Samsung has unveiled its brand-new flagship wireless earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. They not only have a brand-new design but also improve in almost every regard, including audio quality, voice call clarity, active noise cancellation (ANC), battery life, controls, and customization.
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro team up with the Galaxy Buds 3 to form a formidable lineup for Samsung.
Galaxy Buds 3 Pro have stems for improved audio and controls
For years, Samsung stuck with a stemless design for its wireless earbuds. However, the company has finally given in and opted for the stem design for the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro.
These stems bring several advantages, including room for a bigger battery, improved call quality, more reliable controls, and even some bling.
The earbuds have LED light strips called ‘Blade Lights.' These light strips activate to display the battery level and when you want to find your earbuds in the night. You can watch it in action in our hands-on video below.
Improved audio quality with new dual-driver setup and SSC UHQ codec
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro's audio quality has been improved compared to its predecessor, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, with the combination of a new dual-driver audio setup, dual amplifiers, and a higher-quality audio codec. The earbuds have six microphones and an IP57 rating for dust and water resistance.
These wireless earbuds feature two drivers: a 10.5mm dynamic driver and a 6.1mm planar driver. This is an improvement over the 10mm woofer + 5.3mm tweeter setup on the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.
This is the first time Samsung has used planar drivers in its wireless earbuds. Planar drivers are generally associated with a more accurate representation of vocals and high-frequency sounds and a wider soundstage.
The use of a separate amplifier for each driver results in more controlled audio. Samsung has also introduced a new audio codec called Samsung Seamless Codec Ultra High Quality (SSC UHQ). It offers 24-bit 96KHz audio transmission, which is near lossless, similar to aptX Lossless and LDAC codecs.
Adaptive EQ, Custom EQ
Samsung is finally offering a custom equalizer so that you can tune audio according to your preferences. Till the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, the Galaxy Wearable app only offered five preset equalizer options.
The company is also offering an adaptive equalizer that changes the audio tuning according to the music genre you are listening to.
Galaxy AI improves ANC
Besides Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro also has Adaptive ANC, which monitors outside noise continuously and tunes the ANC and Ambient Sound strengths accordingly.
The Siren Detect and Voice Detect features detect things like emergency sirens nearby and voices of people directly in front of you to let those sounds pass through, letting you stay aware of important things happening around you.
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro feature Galaxy AI. One of its AI features is the ability to support the Interpreter Mode on Galaxy phones or tablets. You can listen to translated audio directly on your earbuds. The Adaptive ANC and Adaptive EQ features are also powered by Galaxy AI.
Call quality has also improved
One area where Galaxy Buds could never match AirPods was call audio quality. With the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, Samsung seems to have worked on that shortcoming.
Its stem design allows the microphones to be closer to your mouth, recording your voice more clearly. The company also uses Super-Wideband (SW) Call, which records audio in a wider voice bandwidth of around 16KHz.
The company is also using AI to restore your voice in noisy environments. All these features should help improve call quality and bring it on par with AirPods.
Galaxy Buds 3 Pro has Bluetooth 5.4 with LE Audio and Auracast
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro features Bluetooth 5.4 for a more secure wireless connection. The earbuds also feature Bluetooth LE Audio with LC3 codecs and Auracast, letting you create wireless audio casts that others can join or join audio casts created by others.
With the Buds Auto Switch feature, the earbuds can switch automatically between your Galaxy laptop, smartphone, or tablet, depending on which device you are actively using.
The earbuds can be found using the Samsung Find app, but sadly, there is no loudspeaker in the earbuds case (as seen on the new AirPods Pro).
Better controls with pinch and swipe gestures
Now, let us talk about one of the big advantages of moving to a stem design. The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro have improved gestures. You can pinch their stems to play/pause music, go to the next or previous track, and turn off/on ANC.
You can also swipe up or down on the stem to increase or decrease the volume. Thanks to the onboard IR sensors, the earbuds support auto music pause and resume. You can also control audio playback through voice commands.
Battery life
The earbuds case has a transparent lid, allowing you to see through it. The case also has a pairing button on the bottom if you want to enter the pairing mode manually. The case has a USB Type-C charging port and Qi wireless charging.
Samsung is quoting a battery life of 6 hours with ANC turned on and 7 hours with ANC turned off. The total battery life with the case is claimed to be around 30 hours. Actual battery life varies according to volume levels.
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro goes on pre-order this week. Its pricing and availability details are in this link.
