with some lovely color reproduction and image fidelity, which is also something you won’t find on most laptops.

Under the hood, it has an Intel Core i7-1360P CPU, which is a mid-to-high-end CPU that will handle most tasks you throw at it with relative ease, whether it’s productivity stuff or just general browsing and watching content. In fact, you could probably get away with some image and audio editing as well, which is a nice little addition to have. Of course, this doesn’t come with any sort of discrete GPU, so you aren’t going to be running anything crazy on the screen, but the integrated Intel Iris GPU is good enough to play some casual and indie games.

You’ll probably also be able to tell that the laptop is very tiny, with a 0.5-inch thickness and a weight of just 3.66 pounds, making it a perfect option for those who want to travel a lot and need something portable yet powerful. It feels really well-built overall, and we appreciate the inclusion of 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of storage, which should give you a very smooth overall experience. We’ll also mention that the typing and touchpad experience are both excellent, which is more than we can say for a lot of other laptops.

Galaxy Book3 Ultra

Best Samsung laptop for performance

If you want the most powerful thing that Samsung has to offer, then this Galaxy Book3 Ultra is the way to go. Unlike other laptops on this list, the Book3 Ultra comes with an RTX 4070, an impressive feat considering how tiny this laptop is. With that sort of GPU, you can play most modern games with relatively good graphical settings, although you will have to make some compromises, especially since the 2880 x 1800 resolution of the 16-inch screen will already tax the GPU quite heavily. You’ll similarly have issues hitting the 120Hz refresh rate it can handle, at least without any graphical compromises, but it does hit 400 nits of peak brightness, so it’s great to use even in places with a lot of bright lights.

Equally impressive is the inclusion of the Intel Core i9-13900H, easily one of the most powerful processors on the market, and beyond just knocking most tasks out of the park, it’s a better laptop for more serious audio production. It’s also good for streaming to Twitch or YouTube if you want to do that, and with the RTX 4070, it’s a good way to start. The 32GB of DDR5 RAM will also help a lot with running streaming apps, as well as just general day-to-day quality of life for not having to manage the number of apps and tabs you have open.

Besides that, it’s also worth noting that the Book3 Ultra comes with Wi-Fi 6E, which is not only future-proof, but means you’ll get a much better and more stable connection, especially when gaming. While you likely won’t be gaming with the touchpad, it’s still surprisingly good, as is the keyboard, which is a joy to type on. That said, it doesn’t have a great battery life, mostly due to the RTX 4070 and the 3k AMOLED screen, so expect, at most, around seven to eight hours of battery when not using the GPU and much less when you are.

Galaxy Book3 360

Best budget Samsung laptop

Not all Samsung laptops are exceedingly expensive, and while the Galaxy Book3 360 is still relatively pricey, it’s also an excellent laptop overall. While it does come in several model versions, including a 15-inch OLED one, we’re specifically looking at the smaller 13.3-inch one. It has a 1920 x 1080 resolution, which is good for that size, and more importantly, it still comes with the typical AMOLED screen you’d expect, so even though it costs just shy of $1,000 at MSRP, it’s a gorgeous screen compared to similarly priced laptops.

Under the hood, you’ll find the Intel Core i5-1340P CPU, which is a mid-range processor that’s still more than powerful enough to handle most day-to-day tasks and productivity stuff, so it’s an ideal laptop for work or school. That’s especially the case, given that it’s pretty thin at just 0.51 inches, and the 2.56-pound weight means that it’s easy to carry, even in tablet mode. That’s good because the pen experience is great, given that Samsung has perfected it with its tablets.

As for RAM, you get 8GB of DDR5, which is a bit on the lower end than we’d like to see, especially since Windows likes to take a big bite out of that. Even so, it’s not terrible, and for those who don’t consider themselves power users who open dozens of tabs and apps, that’s fine. The same goes for the 512GB storage, which realistically should be more than enough for most folks, and for those who tend to rely on cloud services, you’ll be happy to know that this comes with Wi-Fi 6E.

Galaxy Chromebook 2 360

Best Samsung Chromebook

Another way to grab a budget Samsung tablet is to go for one of their Chromebooks, and a good mid-range one is the Galaxy Chromebook 2 360, and it has a lot going for it, given its price tag. It’s a step down from the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 with lower specs for those who want a more budget-friendly option. For example, it comes with an Intel Celeron N4500, which is a very entry-level processor, and that does cause a little bit of sluggishness, even though ChromeOS is generally less resource-hungry.

One thing that is a bit of a downside, though, is the 4GB of RAM, which, again, isn’t as big of a deal with ChromeOS, but it’s still on the lower side, and we would have preferred to see it with 8GBs. Storage isn’t too bad with 128GB, which is about on par with budget Chromebooks. As for the 12.4-inch screen, it’s on the smaller end, but it runs a surprising 2560 x 1600 resolution, so it’s really good to use day-to-day and watch content on. It’s also touch-enabled, and with its 2.82-pound weight, it’s really easy to use in hand-held mode.

As for battery life, you can expect up to 10 hours or so, although that will vary a lot with how you use it and how bright you set your screen. It does also have Wi-FI 6, which is great for something so budget-oriented, although you should be aware that it only has three USB slots in total, which can be a problem. Otherwise, though, this is really a budget-oriented laptop, so it’s important to treat it as such.

How We Chose These Samsung Laptops

While it may feel like Samsung might have a large variety of laptops, given how many product categories it offers, it actually doesn’t have that many options. Certainly, not the same amount as Lenovo or Dell has to offer, so it’s much easier to pick and choose laptops to put on this list. As such, most Samsung laptops tend to have some similar features; for example, almost all their laptops are rather thin and light, and even the ones that have graphics cards in them are quite thin, probably more so than you’d expect.

Another thing that a lot of Samsung laptops have in common is that they have touche-enabled screens, or they come with AMOLED panels, which again, gives you a generally good idea of how you’d end up using them; either to watch content or as a 2-in-1 tablet. That said, they do vary quite a bit when it comes to things like RAM, CPU, and even storage capacity, so when it comes to picking something, it’s mostly going to be a function of price vs. performance since almost all other aspects are relatively the same.

To the end, the choices we made mostly stick to three performance bands: high-end, mid-range, and low-end, with the last two picks, the Chromebook and the Galaxy Book3 360, occupying the extremes of the low-end, so that you have at least two choices for budget-oriented laptops from Samsung. Also, regardless of these performance bands, we do think it’s important to compare the Samsung laptops to some external examples, especially in the mid-to-high-end, so be sure to check out our deep dives on the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra vs. MacBook Pro 16-inch and the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 vs. HP Spectre x360.

This article is managed and created separately from the Digital Trends Editorial team.

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