Pair Samsung Galaxy Buds To Pc

Truly wireless earbuds are all the rage now, with dozens of companies getting in the game and making groovy products. But Samsung was actually very early in this trend: its first IconX earbuds came out in in 2016. With years of experience in smartphone accessories, and its acquisition of Harman in 2016, Samsung has seriously improved its audio prowess — ranging from high-end equipment downwards to lifestyle products similar the new Galaxy Buds (opens in new tab).

The move to a more consumer-friendly "Galaxy" branding and tight integration with Samsung's Galaxy phones should give you a hint as to where Samsung is looking with the Milky way Buds: it wants some of that sweet AirPods money. Samsung isn't leaning and so hard on the fitness angle anymore, and has positioned the Galaxy Buds as every-day headphones to accompany your phone for everything from commuting to daily call duties and hitting the gym after piece of work.

The Good

Fantabulous comfort for all activeness
Solid audio quality for wireless earbuds
Compact case with wireless charging
Adept Bluetooth and L/R connexion
More than adequate battery life

The Bad

Example only provides one full recharge
Bear on controls crave precise control
"Ambient sound" passthrough is useless

Samsung Galaxy Buds What I dear

With lots of history in consumer electronics — and enough of information technology in headphones — it'southward no surprise Samsung has washed actually well with the Milky way Buds hardware. Starting with the earbuds themselves, they're extremely comfortable and easy to fit in your ear the "right" manner as to non distract or crusade discomfort. With multiple eartip sizes to go in your ear and silicone "wingtips" that remainder on the outer edge of your ear, you should be able to find a fit that works (I stuck with the default mid-sized set just fine). Considering these are self-contained little earbuds with no protrusions, in that location'southward zero hazard that they can go hung upwards on your headwear, long hair, scarf, hood or anything of the sort.

The Milky way Buds are supremely comfortable and stay put no affair what.

The earbuds manage to fit securely in your ear while also not putting whatever considerable pressure on any portion of the ear, which is a feat. They're incredibly light every bit well. Nigh hard plastic earbuds put unnecessary pressure on my ears, only this blueprint that supports the entire earbud on just the silicone attachments and not the actual torso of the earbud is really smart. I never had a single concern virtually them coming out of my ears during whatsoever daily movements or trips to the gym.

Despite beingness tiny, the Galaxy Buds offer impact controls on either earbud. You tin can tap once to play/suspension music, double tap to accept/end a telephone call and triple tap to seek tracks. Then in the Galaxy Wearable app, you can configure a affect-and-hold role for each earbud: either volume downwardly (left earbud) and up (right earbud), or your option of activating "ambient sound" (more on this beneath) and voice commands for Google Banana or Bixby on either left or right.

The touch on controls can be a little finicky because the pocket-sized size of the touch pad. That said, I far prefer impact controls of whatsoever sort (to say nothing of this comprehensive gear up) to not having touch controls at all. If you lot tin go acquainted plenty with the bear upon controls to even use them for the most basic level of interaction, such as play/intermission music or have/end calls, it'due south immediately saving you lot time over having to pull out your phone. And because the impact controls are configurable betwixt left/right and with different functions, you'll exist able to notice something to use them for.

Nobody should wait exceptional audio quality out of earbuds, and peculiarly non wireless earbuds. My standards are pretty low for these types of headphones because they're purely nearly convenience and comfort rather than quality, merely the Galaxy Buds at least exceeded the low expectations. Particularly when you use the equalizer built into the companion app, sound quality is enough adept for the application — there's trivial bass and the overall sound can exist a chip hollow, but you lot're just never going to selection these upwards for thoughtful music listening anyway. If you go the right eartip sizing, sound isolation is skillful enough that it helps with the overall listening experience.

Audio quality is fine, but just as chiefly wireless connectivity has been solid.

With a couple weeks of listening under my belt, the Bluetooth connection to the phone and the left-right connection between the earbuds has been very good. I never had an earbud drib its connection or sync, and merely experienced a couple petty jitters in the phone connection every bit would exist expected with any pair of Bluetooth headphones. Telephone call quality was likewise fine. Polling people at the end of phone calls reported dorsum many "it sounds fine" and nobody had whatever concerns with hearing me; on my cease, I could hear callers just fine.

Outside of the uncomplicated automatic pairing procedure with Galaxy phones, at that place doesn't seem to be any difference in using the Galaxy Buds with my Milky way S10+ and Pixel 3 Xl. The Pixel recognized and paired with the Buds simply fine similar whatsoever other Bluetooth headset, earlier even installing the Milky way Wearable (opens in new tab) app — though it's quite useful, so you'll want to install information technology.

This example is finally small enough to non be cumbersome — and it pack a few prissy-to-have features.

Big advancements have been made in the case, fifty-fifty compared to the previous-gen IconX earbuds (opens in new tab), making it one of the best overall truly wireless earbuds cases I've seen. It's considerably smaller than the terminal generation, pushing it down to a point where I tin actually sideslip it in my jeans pocket next to my wallet (front end pocket wallets forever, folks) without hassle; or put information technology in a coat pocket and completely forget it's in that location. By my crude measurement, the case at its largest dimensions is 69 x twoscore x 26 mm — pretty darn modest. The lid stays closed confidently with a strong magnet, and lighter magnets grabs the earbuds in so they're easy to toss in for charging.

I was initially worried about battery life, not because of the industry-standard half-dozen hours of life from the earbuds themselves but because the case only provides roughly one recharge. After using the Buds regularly since I received them with my Galaxy S10, I haven't in one case run out of power. Even though the earbuds are incredibly comfortable, I'one thousand never wearing earbuds of any sort for more than 6 hours straight — and any time they're in the example, they're quickly being recharged. And with the example offering both USB-C and Qi wireless charging, information technology's easy to quickly accuse it back up its tiny 252mAh capacity while you listen to the buds. And unlike some cheaper earbuds, the Milky way Buds let yous utilise one earbud or the other while charging the reverse ane, which is helpful if y'all stop up taking long phone calls with a single earbud.

Samsung Galaxy Buds What I don't like

The simply downside to this extremely compact design, as opposed to the "stick" pattern brought to the fore by Apple tree AirPods (opens in new tab), is that the Galaxy Buds are a bit hard to take out of your ears on quick notice. Because most of the torso of the earbud is affect-enabled, information technology's tough to remove an earbud without also triggering the touch on control because there's very little area to grab; and one time they're out of your ears, they really demand to become into the case for fear that y'all'll touch the capacitive pad while handling them any other way. It's a worthwhile trade-off and then you don't have the issues with comfort or the earbud getting snagged on annihilation, but taking the earbuds out of your ears gracefully isn't something yous remember near until you've lived with them.

Tiny earbuds tin be a fleck fiddly to go out of your ear without too triggering the touch controls.

Because the Galaxy Buds tin be a bit fiddly to rapidly remove from your ears, I was excited to effort out the "ambience sound" feature that will duck downward any audio you're listening over Bluetooth and amplify the audio around you. You can turn on ambience sound permanently (don't do this), or map it to a press-and-concur on 1 of the earbuds. While keen in principle (Sony's WH1000MX3 (opens in new tab) practise this well), ambient sound but doesn't work well on the Galaxy Buds.

It's fine if you demand to hear a brief loud declaration at an airport or railroad train station, or if you're walking down the street and demand to perceive where emergency vehicle sirens are coming from, but information technology'southward useless for having a quick conversation with someone or getting anything from a relatively quiet room. The sound amplification isn't potent plenty, and rather than pausing your Bluetooth audio, it keeps it playing and drops information technology to well-nigh 10% volume, and so you lot become this weird cross-talk between your quiet Bluetooth audio and outside sound that'due south quite disorienting.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Should yous purchase them?

Most people won't spend over $100 on whatsoever pair of earbuds, and that's especially true for what is likely to be a secondary pair of earbuds. But if y'all can justify spending around $eighty for something mid-range like the SoundCore Freedom Airs, the $50 bound to the Galaxy Buds is worth information technology for the improved comfort, touch controls, call quality and example design.

4 out of 5

The Galaxy Buds are a bang-up pair of headphones with excellent comfort for hours of daily headphone use, but also the right design to be a good choice for hitting the gym or going on a run. The wireless connectedness is stiff, the bombardment life is long, music and call quality are solid, and the case is compact and well-designed. If the $129 price tag doesn't immediately toll you out of the Galaxy Buds, you should absolutely consider them as your next pair of truly wireless earbuds.

$129 at Samsung (opens in new tab)

Andrew was an Executive Editor, U.S. at Android Central between 2012 and 2020.

21 Comments

Do they have audio passthrough? That'southward the but thing that set the older Gear Icon X earbuds apart from the $50 knockoffs on Amazon. The power to be able to have the exterior earth piped into your earbuds is a huge do good to those of us who run outdoors. This manner we tin can we enjoy our music and maintain situational awareness.
Did you not read the review? Lol he talks nearly information technology. It has information technology, but he didn't find it to be practiced.
Admittingly, I skimmed the commodity looking for key-words and missed that one. Thanks for pointing information technology out.
The capability is there, simply information technology works poorly. I'm non sure how much of that is a software/implementation matter and how much is restricted past the size of the mics and the speakers, but it just doesn't work well as information technology sits.
It doesn't have the audio passthrough like the Gear IconX and is seriously the reason I'm considering going back to my Iconx. The buds sound and feel great but i don't like the controls or the audio passthrough.
The overlap of audio with quick ambient audio is odd? You go cipher but sound overlap with sitck/AirPod mode headphones. I'chiliad curious how the Buds version of ambient sound compares to the Bragi Nuance Pro. Bragi is a small player, only they've done a lot of great things years before Samsung or Apple got to where they are. I've been using the Nuance Pro since they released, and their shape makes it easy to grab despite the touch surface. Maybe it's the shape of the Buds or the touch input method. the Dash Pro uses optical sensors instead of capacitive.
In that location's a big difference between getting ambience sound through the design of the earbuds just not having much passive racket cancellation, and having poorly done ambient audio through the mics and speakers. The latter is much more disorienting.
Picked upwards 2 pair from AT&T based on the mostly positive reviews. They are currently running a sale through middle Apr. $97.49 each. Couldn't laissez passer upwards the deep disbelieve. Also picked up the Galaxy Watch Active (from All-time Buy) bully watch and then far. I had originally ordered a single pair as a birthday nowadays for my son from Samsung. Samsung said shipping past March 29th. With the AT&T sale, I decided to pick upwards a pair for myself. Ordered concluding night, they shipped today.
But received mine yesterday so wearing them all morning time, merely sadly my biggest utilise are for phone calls and I piece of work outside merely everyone I talk to says they sound terrible. For music they are more acceptable but looks like I'll exist sending them dorsum to ATT
I was having same bug, til I changed to the big tips and wings so the buds didn't sit so deep into my ear. I believe the mic is being a little muffled if information technology sits to close to the ear. Idk it was a big improvement for me.
Engadget's review was soooo slanted...Garbage. I thought they were trust worthy with their reviews, I gauge not. These are very good earbuds.
Yes every bit long as y'all don't make phone calls
Andrew, with the calls, did y'all manage to test information technology with a little ambient noise? Call back - buffet / public ship?
had an result with not being able to be heard in a loud-ish buffet, but then again I'd accept an result with just a phone in that scenario also.
May become these for the summer - my Bose QC35 headphones make my ears sweat a lot in the rut. Wireless earbuds would help immensely.
Yup. I love my QC35s but I don't sympathize how people wear big over-ear headphones in the estrus or when doing any sort of action. They become massively sweaty, and the earcups merely fall apart with repeated exposure to moisture.
Sounds like I'll be staying with my 2018 IconX's until they work out the bugs.
How practise they compare to apple earbuds?
The pass through is absolutely useless every bit you lot stated. Of all things, that seem quite elementary to implement versus 'more bass' is undeniably done poorly. I don't get information technology.
I'grand looking for a yellowish pair but can't discover them anywhere. Not fifty-fifty on shop Samsung. Anyone seen any in the wild?
Galaxy buds or Jabra 65t Elite?

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