Review – Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro: The Second Time is the Charm

When Samsung launched the Galaxy Buds Live last year, people made fun of it and it is not hard to understand why. The shape is unconventional and any has questioned the actual reason behind such a drastic design choice – The Galaxy Buds Live looks exactly like a pair of kidneys. Truth be told, I don’t really mind if the design is supported by actual reasoning, for example, improving the acoustic performance or even comfort.

Sadly, the Galaxy Buds Live is nothing but a pair of failed TWS earbuds innovation. Sure, they sound decent by themselves but ultimately, the lack of a proper seal around the earbuds makes it the worst active noise-cancelling TWS earbuds I have ever tested. Especially after you paid RM699 for that. This year, alongside the Samsung Galaxy S21 family, Samsung has announced the brand-new Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro

The Galaxy Buds Pro now looks just like any normal TWS earbuds with the silicon ear tip and that’s perfectly alright. Sometimes you don’t have to try so hard to impress otherwise things might backfire just like how the Buds Live experienced.

Samsung is offering 3 colour options for the Buds Pro – Violet, Black and Silver. Besides, if you haven’t noticed, the case itself is basically remodelled from Buds Live’s case. While I appreciate that they moved on with the matte colour scheme for the case, still, the earbuds are using the fingerprint magnet gloss/metallic finish. Generally, a glossy surface is more slippery and you don’t want to drop the buds while trying to wear or take it off.

I’m very satisfied with the wearing comfort of the Buds Pro and it goes to show how tried and tested conventional silicon tip is still the best option for earbuds. I know some of my friends actually has this sort of phobia where they scared of poking things into their ear canal, perhaps they are the reason why the AirPods exist in the first place.

Galaxy Wearable App & User Experience

Out of the box, you can straight away pair it with your phone and start enjoying music with it. On the other hand, Samsung also offers a modern solution which is the Samsung Galaxy Wearable management app. This Android exclusive app will unlock all the Buds Pro’s best features – Samsung’s proprietary Scalable Audio which enables UHQ audio streaming over Bluetooth, Game Mode, SmartThings Finder, multi-mic recording and more.

It is worth mentioning that even though the Game Mode is still in the experimental stage, turning it on did improve slightly on the audio delay which is crucial when you’re gaming.

Unfortunately not everything fine and dandy and I think Samsung still need to work on the default functionalities further, for example, the switch noise control is only available between ANC and Ambient sound mode, there’s no way for me to turn off both of them through the touch control unless I go into the app and manually turn it off.

While equaliser presets are easy to use especially for non-tech-savvy users, but I would appreciate if Samsung at least offers an option for users to customise.

Active Noise Cancelling

Now, let’s put things into perspective. The Galaxy Buds Pro is a product that directly competes against the Apple AirPods Pro, Sony WF-1000XM3 or anything equivalent. Basically a pair of high-performance TWS earbuds with the active noise cancellation feature. For some of you who has never known about active noise cancellation, this is a function whereby the earphone will detect your surrounding noise, analyzes the soundwave and applies a layer of opposite soundwave to cancel the noise.

All that said, how does the ANC perform in real life? Unsurprisingly, thanks to the use of silicone ear tips, the ANC now works wonder. The proper seal in the ear canal manages to isolate the external noise which allows the ANC to cancel the white noise. However, you need to understand what ANC works well which is filtering white noise, not any random noise.

In the Galaxy Wearables app, you have the option to tune the ANC level between “low” or “high”. Personally, I can’t really tell the difference between the two levels but it is always good to offer options especially for users who are sensitive to it. What’s new in the Buds Pro is the “Voice Detect” function whereby the Bud will automatically change to the ambient sound mode when it detects you speaking. It works just as designed and it will help you to control your volume when talking to someone else without having to remove the buds.

By default, the Galaxy Buds Pro has amazing sound quality. The treble and bass are well defined while the vocals are just about right. Bass-heads might be disappointed because this earbud is definitely not your regular Beats earphones. While I did try to adjust the equaliser in the Galaxy Wearable app, frankly speaking, they hardly made any difference to the final sound output. At the end of the day, I would still rely on my music player’s equaliser while leaving the app’s settings at normal. 

Battery Life

A single full charge on the buds can provide about 7-8 hours of music playback with ANC turned off. If you use it with ANC, then the battery life would max out at 5 hours. The Buds Pro case’s built-in battery can provide another 2 full charges to the Buds so theoretically you have about 21-24 hours of battery life.

Should you buy the Galaxy Buds Pro?

Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro
SRP: RM799

At the official retail price of RM799, the Galaxy Buds Pro is considered premium TWS earbuds which some of you might also be comparing against the Sony WF-1000XM3.

If you own a Samsung phone, hands down the Buds Pro is the best TWS option available right now. The companion app got the basic features to work really well between the phone and the buds. The sound quality is amazing and most importantly they got the ANC working well now. Other Android users will still be able to extract most of the features out of it since the Galaxy Wearable app is downloadable from the Play Store, just don’t expect the proprietary scalable audio to work on it. Don’t worry though, it is not like the earbud is relying solely on that technology, you will still get great sound quality out of it.