Get up to $100 by reserving Galaxy S23

➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Touchy subject

👉 New displays integrate touch sensors, reducing display thickness by up to 11%
📲 Phones have used OCTA for years, but its use in larger screens was too difficult
💻 Samsung Display says this will go into the next Galaxy Book laptops
🤔 Brief spec mentions by Samsung match those of a previous spec dump leak

The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Book 3 will pick up a key upgrade in the form of an on-cell touch AMOLED (OCTA), a technology that enables touch sensors to be integrated into the display, according to a new report by ZDNet (via The Verge).

This comes courtesy of a Samsung Display press release on January 24 that stated the company is now engaged in mass production of the panels, which it says will go into “some models” of the next Samsung Galaxy Book laptops – presumably the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, and perhaps the Book 3 Pro, as well.

The technology will help slim down touch displays, which without this tech Samsung Display says are 6% to 11% thicker. It also reduces materials needed, to create the displays, as typical laptop touch screens use a plastic film to accomplish the same feat. OCTA display tech was developed by Samsung Display in 2010, but until now it was prohibitively difficult to scale it up beyond the size of a smartphone.

Leaks! Would you believe it?

Laptops equipped with this 120Hz screen will have a 16:10 aspect ratio and 3K resolution, per the release, which falls in line with leaked specifications that hit the internet at MySmartPrice.

Per that leak, other specifications will include a dedicated GPU (Nvidia’s RTX 4070) for the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, 17mm thickness (that’s about 0.66 inches), a 76Whr battery, and a beefy 136-watt power adapter. MySmartPrice alleges the laptop will only be available as a 16-incher.

The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro, per the article, will come in 14- and- 16-inch variants, both with 3K AMOLED displays (probably OCTA, given the Samsung Display press release’s plural use of “models”), but those machines will use Intel Iris XE integrated graphics, rather than the more powerful discrete GPU of the Ultra. They’re expected to measure 11mm and 13mm, respectively, with each getting 65-watt power adapters.

All three machines will reportedly get 13th gen Intel Core H-series processors, starting with an i5-1340P on the Pro models and going up to a Core i9-13900H for the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra.

Galaxy Unpacked

We’ve been expecting to see these laptops, along with the Samsung Galaxy S23 announcement, at the Galaxy Unpacked event taking place on February 1. While we haven’t been following leaks surrounding the Galaxy Book 3 updates quite as closely as, say, the Samsung Galaxy S23 colors, the new laptops are shaping up to be a formidable contender for best laptop, so you can be sure we’ll be giving the new clamshells a close look as soon as we can.

The Shortcut

Samsung Galaxy Book 3 laptop to use…