Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 look like AirPods, but that’s not the only thing that’s new

For the first time in Samsung’s history, the new earbuds, the Galaxy Buds-3 And Galaxy Buds 3 Prohave taken a similar approach to stealing Apple’s AirPods. The new buds are more premium, with the open-style Buds 3 priced at $180 and the Buds 3 Pro at $250, but their “blade” designs give them a more generic look than previous Galaxy Buds models. Both are now available for pre-order and will ship on or after July 24. If you pre-order before July 23, you will receive a free case.

I’ve had the buds in my hands for a limited time, but haven’t had a chance to properly judge them yet, so this isn’t a full review. I do have some initial impressions of the design, and plenty of features and specs to talk about.

read more: Everything announced at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event

Galaxy Buds 3, successor to the Galaxy Buds Live

Available in white or silver, the Galaxy Buds 3 are open earbuds like the standard AirPods. Like Samsung’s previous open earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Live (aka The Beans), the Buds 3 have some active noise cancellation, according to Samsung. I don’t expect it to be very effective, as ANC typically doesn’t work well with open buds. I can say more about that once I’ve fully tested the buds.

Similar to the AirPods, these are designed for people who don’t like having earbuds in their ears and would rather hear the outside world. They are lightweight and comfortable, and fit my ears a little better than the AirPods-3. Both the Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro have squeeze controls like the latest AirPods (I liked their squeeze controls), along with swipe controls for adjusting the volume. Both models also have ear-detection sensors that pause your audio when you take an earbud out of your ear and resume playback when you put it back in. Finally, you can use voice commands to control music playback without ever touching the earbuds.

Since open-ear headphones let ambient noise leak into your ears and don’t provide a good seal, bass response can be an issue. The Galaxy Buds 3 have a single 11mm dynamic driver. Their sound quality won’t be quite as good as the Buds 3 Pro, but hopefully it’ll be good compared to what you get with other premium open-ear headphones.

The Buds 3 have a battery life of up to 6 hours with ANC off and 5 hours with ANC on (the charging case charges wirelessly and has a dedicated Bluetooth button). Both new earbuds are equipped with Bluetooth 5.4, are IP57 water and dust resistant, and support LE audio along with the new Auracast (Samsung’s 360 audio feature is also present.) An IP57 rating means the earbuds aren’t completely waterproof, but they can handle a fair amount of water.

Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, the new flagship

The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are Samsung’s new flagship earbuds, and they also come in white and silver. They have a few key differences from the Galaxy Buds 3. Firstly, they are noise-cancelling earbuds, and come with a set of small, medium, and large ear tips to choose from (getting a good seal is crucial for optimal sound quality).

They also have both active noise cancellation and a transparency mode. The ANC is the adaptive variety, and it seems pretty good — at least based on the very limited time I had the buds in my ears. Samsung says “the microphones on the Buds 3 series analyze both internal and external noise in real time to improve audio quality and active noise cancellation through adaptive EQ and adaptive ANC.”

Additionally, the Buds 3 Pro “constantly collect and identify ambient noise, automatically adjusting the optimal level of noise and sound without manual adjustment via Adaptive Noise Control, Siren Detect, and Voice Detect.” This sounds similar to the AirPods Pro 2’s Adaptive audio featuresbut Buds 3 Pro doesn’t have call awareness mode.

While the Galaxy Buds 3 has a single dynamic driver, the Buds 3 Pro has a 10mm dynamic driver along with a separate planar tweeter, which should help deliver clearer-sounding highs. Samsung also says the Buds 3 Pro has dual amplifiers, which should help reduce wireless stutter.

In my initial listening tests, I thought the buds sounded better than the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. The Buds 2 Pro sound good, but the Buds 3 Pro have better treble clarity and bass definition, and they sound cleaner and more accurate overall.

Another added feature of the Buds 3 Pro are the lights on their stems, or “blades,” as Samsung calls them. They let you know when the buds are in pairing mode, and they flash when you use the Find My feature, while the buds also make a beeping noise (supposedly making them easier to find in a dark room). You can also activate the lights by holding each bud for a few seconds and carry the buds around with the lights on, if that’s your thing.

The Buds 3 Pro also have an IP57 rating for dust and water resistance. The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro’s battery life is rated at up to 7 hours with noise cancellation off and 6 hours with noise cancellation on. The charging case features wireless charging and a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button, making it easier to pair the buds with different Bluetooth audio devices.

Improved voice calls

Samsung has generally done a good job with voice call performance in its Galaxy Buds models, and these new Series 3 models deliver excellent voice call performance with top-notch noise cancellation. They have three microphones in each earbud, along with a voice pickup unit. The earbuds have a stem design that brings the microphones a little closer to your mouth, so that should help with voice calls as well. In my conversations with the Galaxy Buds Pro on the noisy streets of New York City (with some wind), callers said they could barely hear background noise and that my voice was generally clear with limited vibration. They were impressed.

Samsung says that; “With a pre-trained model based on machine learning, the Buds 3 series is now able to restore the speaker’s original voice in various noise-laden environments, while also delivering a rich and natural conversation — comparable to the high-quality calls of smartphones — with the Super-Wideband Call feature.” This allows the earbuds to transmit voices at up to 16kHz instead of up to 8kHz, according to Samsung.

Special features of Galaxy Buds 3 and 3 Pro for Galaxy users

As mentioned, the buds share many of the same features. The Buds 3 lack the dual amplifiers, lights in their stems, a transparency mode (they are open earbuds, so you don’t need those), Adaptive Noise Control and the Voice Detect/Siren Detect function. Additionally, the Buds 3 Pro have dual drivers.

As for other special features for Galaxy smartphone users, they have automatic pairing and audio switching with Galaxy devices including Galaxy PCs. That is another way of saying that they have multipoint Bluetooth pairing for Galaxy devices.

Both earbuds also support the Samsung Seamless Codec, which Samsung says can now deliver 24bit/96khz high-resolution streams from an HD music streaming service like Qobuz or Tidal. That codec is only available with select Galaxy devices, but the earbuds’ default audio codec is AAC, which generally sounds fine (iPhones and other Android devices are said to use AAC.)

The last Galaxy-exclusive feature that Samsung is highlighting is the Interpreter function that is part of Galaxy AI. “If you are taking a class in a foreign language, you can enable Interpreter in listening mode on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 or Flip 6 with Buds 3 series in your ears,” Samsung says, giving an example of how to use the feature. “This allows you to hear the lecture translated directly through your Buds, removing language barriers that may exist in your studies.”

Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro final first impressions

Like I said, this is just a quick first look at the Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro. I’ll share much more in my upcoming full reviews, including comparisons of their sound quality and performance against the AirPods 3, AirPods Pro 2, and other top-tier true wireless earbuds.

Some of you might be a little disappointed that Samsung caved in a bit and followed Apple’s design. I personally prefer earbuds with stems and I think it makes sense to switch to this design, even if it seems like a cop-out to go with the herd, so to speak.

From what Samsung has told me, they simply found in their testing that the “blade” design worked best for most people. Many people had issues with the fit of the Galaxy Buds Live and the Galaxy Buds Pro 2 (I had to use my own larger earbuds.) At least based on my initial wearing tests, my impression is that these new models will fit more people better.

The only problem is that their designs are a bit generic and perhaps don’t have the wow factor for their relatively high prices: the AirPods Pro 2, like the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, retail for $250, but typically sell for under $200 on Amazon and are €169 at the moment. It is therefore important that the buds deliver excellent performance. After some initial tests I was quite impressed, but I will tell you more about it in my full hands-on reviews, which I will post in the coming days.