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If you’re an iPhone user looking for a great pair of truly wireless earbuds the obvious answer is AirPods… But the same hasn’t been true for android users until now. Even though the market is flooded with truly wireless earbuds who’s prices range from $50 dollars to $1,000 dollars, have different features and styles… not many have been able to hit the same dollar to performance ratio found on the AirPods. But I think thats finally changed with Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds.
But first let me explain what I mean by dollar to performance ratio. Let’s take the Sennheiser Momentum true wireless earbuds for example… Over all I really like these earbuds. They sound fantastic, they fit well, they have an ambient sound feature which is very useful, you can watch videos with them cause they don’t have latency issues, their touch pads are very accurate, they look good, and their charging case isn’t that much bigger than the AirPods. But at $300 I personally find it very hard to justify paying that much for a pair of truly wireless earbuds. And if we look at cheaper wireless earbuds that are sub $200, you’ll notice they’re very bulky, they’ll might be specifically geared towards working out, or will suffer from connection issues or have a lot of latency just making them not suitable for watching videos with.
But the Galaxy Buds on the other hand retail for $130 and tick off all the right boxes which make them a no brainier for any android user to pick up. First off theres the fit, the galaxy buds are tiny compared to a lot of other truly wireless earbuds out there. Since they’re so small they’re barely even noticeable when you have them in and since they’re so light weight they never fall out. Now the galaxy buds also come included with a few pairs of ear fins which are supposed to give you a more secure fit, but since even the largest pair of ear fins barely manage to do anything for me I just don’t use them. And personally I don’t mind that the Galaxy Buds don’t come with larger ear fins cause it would have also meant their carrying case would have to be larger to accommodate for the larger ear fins.
And I think that when ever you’re looking into a pair truly wireless earbuds you also have to take their carrying case into heavy consideration cause you’re going to have to carry it around all the time. I think that one the main reasons why AirPods are so popular is because their carrying case is just so small. AirPods still have one of the smallest and best preforming carrying cases out there compared to newer and more expensive options out there. Now even though the Galaxy Buds carrying case is just a little bigger than the AirPods… its still a lot smaller than most other carrying cases out there. Which means the Galaxy Buds are just as easy to carry around with you as AirPods.
But AirPods still significantly out perform the Galaxy Buds when it comes to battery life. The AirPods have an advertised battery life of 25 plus hours of total playback time. The AirPods can go for 5 straight hours and their case can supply an additional 4 or 5 full charges. Where as the galaxy buds have an advertised battery life of 13 hours of total playback time. The Buds themselves can go for 6 straight hours and the case can supply an additional 7 hours of playback time.
Even though the Galaxy Buds are technically lagging behind the AirPods when it comes to battery life… their battery life is technically average compared to a lot of other truly wireless earbuds on the market. Galaxy Buds aren’t lacking, AirPods are just over achievers when it comes to battery life. And for me when my AirPods were new I could go about 5 days in between chargers where as the Galaxy Buds can go about 2 days in between charges.
Now thankfully the Galaxy Buds also have fast charging which a lot of other truly wireless earbuds in this price segment don’t have. If you drop the buds into their charging case from a dead battery for 15 minutes they’ll get you almost 2 hours of playback time. But still fast charging on the Galaxy Buds is still lagging behind the AirPods cause from the same 15 minutes they’ll get you 3 hours of playback time. But the Galaxy Buds give you multiple options to charge their case. If you want you can charge them through their USB-C charging port or you can charge them wirelessly. But the most talked about feature on the Galaxy Buds is being able to charge them with power share on the Galaxy S10. And personally I think this is a great feature to have cause if you’re ever caught with a dead battery you can just charge them up from anywhere.
Another great feature the Galaxy Buds have over the AirPods is an ambient mode. Now an ambient mode or transparency mode is quickly becoming standard on a lot of other truly wireless earbuds and I feel its sorely lacking on the AirPods. But the fact that the Galaxy Buds even has a transparency mode in its price segment is impressive. But most importantly the Galaxy Buds also have a quick ambient mode where if you press and hold on one of the touch pads they’ll lower the volume of your music and pump in all of the ambient sound so you can quickly talk to someone with out having to take your ear buds out. And having an ambient mode in general is super useful because you can still be aware of your surroundings while you’re listening to music. So if you’re walking around in the city you can still hear cars passing by or if you’re sitting in a waiting room you’ll still be able to hear when your name gets called.
And just so you can get a better understanding of what Quick Ambient mode is, heres a demo of quick attention on the Sony 1000xM3’s which is the same as quick ambient mode on the galaxy buds.
But one of the most important features the Galaxy Buds has over other truly wireless earbuds is their wireless connectivity set up. Now the Galaxy Buds have bluetooth 5.0, but more importantly each ear bud establishes a connection with their phone just like AirPods do. So instead of like other truly wireless earbuds that have a master and slave set up where one ear bud is connected to your phone and relays the audio to the other earbud resulting in significant latency when watching videos, phone calls only coming through the master earbud, sporadic connection drops, and or only being able to use a specific earbud if you just want to use one ear bud at a time… Galaxy Buds don’t have any of those issues what so ever. Like I mentioned earlier you can watch youtube videos with them cause they don’t have latency issues like a lot of other truly wireless earbuds do, their connection is just as stable as AirPods, and phone calls come in through both earbuds just like AirPods.
And now lets talk about sound quality on the galaxy buds. To be frank, the sound quality is fine. Its no where near as impressive as the sound quality you would find on the Sennheiser Momentum’s I mentioned earlier, but the Galaxy Buds don’t have a bass heavy sound signature by default to hide the fact that they have very weak mids and clarity like some other truly wireless earbuds do. But the Galaxy Buds get decently loud, they never get tinny, and even though they don’t have a whole lot of bass, its enough to keep you happy. And through Samsung’s Wear app you can also select from a few pre-made eq’s and personally I like to keep mine set to clarity. But in general, since I like to use truly wireless earbuds to mainly listen to podcasts, watch videos and take phone calls… the galaxy buds get the job done just fine.
But finally, I want to highlight the touch pads found on the galaxy buds. One of the biggest draw backs of AirPods and a lot of other truly wireless earbuds is limited on board media controls. If you want to do something simple like play or pause your music, skip a track or adjust the volume you either have to summon your voice assistant and hope they get it right… Siri. Or you gotta take your phone out of your pocket more often. And even though galaxy buds aren’t the first truly wireless earbuds with built in touch pads, they’re one of the most accurate and easiest ones to use. So I can play or pause my music, skip a track, or adjust the volume all without having to take my S10 out of my pocket.
But over all, if you’re an android user in general… the Galaxy Buds are a no brainer. Cause even if you’re not using a Samsung device you can still download Samsung’s Galaxy Wearable app through the play store and get the most out of the galaxy Buds. But if you’re an iPhone user you shouldn’t consider getting the Galaxy Buds over AirPods cause you’re not going to have all of the same features and performance available to you like on android devices. Personally I wouldn’t go comparing the two to one another, Android users just finally have a solid truly wireless earbuds options that perform just as well as AirPods do on an iPhone but that don’t cost an absurd amount of money. And both the AirPods and Galaxy Buds can learn from one another. I would have liked to see the Galaxy Buds have a total battery life of 24 hours like the AirPods, and I would like to see the AirPods get super accurate and easy to use touch controls like on the Galaxy Buds. But whether you’re picking up the AirPods or Galaxy Buds… I still only recommend them for casual use. Cause neither of them sound amazing, they just sound fine. And even though the Galaxy Buds have an IPX2 rating which make them splash resistant, I wouldn’t go soaking them in water or sweat. If you’re looking for a pair of wireless earbuds to work with I would get something like the Jaybird Tarah Pro.