Our Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro make up for an inoffensive and tame design by offering some brilliant audio quality and an excellent call experience. While the ANC is lacking, the flagship earbuds from Samsung are worth buying if you own an Android phone.

Reasons to buy

Amazing audio quality
Great call experience
Decent battery life

Reasons to avoid

ANC isn't as good as competitors
Design is fairly boring

It’s quite unfortunate that the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are plainly boring. While the last generation of Pro earbuds from the major tech company delivered an interestingly small form factor and a unique clamshell case, the new ones feel starkly familiar, like Apple’s AirPods and the countless copycats.

A stemmed design leaves little to be excited about with this pair of accessories, at least externally. However, thanks to fantastic sound quality, a great call experience, and decent noise cancellation, Samsung’s buds are still some of the best on the market, especially when paired with some of the best Android phones.

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Specs
Price
Design
Performance
Verdict

Specs


Earbud type	Wireless earbuds
Bluetooth	5.4
Active-noise cancellation	Yes
Spatial audio	Yes
Battery life	6 hours (music, ANC on), up to 26 hours with case
Colors	Silver, White
Earbud weight	5.4g per earbud
Case weight	46.5g

Price and Availability

You can get the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro for $249.99 / £219.99 from the Samsung store or for less via other major retailers, such as Amazon, Best Buy, and more. You can also take advantage of Samsung’s trade-in offers to get the buds even cheaper, and they’ll likely be a part of future promotions when Samsung sells new smartphones.

This is around the same retail price as Apple’s flagship offering, the AirPods Pro 2, and considering the features are fairly similar, I feel like it’s a fair cost. Admittedly, I wish Samsung would have undercut Apple with the Buds 3 Pro, but the brand’s trade-in and promotional offers typically do that anyway.

Design

While the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro’s case delivers a futuristic design, with a transparent roof that entices you to open it up and enjoy listening to music, I can’t be as kind with the earbuds themselves. There’s nothing truly wrong with them, but they’re inoffensively tame, offering a familiar design that the market has seen since the AirPods first released back in 2016.

The stem does make for more comfortable touch controls, allowing you to press a small button as opposed to relying on the device’s sensitivity (or sometimes, lack thereof), much like the AirPods Pro 2. However, the sharp build of the stem is a gamble on whether it feels comfortable to press. Sometimes it’s easier than Apple’s Pro offering, but sometimes it’s more tedious.

A small touch that completes the futuristic look is the color-coded left and right earbuds that match their placement in the case. Instead of having letters ruining the exciting feeling of new technology, blue and orange labels invite you to pop your earbuds in their respective slots, even if the square-like build of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro means that you can’t simply slide them in and move them around to charge as you can with AirPods.

Performance

It’s frustrating that the design of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro annoys me more than I’d hoped, especially since the naming convention is equally tedious. However, I have to give a round of applause for the sound design, which is as absolutely incredible as I would want from a set of next-generation Galaxy Buds.

There’s a great focus on treble, with a nice bass and great mids. The music sounds full and lively, and when I listen closely, it feels like I can hear notes from my favorite songs that I hadn’t heard on other earbuds. With features like 360 Audio (as long as you’re using a Samsung phone), you can even experience songs that support it with the feeling of being at your own personal concert, but it’s a feature that I rarely use.

Equally, the battery life was also impressive. Despite frequent runs to my local shop, my daily walks, or just listening in the comfort of my home, I racked up over 20 hours in one week, and that meant I just had to charge my case and earbuds once every seven days. This may not be the best battery life on the market, but I found myself charging them a lot less often than my pair of AirPods Pro 2.

Unfortunately, the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) isn’t as impressive. It certainly drowns out some everyday noises, allowing you to immerse yourself in your favorite tracks with ease, but Apple’s AirPods Pro 2, as well as Bose’s Ultra line of earbuds and headphones, do a much better job than Samsung’s flagship earbuds.

However, it’s not all bad, as taking calls with the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro is very good. It’s not a major selling point for me, but I was able to hear the other person with a decent amount of clarity, and according to my family, I sounded pretty clear. At least, there weren’t too many questions like “What did you say?” or “Can you repeat that?” during my time using them.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are fantastic but painfully boring. The revamped design is inoffensive and an imitation of many earbuds on the market, but it’s hiding some excellent hardware that offers great audio quality whether you play music or take calls. Better still, the price isn’t too hard to swallow. I just wish that Samsung imitated the circular stem as well.

Alternatives

If you’re not a big fan of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, check out some of the alternatives available:

Bose Ultra Open Earbuds

While they’re pricier than the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds offer the same fantastic audio quality, with better ANC and a mobile app on both iPhone and Android smartphones. Bonus points here if you prefer the small pod design of the previous Galaxy Buds Pro, as the Bose earbuds are equally small in form.