Galaxy Buds Pro review: Samsung's best yet

Samsung launched the Galaxy Buds Pro along with the Galaxy S21 series earlier this year. It’s the company’s latest TWS carrying a price tag of ₹15,990. With the Galaxy Buds Pro, Samsung seems to have finally done things right. 

The Galaxy Buds Live offered an interesting experience but the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) was disappointing, while the Galaxy Buds didn’t feel like a complete product. The Galaxy Buds Pro is definitely Samsung’s best TWS yet but how does it fare overall? We find out in our review.

Design

The Galaxy Buds Pro looks far different from the Galaxy Buds Live which had the much-talked about bean-like design. It's more like the Galaxy Buds+ but with a slightly different design. The Galaxy Buds Pro case is the same as the Galaxy Buds Live’s though which is a tiny box you can easily fit into your pocket and bag. The Galaxy Buds Pro also features a glossy finish in three colour options of black, purple and silver.

The wireless earbuds look a little bulky when you wear them, something we faced with the first Galaxy Buds as well. When it comes to its fit, the earbuds do stick inside quite well even when you’re moving about. They do tend to loosen up a little after some time so you’ll have to adjust it every now and then. Samsung provides three differently sized ear tips to choose from.

Connectivity

Connecting the Galaxy Buds Pro to a Samsung phone is a seamless process. It’ll automatically prompt you to connect to the earbuds even when your Bluetooth is turned off. The Galaxy Buds Pro also connects quite easily with Windows 10 laptops. It works with iOS as well but there’s no app for the Galaxy Buds Pro yet so you miss out on options to customise the earbuds.

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Touch controls

The touch response on the earbuds is very impressive. You can also change the touch controls to either switch noise controls, Bixby, volume up/down and select Spotify. This is possible on the Galaxy Wearable app available for Android. There are many other customisation options available on this app which you sadly can’t access if you have an iPhone.

ANC

ANC on the Galaxy Buds Pro is another impressive feature of the TWS. The in-canal fit of the earbuds added to the technology makes this work better than expected. They do a good job at blocking noise in loud places like markets. It’s a huge improvement from the ANC we experienced on the Buds Live. And you can always switch to ambient mode or turn off ANC completely.

Performance

Probably one of my most favourite things about the Galaxy Buds Pro is how loud they are. And this isn’t the case only with a Samsung device, like the Galaxy S21+ we had. We tested it out with the iPhone 11 as well where we didn’t have to crank up the volume more than half. But with no customisation control on iOS, the experience does seem lacking.

The Galaxy Buds Pro adjusts well according to the type of song you play. We spent most of the time shuffling between different tracks like Khruangbin and Leon Bridges’ Texas Sun, NCT U’s 90s Love, The Weeknd’s Save Your Tears, and Lindisfarne’s Meet Me On The Corner. We did end up using the bass boost a lot since it seemed a little lacking but that was a personal preference.

When it comes to battery life, Samsung claims the Galaxy Buds Pro can give 5 hours of play time and 13 more hours with the case. With ANC turned off, the Galaxy Buds Pro should last a total of 28 hours. In our case, ANC was turned on pretty much the entire time, and the Galaxy Buds Pro lasted for around 4.5 hours.

Verdict

With the Galaxy Buds Pro, Samsung has surely gotten a lot of things right. If you’re an Android user, and you’re looking for a premium pair of wireless earbuds, then you can definitely go for the Galaxy Buds Pro. We wouldn’t highly recommend it to iOS users since there’s no companion app.