Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro review: Just amazing
Samsung had done a wonderful job with the 2020-series Galaxy Buds+. It excelled in delivering long battery life and most importantly the offers impressive sound quality.
Now, the successor Galaxy Buds Pro True wireless Stereo (TWS) earphones come with a new design, Artificial Intelligence-powered sensor, 360-degree sound delivery, an Intelligent Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) control, and Ambient Sound mode and improved durability.
I have been using Samsung's latest earbuds for quite some time and here are my thoughts.
Design and build quality:
Samsung Galaxy Buds come with a completely different design compared to the Kidney Bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live. Samsung's new earbuds has in-ear design with silicone eartips (Samsung offers extra two pair of tips with the box) that snugs into the ear easily and stay put firmly.
Each earbud comes with a pogo pin for charing and besides them, there are a couple of sensors, which will automatically sense the user has removed the earbuds and stops playing the music.
Also, you will find the Air vent on the inner side. There is a smaller mesh with a mic on the outside along with a voice pick-up sensor (it enables a special feature; more on that later). Inside, each earbud house 2-way speakers tuned by AKG's proprietary sound system with an 11mm driver delivers heavy bass and 6.5mm tweeter.
Furthermore, it houses an inner mic in addition to a dual-mic array to offer superior beamforming performance and High SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) Mic to pick up user's voice clearly and this helps the person on the other side of the call get audile feed accurately with less distortion.
Also, the outer panel is touch-sensitive. Deep pressing it will activate the ANC. A single tap will let you answer call or pause music. Double-tap will take you to the next track and the triple tap will take you back to the previous song. For volume, you have to
All TWS earphones bring out anxiety in me while traveling or jogging. I fear losing them in the busy street; I had similar apprehension with the Galaxy Buds Pro and now, I am happy to note, it fits wonderfully into my ears and never got dislodged even while doing the toughest Yoga pose (chakrasana and Shirasana). Also, I travelled on pothole-ridden roads via bus in Bengaluru and not even once, it fell off my ears.
Having said that, I still suggest not to use them in a low-lit environment like a crowded pub. With Covid-19 still prevalent, it's better to not venture to such places anyway. It's better to wait till the pandemic is under control and all get vaccinated.
Also, the Galaxy Buds Pro comes with an IPX7 rating meaning it can sustain heavy sweating during working out at the gym or jogging.
The earbuds come with a cute compact case with a Type-C port and a charging cable along with a retail box.
As far as the colour options are concerned, the Galaxy Buds Pro case comes in three shades-- Phantom Black, Phantom Silver, and Phantom Violet--, which match perfectly with the colourful Samsung Galaxy S21 series collection.
Over review unit is a Phantom Silver model. It has silver and a tinge of blue. The case looks beautiful as a small jewelry box in the sunlight. The earbuds, however, sport a dual-tone colourway with a chromium-hued top-panel and the rest of the body is the same as the case colour.
Performance and Interface:
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro can be paired with Android manually via Bluetooth or else with the Galaxy Wearable app to get more functionality through custom settings for the touch-sensitive outer panel of the earbuds.
On the other hand, Apple iPhones can only be paired manually via Bluetooth and users can long-press the earbud's top panel on either side to activate ANC. You can control tracks with double (play next track/answer calls) and triple taps (play the previous song).
Another interesting thing is the AI-based sensor; this is the voice-pickup sensor present on the outside, I mentioned earlier in the design description. which an intuitive know the owner is speaking with a person up close and automatically turn off the ANC feature to ambient to let the audio pass through the vents of the Galaxy Buds Pro. It works really well. Two thumbs up to Samsung engineers for making this feature work flawlessly in the first attempt.
I had a great time listening to music on the Galaxy Buds Pro. With support for Dolby Atmos, it was able to deliver crisp sound quality be it the Carnatic or hip-hop genre; the background acoustics and the singer's voice were clearly audible without much distortion even at high volume.
It is said to have an intelligent motion-tracking sensor and it can pinpoint the direction of the sound as the user move his/her head.
Also, the ANC feature works fantastic while working in the office or while eating in the canteen with people talking loudly. It also works fine on a metro train, but while travelling on a bus, it works to an extent if there is no traffic jam. But, when stuck in one, the Galaxy Buds Pro tried its best to do its job up to 90% in terms of blocking the blaring horns in the background. Having said that, this is just good enough than any other top-end rival earbuds in the market.
Most importantly, the audio call quality on Galaxy Buds Pro is really good. The person on the other side was able to clearly hear my words without any distortion.
Also, if you own a Samsung Galaxy tablet, Galaxy Buds Pro can automatically switch pairing between two devices. When he/she start to watch a movie on a tab, it connects to the latter. When the user receives a call, it again pairs with the phone in a jiffy.
As far as the battery life is concerned, the Galaxy Buds Pro is said to offer eight hours under normal mode and five hours with ANC activated. In practice, it did live up to my expectations. During the testing session, I used the Galaxy Buds Pro at 100% battery for an online product briefing for about an hour, and rest spent my time listening to music all the while ANC activated.
At the end of two and a half hours session, it was left with a 57-percent battery. It's pretty good and shows, it can fully run through a multiple (three) online meeting (average of 60 minutes each) without having anxiety of running out of battery.
Also, with the fully-charged case, it can bump up the battery life by 13 more hours. The interesting thing to note is that the Galaxy Buds Pro can power up fast. Just five minutes of charging is enough for Samsung's new earbuds to deliver up to one hour of listening time.
The Galaxy Buds Pro also can wirelessly charged. Premium Samsung Galaxy S/Note series owners can powerup the Galaxy Buds Pro by just placing it on the back of the phone.
One qualm, we have to install the SmartThings app just so if the Galaxy Buds Pro gets lost in the home or between the furniture or the bed, you can make them beep sound to locate the lost earbud. It would have been great if Samsung had integrated this with the Galaxy Wearable app.
Final thoughts
Samsung has done a wonderful with the ANC feature. But, the most impressive is the auto voice detection that enables ambient sound mode from ANC so that user can have a normal conversation with people in front of them. The battery life lives up to the hype the company claims to be.
Over-all, it is one of the best TWS earbuds for Android phones. The Galaxy Wearable app offers options to adjust Galaxy Buds settings; it is best optimised particularly for Galaxy devices, and to some extent with Android phones, but not for iOS devices.
I don't think Samsung should be apologetic to iPhone/iPad users, as Apple doesn't show the same courtesy for Android fans or Galaxy phones with AirPods Pro.
Get the latest news on new launches, gadget reviews, apps, cybersecurity, and more on personal technology only on DH Tech.
Deccan Herald is on WhatsApp Channels| Join now for Breaking News & Editor's Picks