There are some desktop and environment changes, but Pop also have a really good power management module that no other distro has, and good compatibility aroung different GPUs combination, and that is a big deal in laptops.

I had some problem in the past with a laptop with Intel GPU + AMD GPU interchangeable graphics in other distros while with Pop is ready to use after installing. AFAIK, those who had Nvidia Optimus and similar Nvidia technologies had a lot more of troubles outside Pop.

I haven't used Ubuntu in ages, so I don't know how those things are actually managed. Probably they aren't far behind.