I used to I love Samsung’s wireless earbuds. They come in all sorts of magical shapes and sizes, with designs that really seemed to embrace the new frontier that fully portable listening devices were offering. Why on earth the brand changed course and started mimicking Apple (badly) for its third generation of wireless earbuds, I honestly can’t say.
The new Galaxy Buds3 look (and largely function) like a Cybertruck version of the standard AirPods, rather than an updated version of the Buds2 I gave a 9/10 WIRED Recommends badge a few years ago. They cost more than the AirPods, are even less comfortable, and sound worse.
What’s particularly puzzling is not that Samsung is mimicking Apple’s designs, but that it already had perfectly excellent earbuds. The Galaxy Buds3 sound worse than their predecessors, perform worse than their predecessors, and cost more than their predecessors. They’re not very good at all, even compared to the AirPods (which aren’t very good either).
Back in the box
Things get embarrassing as soon as you start opening them: The case is a knockoff of the rounded rectangular case that comes with the AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED recommends), but with a clear plastic top that makes it look and feel cheaper. The case works well, with wireless charging and USB-C, so you can set them on a mat by the door so you don’t forget them when you go out.
The earbuds themselves look like AirPods have taken a flight to Austin, Texas, with nearly identical rounded plastic tips at the top of the ear that morph into silver triangles as you get closer to the tip of the elephant’s trunk. (They also come in white, where they look so similar to Apple’s product that you’d probably mistake them for one if you saw someone wearing them.) There’s a bright red accent on the right earbud (and inside the case) to tell you which earbud is which, which is certainly a nice addition over Apple’s otherwise drab white nothingness, but otherwise these look like Cybertrucked AirPods in every sense of the word.
Photography: Parker Hall
They’re larger and more fiddly to insert than standard AirPods, especially thanks to said triangular design: Gripping a triangle to fit the tip of your ear is significantly more difficult than gripping a rounded cylinder, making getting them in and out of your ears a test of dexterity.
The same goes for the controls, which use the same tap-and-swipe controls offered by the AirPods, except the shape of the earbuds means I always found myself fumbling with them when I wanted to adjust the volume or change tracks. What happened to the simple touch controls and surprisingly comfortable design of the Buds2?
Very active
The main feature Samsung is touting for these new earbuds is that they have AI built in, so you can use voice controls to change songs, adjust volume, answer calls, and even do real-time translations. The voice controls work well, but Samsung’s AI-based translation isn’t great — I asked my wife, who is fluent in Spanish (the most likely language used for this here in the US), to say a few sentences, and the app lost all context and translated poorly. Stick with Google Translate.
The app is also full of all sorts of useless features. For some reason, the headphones remind you if you’ve been slouching for too long. If you’re slouching for so long that your neck hurts, I’m not sure a pair of headphones that happily thinks to you is going to solve the problem.
Then there’s active noise cancellation: Because the earbuds have such a poor seal, it’s like putting an air conditioner next to an open window. Sure, active noise cancellation does what it can to shut out outside noise, but without a physical barrier (like ear tips) to isolate the outside world (or slot it through some sort of vent like Apple does with the AirPods Pro and Samsung used to do with the old Galaxy Buds), its capabilities are limited. All of this to say: you won’t get quiet using these earbuds, even with active noise cancellation turned on and your music turned up full blast.