For decades now, Apple and Samsung have spearheaded consumer technology. Like warring factions, the two have gone back and forth in different areas, with neither able to establish a dominant hold over the market.
Part of that comes down to the product range being equally strong. Sure, there are always going to be those who prefer one or the other, but there has hardly ever been a way to separate iPhones and Samsung phones, for example. Similarly, the Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy watches offer a broadly similar feature set.
One area which hasn't really offered a level playing field, though, is the range of laptops and computers. Historically, MacBook's and iMac's have offered a much higher spec and level of integration with other Apple products, than their Samsung equivalents.
That could be partly down to their operating system. Apple computers use their own operating system, meaning they have absolute control over all aspects of their integration. Because Samsung laptops use Windows, they've never been able to have a similar level of integration, in such a seamless way.
All that seems to have changed recently though. The Samsung Galaxy Book line has been around for a while now, offering direct, like-for-like competition to the MacBook. And now, with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, the range finally has a device with a spec capable of competing with the MacBook Pro 16-inch.
I can't oversell just how important that could be for Samsung. As a fairly recent Apple convert, one of the main things I wanted over was a more seamless experience, with devices that worked together well. Because my laptop was the most important piece of the puzzle for me, Apple won.
But now, thanks to a spec that tops out at the 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, the MacBook finally has a worthy opponent. It's too soon to tell whether that will be enough to topple the Apple Silicon chips, which have proved so fruitful in recent years. But it looks like Samsung's best shot at doing so.
