Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Ultra review: A MacBook Pro alternative that truly lasts all day

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I’ve spent the past month testing Samsung’s latest flagship laptop, the Galaxy Book6 Ultra, and from the moment I started using it, I realized the company doubled down on what made last year’s Galaxy Book5 Pro so good, expanding on key features like the battery and design. 

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In that same vein, it also carries over some of the same frustrations I had. Let’s take a look.

Refined (and rehashed)

Aesthetically, the Galaxy Book6 Ultra looks nearly identical to the Galaxy Book5 Pro. The main visual difference is its slightly larger size. It measures 14.05 x 9.76 x 0.6 inches and weighs slightly under four pounds. Even with the extra bulk, it is still a sleek device. Samsung even updated the laptop’s PCB layout to better distribute its weight, allowing it to pass the one-finger lift test with flying colors.

What is identical to the previous generation is the display. Up top, the Galaxy Book6 Ultra has a 16-inch, AMOLED 3K touchscreen. It has the same peak HDR brightness of 1,000 nits, the same adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, and the Corning Gorilla Glass with DXC for added durability. This isn’t a knock against Samsung; the company clearly recognized the display was one of the Galaxy Book5 Pro’s best features, and brought it back.

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The audio system, however, saw more meaningful changes. It has a six-speaker setup, comprised of four force-canceling woofers and a pair of tweeters. The result is crisp, room-filling audio with excellent clarity. Instruments and vocals remain discernible even at higher volume. Distortion is well controlled thanks to the woofer’s unique design.

I do wish the bass output were stronger, however. It’s pretty restrained. Certain music genres, like rap, lose their punch.

I did have a few issues with the laptop’s design. First, I’m not a fan of the wrist rest. The edges are a little sharp, so they tend to poke. It’s nothing deal-breaking, but it can be a little annoying. Similarly, the keyboard is a mixed bag. I found it to be an improvement over what the Galaxy Book5 Pro had; it’s not as mushy, but it still falls short.

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The key travel is shallow, which slows down typing. I wasn’t able to write at my usual speed, and I noticed that I made more mistakes than usual. Below the keyboard is the Galaxy Book’s mega-sized trackpad, taking up a large portion of the wrist rest. 

I thoroughly enjoyed using it and am glad it was carried over from the previous version. Its size and responsiveness work in its favor, ensuring precise navigation.

Panther Lake performance

My review unit of the Galaxy Book6 Ultra packed serious muscle, housing an Intel Core Ultra 7 356H processor, 32GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card. Below, I’ve compared Samsung’s latest flagship against the Asus ProArt P16, the Dell 16 Premium, and the 2026 Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i; three 16-inch laptops that share a similar use case with Samsung’s machine.

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The results are telling: the Galaxy Book6 Ultra with Intel’s Panther Lake processor outperforms both Asus and Dell across the multi-threaded benchmarks. Lenovo’s machine slightly edges it out thanks to slightly stronger hardware. In real-world use, this translates to better overall efficiency, like faster 4K video exports and smoother handling of resource-intensive tasks.

Samsung’s device has a decent single-core score of 2,832. This means that everyday performance will feel fast and fluid. Apps launch quickly, web pages load equally as fast, and the UI feels highly responsive. There are other laptops that beat the Galaxy Book in this area. Apple’s M5 MacBook Pro, for example, has a single-core score of 4,111. However, in this instance, I don’t think this metric makes or breaks its usability. 

The Galaxy Book6 Ultra is primarily a work laptop, and in that sense, it succeeds very well. 2,832 is perfectly acceptable for casual browsing. I don’t think you’ll be missing out on much.

Samsung also gave its Galaxy Book6 Ultra a revamped cooling system. It’s made up of many different components, such as a new outlet fan and heatsink pairing to draw heat from the processor. It also has a bigger inlet grill to improve airflow. Most of the time, the system works very well, and the laptop stays cool to the touch under moderate workloads. When you push the hardware, however, temperatures climb quickly.

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I tested the PC by running multiple AAA video games and the Unigine Superposition benchmark to see how the laptop ran under a heavy workload. All the tests went well, but the keyboard surface did become uncomfortably hot while gaming. Hot enough to where I felt the need to remove my hands from the keyboard. Conversely, for the Superposition test, the laptop got a little warm, but nothing too intense.

Finally, the Galaxy Book6 Ultra boasts impressive endurance. Its 80.2 Wh battery lasted nearly 20 hours on a single charge during testing, falling just short of Samsung’s purported 30-hour claim. Charging speeds were equally good. I saw it hit 65% in about 30 minutes.

ZDNET’s buying advice

You won’t have to wait long to get your hands on the Galaxy Book6 Ultra. Ahead of Unpacked 2026, Samsung announced that every single Galaxy Book6 model will launch in the US on March 11. Prices for the Ultra model start at $2,450.

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While official pricing isn’t available, we can look at the previous model to give ourselves an idea. A Galaxy Book5 Pro with 32GB of RAM currently costs $1,750. Considering all the upgrades, I estimate the Galaxy Book6 Ultra will land around $2,000.

If you’re interested in the laptop, Samsung has a Reserve page where you can sign up for notifications to be alerted when the Galaxy Book6 Ultra, Galaxy Book6 Pro, and the base Galaxy Book6 become available.