How Pro are the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro? | Unboxing & Full Review |

Hey guys! In this review, I will be giving you my unboxing and my full review of the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro. And also, to answer your question on how Pro are these earbuds to help you make a purchase decision.

Unboxing

Starting from the unboxing, the box comes in black, with Galaxy Buds Pro on top, the visuals of buds in the middle and the brand down below.

Then at the back, there are some of the specs mentioned over there.

Opening the box reveals a smaller black leaflet, where on the outside there are the instructions on how to fit the earbuds in and the quick start guide.

Down below, there is a smaller black box which contains the USB-A to USB-C cable, and the extra ear tips.

Build Quality

First, let’s look at the build quality.

Charging Case

Looking at the charging case itself, it has the same form factor as the Buds Live which I liked with a plastic clamshell build, compact form factor and the matte finish makes this a very complimentary accessory of the Phantom Black version of the S21 Ultra in terms of aesthetics alone.

Now besides being aesthetically nice, I always preferred matte finish cases as it has less tendency to be slippery compared to glossy ones.

Then charging the case is charged through a USB-C port at the back and of course to charge the earbuds at the same time.

Opening the charging case didn’t feel like it “cheap” as you will need to put just a little more force into it, which was nice as it avoids situations where the cover might open up by itself.

I also liked how the case closes quite strong where you don’t have to force close it, where a single touch would do.

Then the magnets that connect with the charging pin is quite strong, so it won’t come off even when it turned upside down, compared to the Buds Live where there were times where it could come off, especially if it is not placed perfectly, so this was a huge plus.

Earbuds

Then as for the earbuds itself, it is made out of plastic to keep the earbuds nice and light which also has a matte finish. But it is a glossy back which at first I was a bit worried if it would be slippery as mentioned earlier, but since the inner parts of the earbuds had a matte finish it wasn’t an issue at all.

There is also the pressure vent, to ensure to relieve the pressure when the earbuds are in your ears to maintain a comfortable wearing.

The Buds Pro is also IPX7 water-resistant, so no issues using it during a slight rainy situation or during working out as well. The overall fitting of the earbuds with the other smaller sized ear tips fitted in nice and easy, so please make sure that you get the right size of the ear tips or you won’t get the best experience when it comes to fitting, audio and the ANC (Active Noise Cancelling) as well.

And speaking of the fitting, I found that the buds rest at the bottom of the ears compared to where it rested on top for the Buds Live and yes, as usual here is my #SawanModeTest.

Pairing

So, the initial pairing process is super simple and it has Bluetooth 5.0 and it is compatible with both Android and iOS devices, where it will immediately go into pairing mode as soon as you open the charging case, even before taking the earbuds out, which was sweet.

Then, in the future, it pairs to your phone immediately.

Now just in case, you want to pair the earbuds to maybe another phone, your PC or laptop, just press and hold the button in the middle on both earbuds for about 3 seconds to initiate pairing.

Based on my test, using these earbuds were totally fine on an iOS device or a Mac, but you won’t get that seamless pairing like how it can do between Samsung devices with the seamless auto-switching, sharing the audio with another Buds user and there is no 360 sound or read out messages, more on that later, but just as true wireless earbuds it works very well with those devices.

Playback Controls

As for the playback controls, it is all done by pressing the button on the earbuds where these touch controls work for music and call mode.

So under a music playback:

First, clicking once play and pauses the track on either side.
Pressing any of the earbuds twice goes to the next track.
And three times goes to the previous track again.

And you can map the volume controls to put it as a touch and hold feature where on the right increases the volume and on left decreases it.

Then looking at the control options:

When on a phone call, to answer a call, double-tap the earbuds.
To decline a call, touch and hold the touchpad.
And to end the call, double-tap the touchpad again

Sound Quality

Let’s now talk about the overall sound quality.

This Galaxy Buds Pro has two speakers, which is super nice to know where one is an 11mm woofer and the other is a 6.5mm tweeter where the overall audio quality was truly amazing.

Now, this dual driver surely gives a deep rich bass and clean sound, especially for rock or metal genre of music as I felt that most earbuds, even the “premium” earbuds, do exceptionally well on Pop, EDM music and sometimes Jazz, they usually fall short when it comes to rock or metal and this was not the case as every single instrument were heard and the same could be said of the sound sampling for other genres as well.

I am also happy to note that there was no latency when watching videos on YouTube and watching Netflix. Watching movies was really good, where usually earbuds in general always tend to favour music listening as their priority so it’s nice that this has an amazing sound, especially when it comes to Dolby Atmos content on Nextflix or any other streaming platforms.

This earbud comes with a Gaming mode, which was great while playing games but as usual, I would not recommend using wireless earbuds during highly competitive gameplay but it is totally fine if you are just a casual gamer like me.

Active Noise Cancellation

The Active Noise Cancellation or ANC is good, definitely better than the Buds Live where I did see a huge difference especially on the lower hums and more of some annoying constant sound like a squeaky fan in the surrounding area that you are in, but where I really notice the ANC was when I was playing music, where the music totally blocked out the background noise and everything felt like I was in a quiet room and just listening to music directly into my ears.

Where I also saw huge improvements is when the Ambient Mode is turned on, everything around you seems to really amplify the sound, as opposed to the regular “yeah, I can hear my surrounding”, it really sounded very loud.

The Voice Detect feature does work very well for situations where when I was in the lift, I said “after you” when the lift doors were open to let the person out first and it immediately changed to the ambient mode to really amplify the sound. You can choose to go back to your music listening or ANC after 5, 10 or 15 seconds in the Galaxy Wearables App but there were situations where it didn’t work.

Now speaking of the App, diving deeper into the app other than the battery indication you can adjust additional settings, such as triggering the Noise Controls between Active Noise Cancelling, turning it off and Ambient Sound.

You can also adjust the ANC level between High and Low.

Down there you will find the toggle of the Voice Detect and the duration set as mentioned earlier.

Next, there is the touch and hold features, where I left it to volume controls. Then there are EQ Adjustments and Reading out notification aloud.

Next, there are the advanced options like 360 audio, where it’s like the Spatial Audio technology or Dolby Head tracking. For example, if you are watching videos on the S21 series or any One UI Version 3.1 device, if you move your head, the audio will be changing its direction to where your phone is, which was really nice as I found it quite addicting.

And I think it’s very nice that there is hearing enhancement options to give more balance on the right or the left for some people who have hearing problems on either side.

Then there is the toggle for gaming mode, the Find My Earbuds feature and other general options as well.

Microphone Quality

Next, looking at the call quality on the microphones. Firstly, it has three microphones – two outer and one inner microphone, where the microphone quality was really good during phone calls and video calls.

There is additional noise reduction for both sides, there is also a Windshield Technology Audio, where it was NOT a fancy name as it REALLY worked very well during a windy situation since there is a Mic Mesh and chamber to reduce wind sounds and even a noisier environment noise simulation test.

(Check out my video review for the microphone test!)

Battery

As for the battery, I got about 4 hours and 45 minutes and with the charging case I got about 17+ hours. A 5-minute quick charge can get you up to an hour of playback with ANC turned off but about 30 mins plus with ANC turned on.

There is also wireless charging, which you could also use the Wireless PowerShare feature on your Galaxy phones which supports that.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Samsung has given yet another improvement to really make a really Pro earbuds with a lot of thought in mind to include many great features.

My biggest takeaway on these earbuds on how well the audio quality was compared to many premium earbuds that I have used, there was no battery anxiety, noise cancellation was very justified compared to the Buds Live, microphone quality is truly amazing as well and it’s nice to see that all of this comes with a rather great price of only RM799.