Name: Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Series 3 Have a New Look You May or May Not Like
Uploaded: 2024-07-11T05:04:09.000Z
Duration: 4 min 32 s
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Samsung has just announced two new earbuds: the Galaxy Buds 3 and the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro.

And lo and behold, they have stems just like Apple's AirPods, which is a little surprising. Now, I haven't had a chance to evaluate them yet with proper listening and performance tests, so this isn't a full review.

But I do have some early impressions on their design and lots of features and specs to talk about.

Let's get right into it. I'll start with the Galaxy Buds 3, available in white or silver.

They cost $180 and are open earbuds like the standard AirPods, though Samsung says they do have some active noise cancelling.

The company's earlier open earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Live, also had some active noise cancelling.

However, it didn't do much because ANC typically doesn't work well with open earbuds, and I'm not expecting the noise cancelling to be all that effective with the Buds 3. Like the AirPods, these are designed for people who don't like having eartips jammed in their ears and prefer to hear the outside world.

I did try them on, and they're lightweight and comfortable and fit my ears a little more securely than the AirPods 3. Both of these new models have pinch controls like the latest AirPods, along with swipe controls to adjust volume levels. The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are Samsung's new flagship earbuds, priced at $250.

They also come in white and silver but have a few key differences from the Galaxy Buds 3.

First and foremost, they're noise-isolating buds and include a set of small, medium, and large eartips to choose from.

They also have active noise cancelling, and it seems quite good, at least based on the very limited time I had the Buds in my ears. While the Galaxy Buds 3 have a single 11mm dynamic driver, the Buds 3 Pro have a 10mm dynamic driver, along with a separate planner tweeter, which should help deliver clearer and better-sounding highs.

Samsung also says the Buds 3 Pro have dual amps, which helps reduce wireless hiccups. Another extra feature the Buds 3 Pro have are lights in their stems.

They let you know when the buds are in pairing mode, and they flash when you use the Find My feature as the buds make a chirping noise.

You can also just activate the lights by pinching and holding each bud for a few seconds and wear the buds around with the lights on if that's your thing. The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro worked well for calls, and I suspect both these models will offer good voice calling performance.

They have three microphones in each bud, along with a voice pickup unit.

Earbuds with a stem design do get the microphones a little closer to your mouth, so that should also help with voice calling. Both new buds are equipped with Bluetooth 5.4 and are IP57 water and dust resistant.

They're not fully waterproof but can withstand a sustained spray of water. Battery life for the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro is rated up to 7 hours with noise cancelling off and 6 hours with it on.

The Galaxy Buds 3 are rated for up to 6 hours with ANC off and 5 hours with it on. The charging case does have wireless charging, as well as a dedicated button for Bluetooth pairing, so you can pair the buds more easily with a variety of Bluetooth audio devices.

They do feature automatic pairing and audio switching with Galaxy devices.

That's another way of saying they have multi-point Bluetooth pairing for Galaxy devices. As far as other special features for Galaxy smartphone users go, the Buds support Samsung's seamless codec that Samsung says is now capable of delivering 24-bit, 96 kHz, high-resolution streams with an HD music stream service like Qobuz or Tidal.

The Buds' default audio codec is AAC, which tends to sound just fine. As I said, this is just a quick first look at the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro, and I'll have lots more to talk about in my upcoming full review, including sound quality, performance comparisons to the AirPods Pro 2, and other top true wireless earbuds. I know some of you might be a little disappointed that Samsung sort of gave in a bit and followed Apple's design lead, but I personally prefer earbuds with stems, and I do think it makes some sense to move to this design, even if it does seem like a cop-out to go with the herd, so to speak. From what Samsung has told me, they simply found from their testing that this design worked best for the most people, and at the end of the day, you don't want people returning your products because they don't quite fit right. But let me know what you think about these earbuds' designs in the comments section below.

If you found this video informative at all, hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. I'm David Karni for CNET.com.

 Thanks for watching, and check back for my full reviews of the Galaxy Buds 3 series in the coming days.