Among Samsung’s announcements during it’s January event was a new set of wireless earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Pro.  I was immediately interested in this product, as my previous pair of Galaxy Buds+ had been on their last legs, thanks to the charging case going for a quick 5 minute trip through the washing machine before I remembered they were still in a pants pocket.  Oops.  The earbuds themselves still work fine, but the charging case loses its charge within 24 hours, whether or not the headphones see any use.  Oops again.

So when the financial ability came to replace the those water logged headphones, the Galaxy Buds Pro were at the top of my list.  I’ve had them for about 10 days now, And I’m mostly happy with them.  They are Samsung’s most expensive pair of wireless earbuds, so the question is are they worth it?

Hardware

The physical design of the buds is different than the Galaxy Buds+ and the bean shaped Galaxy Buds Live.  I’ll have more to say on what that means further along, but in terms of design, these look great.  I purchased this fantastic looking “Phantom Violet” colour, and it looks sharp.  I usually go with black for  headphones to be a little less bold, but the purple colour really spoke to me, and I’m not disappointed at all.  The case is a matte purple colour that I’m guessing has the same feels as the matte feel on the Galaxy S21, and does not attract fingerprints at all.  The case is a bit slippery though, and I can’t open it with one hand like I could the Galaxy Buds+.  The case is also very small.  This is easily the smallest wireless earbud case I’ve ever seen, and reminds me a bit of a small ring box.  The small size means it easily fits in my pockets, and I can and do carry them pretty much everywhere with me.

The earbuds themselves have a different shape than prior earbuds from Samsung, and also have the purple colour.  However, the outer portion of the earbud where the touch controls are is a glossy purple that has a mirror like finish. I would have preferred the matte purple colour here, but I think the glossy colour will probably age a bit better, so it’s fine.

Overall, I really do like the design of this set of earbuds.  I think most people will find that Samsung hit a home run here.

Earbud Fit

Talking about how earbuds fit is hard because everyone’s ears are different, but I think the important thing is for people to have the most information they can, and hopefully can find someone who matches their experiences.  That is important here as Samsung has changed the physical design of the earbuds, which does mean that they fit differently than previous Samsung buds.

Now, I’m going to start by saying that after 24 hours of owning these, I really thought I was going to end up returning them.  I found them quite uncomfortable, especially in the left ear.  I ended up taking to the internet looking up fit guides and YouTube videos of others wearing them to see if I could get a fit that worked.

I have ears that don’t always like the fit of earbuds.  I’ve generally found that when I find something that fits me comfortably, I need to stick with them.  This has generally meant headphones that have little wing tips that nestle into the ear to help keep them in place. For years I carried a set of Bose wired headphones as those wing tips were very comfortable and stay in my ear well.  Samsung’s Galaxy Buds line also had wingtips that let me wedge the earbuds in comfortably, and I found I could wear them for several hours before my ears needed a break.

The Galaxy Buds Pro differ from the Galaxy Buds and Buds+ in that they do not fit in with those wing tips.  In fact, Samsung’s new design specifically aims to minimize the surface area of the earbuds that contacts the wearer’s ear.  The company says that will be better for most people, and mean more comfort for a longer period of time.

For me, this has been a problem.  I swear that my left ear has a different shape than my right ear, and because of that this style of earbud doesn’t fit as securely.  For the first day, I was trying to emulate the Galaxy Buds Plus experience by kind of shoving the earbuds into my ears, to the point where after about half an hour my left ear was hurting. It was not good.  After looking at fit guides on YouTube, I found out that yes, I was “wearing them wrong.”  The angle I was kind of shoving them in was not how they were meant to be worn and was the cause of my ear pain.  Essentially, I was putting them in my ears sideways.  After following the fit guide, I can wear the earbuds for a longer period without discomfort, but the fit does not feel as secure in my ears, especially the left.  After trying the smallest ear tip size, I found they would not stay in my ear well, so I did put the medium size  ear tip back in, and have found that to be the best compromise.  I think the medium size is a bit too large for my left ear, but it is necessary to get a good fit.

The headphones don’t’ feel super secure in my ear, but to this point, they haven’t fallen out.  I think this is more just that I need to get used to a different feeling fit in my ears.  For the first few days I was constantly afraid the earbuds were going to just pop out since they weren’t secured with wings into my ear, but so far it has been fine.

My recommendation if you’re someone like me who really prefers headphones with wing tips to help the secure fit is to look at all of the fit guides provided by Samsung and other reviewers, and be prepared to return them if you really can’t find something that’s comfortable.

Earbud Features

So with the biggest caveat out of the way, the feature set of these headphones is impressive, however it does require you to have a Samsung phone to take advantage of all of the features.

The Galaxy Buds Pro have active noise cancellation, which I have found works well.  With ANC on, the headphones completely drown out the sound of typing on my mechanical keyboard, the sound of the furnace in the home, and most of the usual noise.  The ANC is is not perfect, and does not filter out 100% of the outside world, but that comes down to the physical limitation of ANC in earbuds.  My personal gold standard is still Sony’s WH-1000X series of over ear ANC headphones.  That being said, the ANC in the Galaxy Buds Pro is very good, if not best in class.

The headphones also feature an ambient sound mode, which is essentially the opposite of ANC.  Ambient sound uses the microphone to let sound in, letting you hear the outside world while wearing the earbuds.  The Galaxy Buds+ had this feature, and I used it quite a bit.  On the Buds Pro, the feature is much improved, with 4 different settings, from low to very high.  I have kept it on medium or high, and I think long term I’ll probably just keep it on high.  Very high is… too high.  That level of ambient sound is “secretly listen to two people have a conversation from the other side of the coffee shop” high, to the point where I feel like a spy at that setting.

The other big standout feature is something called Voice Detect.  With voice detect on, the earbuds will detect when you start speaking, and will automatically put the earbuds into ambient sound mode if they aren’t already, and lower the volume of any playing media.  The earbuds will revert back to normal after either 5, 10, or 15 seconds, that time is configurable in the app.  The idea of this feature is so you can have a quick conversation without taking the earbuds out.  The theory behind this is great, but I’ve turned it off because I find a couple significant downsides.  Firstly, If you’re someone who likes to talk to yourself, or even hum along to music playing, you’re going to trigger this all the time.  The other is that if you’re trying to have a conversation with voice detect mode on, even at 15 seconds it may not be long enough to hear the other person talking, so you either have the earbuds turn the volume up by themselves, or have to speak, interrupting the other person to keep the volume down.  Great theory, doesn’t work in practice.

Other features of the earbuds include the touch controls, 360 degree audio, and a low latency “gaming mode” designed to help if you find that game or movie audio doesn’t sync up.  The earbuds also feature the ability to read notifications allowed from apps you choose, as well as supporting Samsung’s hands free Bixby voice.  Just some quick thoughts on these features:

·         The touch controls work well enough, but it is frustrating that several versions in Samsung hasn’t figured out a way to let users control both volume and the sound mode and google assistant.  Currently you can either set a long tap on the earbuds to control volume (tap and hold the right bud to increase, tap and hold the left to decrease), or set them so tap and hold one can switch between ambient sound and ANC, and tap and hold the other to get google assistant.  I’ve chosen the ambient sound and google assistant controls, so I can’t control volume from the earbuds themselves.

·         Reading notifications is useful, as long as you limit it to a few apps.  I’ve kept it limited to phone calls and text messages.

·         The rest of the features work only on Samsung phones.  I can’t try 360 degree audio because it requires the One UI 3.1 update that is currently only available on the Galaxy S21 line and the Galaxy Tab S7 line.  Gaming mode for low latency is not something I’ve needed to try, as I don’t have issues with audio sync on video. And Bixby needs to die, so I don’t use Bixby voice.

Battery life and Charging

The earbuds are rated for 5 hours with ANC or ambient sound turned on, and 7 with them turned off.  So far, I’ve not quite gotten to those numbers, I’m getting about 4.5 hours with ANC or ambient on.  That’s a huge decrease from the Galaxy Buds+, which featured an incredible 11 hours of battery life.  I’m never listening for 11 hours straight, but 11 hours does mean that I’d likely never kill the earbud battery in one sitting.  With 4.5 hours of battery life in the earbuds on the Galaxy Buds Pro, there is a chance I could drain them in one sitting, which is not ideal.  But the feature set and better sound is a trade off I think I can live with.  What helps with this is the buds feature a fast charge feature where charging them for 5 minutes gains roughly 1 hour of listening time, charging for 20 minutes netted me 50% battery, and it took just 1 hour to fully charge two dead earbuds in the case.

The charging case itself features enough battery capacity to charge the buds about 2.5 times.  Charging the case is done via USB C or qi wireless charging.  Using USB C, a completely dead case and earbuds can be charged to full in a little over 2 hours.

Sound Quality

This is not an area where I’d claim to be an expert or an audiophile.  I’m not the type of person to tell a lot of nuance between headphones, especially at the high end where they all sound pretty good.  That being said, I really like the sound of these.  Music sounds clear, and not super bass heavy.  You can get a good bass punch using the bass boost equalizer, but under the standard and dynamic eq I find the sound to be very neutral, which I like.  I really do believe that at this price point in earbuds we are hitting the limitations of what the physical speakers can do, and the limits of how good Bluetooth is.

Call Quality and Microphones

I’ve found call quality very good on these headphones, and have had no reports of people on the other end of the call having trouble hearing me.  I haven’t tested this fully, but other reviewers have stated that the Buds Pro do have among the best mics for wireless earbuds, especially at dealing with outside noise.

Pricing

The Galaxy Buds Pro are $265 in Canada, but Samsung is running a trade in deal where you can get the price down to $200 if you trade in another set of headphones.  And the headphones you trade in do not have to be a specific model.  Trade in any old pair of wired headphones, working or not, and you get $65 off the price.  This deal is good until March 1, 2021 so if you were considering getting these headphones, that’s going to be the best way to get them for less money in the short term.  After that deal expires, I do think that these are worth the price of admission, but Samsung does often start to discount headphones after a couple months on the market.  If you miss the headphone trade in deal and can wait a bit, it may be worth looking for sales.

Overall Thoughts and Conclusion

I really like these headphones, except for the fact that they are a worse fit in my ears compared to the Galaxy Buds+.  The trade off in battery life for the feature set has been worth it to me, as well as the other improvements to things like call quality.  After initially struggling to get a good fit, and learning to live with the fact that these won’t fit quite a securely as my older headphones do, I’ve decided I’ll be keeping these headphones long term.  If you have a Samsung phone, these will likely offer the best wireless earbud experience in 2021.  If you have another Android phone, you can get 90% of the features, and they are still a very good buy.  If you’re an iPhone user, these are good, but not for you, as you won’t be able to customize them at all on iOS.

Comparing these to other wireless headphones with active noise cancelling, The Galaxy Buds Pro are the most affordable, even at the full $265 price.  Wireless earbuds with ANC from Jabra, Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser range from $300 to $400.  So while the Galaxy Buds Pro may not have best in class ANC, their price matches that.  These are the best value in the segment.

If you’re someone who doesn’t want or need active noise cancelling or values the longest earbud battery life possible, the Galaxy Buds+ are often on sale for less than $150 and are still a great set of headphones.  If the charging case for mine hadn’t gone for an accidental bath, I’d still be using them, and wouldn’t have upgraded to the Buds Pro.  But if you want a great set of wireless earbuds with active noise cancelling on Android, it’s harder to find a better value proposition than the Galaxy Buds Pro.

That, and the purple colour is fantastic.