The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro are the latest true wireless earbuds from Samsung. They boast support for 360 Audio, noise cancellation, and a competitive price, which puts the Galaxy Buds Pro in direct competition with the best true wireless earbuds you can buy today.
These aren’t the only wireless earbuds from Samsung. Other options from the brand include the Galaxy Buds Live and the Galaxy Buds Plus. During our testing, we found both of these buds offer solid sound, good battery life and a comfortable fit, which you can read more about in our Samsung Galaxy Buds Live review and Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus review.
However, the newer Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro are a significant step up – read more about why they’re one of our top picks for the best wireless earbuds in our Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro review. So if you’re looking for your first pair of true wireless earbuds or have an older pair and want to know whether you need to upgrade, this guide is for you.
We’ve put Samsung's best buds head-to-head and below we compare the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus, so you can figure out which Samsung wireless earbuds you need to buy.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Price and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro launched in early 2021 and cost $199 / £219 / AU$349. That's not cheap in comparison to some true wireless earbuds – read our Lypertek SoundFree S20 review to find out why they're our favorite affordable buds – but is less expensive than premium models, including the Apple AirPods Pro.
In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live cost $169.99 / £179 / AU$319 when they launched in August 2020, while the Galaxy Buds Plus cost $149.99 / £159 / AU$299 at their launch earlier that year.
It makes sense that the new earbuds would cost more than their predecessors, especially with added features. But what’s puzzling is that Samsung released all three of these models in fairly quick succession in less than 12 months.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Design
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro look more like the Buds Plus than the bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live, with round housing on each bud and silicone eartips.
When they launched in mid-2020 the design of the Galaxy Buds Live was somewhat divisive. While we found their unusual shape to be comfortable, the lack of eartips and semi-open design meant that the noise cancellation wasn’t great, and they suffered from a substantial amount of sound leakage.
It makes sense that Samsung has reprised the look of the Galaxy Buds Plus for its latest wireless earbuds. However, the brand has brought a series of upgrades to the Galaxy Buds Pro, including upping the water-resistance rating from a mere IPX2 to IPX7.
This means the earbuds can be used for working out, and you needn’t worry about sweat or rain breaking the inner mechanisms either.
Unlike the Galaxy Buds Plus, the Buds Pro don’t come with rubber earfins to keep them securely in place, which could be an issue if you do use them while exercising. But they do have three different ear tip sizes to choose from, which should help them feel comfortable and secure in your ear canal.
With the Galaxy Buds Pro, Samsung has also made the part that sits in your ear canal noticeably more convex with vents to reduce pressure build-up, while the cushions have been adjusted with longer, less rounded caps.
There are still touch-capacitive sensors in the outer housings, which means you can control your music playback with a series of taps.
Unfortunately, we weren’t enamored by the fit of the Buds Pro, which we found to be bulky and too uncomfortable to wear in bed – less comfortable than their predecessors, in fact.
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro are available in three colors: Phantom Black, Phantom Silver and Phantom Violet.
The color of the buds corresponds to the charging case you get with them, which is similar to that of the Galaxy Buds Live: it's smaller than that of the Buds Plus, but a bit thicker.
The case itself feels solid, with an LED light on the front of the charging case to indicate how much battery is left in the case itself. Round the back there's a USB-C port, which can be used to charge the case, although this can also be done wirelessly if you have a wireless charging pad to hand.
When you open the case, you'll see an additional LED light. The same colors are used here too, but these indicate to what extent the earbuds themselves are charged.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Audio performance
Though the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro sound balanced across the bass, mids, and trebles, the audio quality also leaves something to be desired, with a flat presentation and small soundstage.
Still, it's a slight improvement upon the Galaxy Buds Live and Galaxy Buds Plus.
Inside the Buds Pro there's an 11mm woofer that's responsible for the low frequencies, and a 6.5mm tweeter for high frequencies, with Samsung taking inspiration from Hi-Fi speakers in their design.
While the Galaxy Buds Live and Buds Plus both use single driver designs, Samsung says that the dual driver design it’s given its latest earbuds provides a balanced sound and wide frequency response, so we’re expecting an improvement here.
The Galaxy Buds Pro have another trick up their sleeves: 360 Audio, an AirPods Pro-rivaling feature, which comes with Dolby Head Tracking technology. According to Samsung, this will deliver a more immersive listening experience by allowing you to "stay at the center of the scene". This feature will only work with Galaxy smartphones and tablets, though, and as it's yet to be released, we haven't been able to test it yet.
For gamers, there's also a Game Mode, which should reduce audio latency when you're gaming with the Galaxy S21. As with the Galaxy Buds Live and the Buds Plus, you can tweak the sound settings via the Galaxy Wearables app.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Noise cancellation
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus didn’t come with any noise cancellation whatsoever, and the semi-open design of the Galaxy Buds Live meant that their noise-cancelling capabilities were severely limited – so the fact the Galaxy Buds Pro have ANC is a marked improvement.
.According to Samsung, the Galaxy Buds Pro are able to block up to 99% of unwanted outside noise while listening to music or during calls, with the ability to adjust the level of cancelation via the Galaxy Wearable app.
We're not sure that this rings true based on our tests – we found that, while the Galaxy Buds Pro were able to drastically reduce the sounds of loud air purifiers and humidifiers, they didn’t stand a chance when someone else in the house was playing music.
Ambient mode – which is when the earbuds allow for external sounds to be let in, such as when someone is speaking to you – also benefits from this fine tuning feature. Again from the app, you can choose from four different strengths, depending on how much ambient sound you want filtered through the Galaxy Buds Pro.
However, you may not want to have to keep diving into the app to change the ANC and ambient mode levels, and with the Galaxy Buds Pro you won’t have to. They can – if you opt to turn the feature on – automatically adjust these settings based on your actions and environment.
There's even an Intelligent Active Noise Control feature that detects your voice and vibration to confirm you’re in a conversation and let external sound through.
Once you start talking the Buds Pro will automatically turn your music down and bring it back up to full volume once it detects that you're done with your conversation.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Battery life and connectivity
Samsung says the Galaxy Buds Pro will offer five hours of playback from the earbuds themselves, after which the charging case can provide an additional 13 hours (though that number jumps to 20 hours if you're not using ANC).
Meanwhile, the Galaxy Buds Live held six hours in the earbuds, which went up to just over 20 hours when you included the charging case. However, the Galaxy Buds Plus win in terms of on-board battery life, with the earbuds containing 11 hours of charge, while the charging case provides an additional 11 hours, bringing the total battery life to 22 hours.
Still, that total battery life is still pipped by the Galaxy Buds Pro, which offer up to 25 hours without ANC enabled.
Like the Galaxy Buds Live and Buds Plus, the new Galaxy Buds Pro come with Bluetooth 5 connectivity, and support for AAC, SBC, and SSC (Samsung Scalable Codec), which prevents audio chopping by changing the bit-rate according to the strength of the Bluetooth connection.
One new feature for the Galaxy Buds Pro is Auto Switch, which means you can switch between Galaxy devices seamlessly.
Say, for example, you listen to music via your Galaxy Tab S7 Plus and receive calls via your Samsung Galaxy S20 – Auto Switch, means the earphones can be used automatically for the phone call, and connect themselves back to the tablet after the call.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Call quality
The call quality provided by the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro is pretty good, though friends and family thought we sounded a bit clearer using our smartphone’s built-in microphone instead. That’s not a knock against the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro – as most earbuds don’t sound as good as a smartphone’s microphone – but it does mean you should be slightly cautious of buying these if you're considering using them for work or exclusively for taking phone calls.
Inside each earbud are three microphones – two inner, and one outer – which are responsible for filtering out unwanted environmental sound during calls. The outer microphone has a high signal-to-noise ratio, which should further improve audio clarity.
Special technology has also been implemented to ensure that weather conditions have minimal negative consequences for the audio quality of your telephone call, including a more closed fit, mesh, and chamber, which should help to cut down on wind noise during phone calls.
The Galaxy Buds Live had their fair share of innovative call technology, with a Voice Pickup Unit that uses an built-in accelerometer to sense the movement of your jaw and convert that kinetic energy into voice signals via bone conduction. We found this feature to work very well.
The Galaxy Buds Plus also contain three microphones, and we found the call quality to be pretty good, too, even when we had music playing in the background.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro vs Galaxy Buds Live vs Galaxy Buds Plus: Takeaway
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro seem to be a significant step up from their predecessors, particularly in terms of noise cancellation technology.
Extra features like Active Noise Control, Auto Switch, and 360 Audio, certainly give them an edge over older Samsung earbuds and even put them on par with some rivals.
Aside from the new 360 Audio feature, the new dual-driver design leads to an improvement in sound quality too, and the Galaxy Buds Pro have certainly impressed in that regard so far.
A vastly increased water-resistance rating should appeal to the fitness crowd, too. Saying that, the reduction in on-board battery life compared to the Galaxy Buds Plus could be an issue for those who want the longest lasting buds they can buy for working out or long training sessions.
In any case, the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro are the best earbuds from the brand yet – so far they’ve seen middling success, and this latest iteration are the highest-spec of all, representing a cheaper rival for their biggest competitors, the Apple AirPods Pro.
