Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro review

It’s hard not to get hyped as yet another generation of high-end earbuds gets released. Samsung really tried to throw in everything but the kitchen sink with the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro, but are they any good? Complicated products with lots of features make that question a little harder to unpack — but if you’ll give us some of your time, we’ll unwind it for you.

Editor’s note: this article was updated on July 19, 2024 to provide a statement from Samsung about its decision to investigate quality control issues further.

What’s it like to use Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro?

The Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro are very easy to use, and build upon many of the design lessons learned from Apple — for better, or worse. For starters, the lollipop and stem design is a clever way to hold earbuds in place by snaking a hard physical object through your tragus and antitragus, and the ear tips with the completely removable nozzle ensure that people of varying ear shapes will be able to use the earbuds without much discomfort. I was able to listen for about an hour at a time before the unseasonably hot weather in British Columbia made me sweat enough that a fit was difficult to maintain.

Hidden away inside the casing of each earbud are two channels — a dynamic driver and a planar magnetic one — and dual amp to power each driver. On paper, the specs are impressive, but that much hardware has a power cost. This showed up in our battery testing, but more on that later.

The earbuds come stuffed into a rather small, wireless charging-enabled case with a clear window for a lid. This case will fit easily into just about any pants pockets, as it’s quite small and thin. On the bottom of the case is the USB-C charging port, which is a little strange, but given the fact that the earbuds have a door keeping them in, you don’t have to worry about knockouts when you set your earbuds on the desk like you would with other models that share this design feature.

New to the Galaxy Buds Pro design is the blade-shaped lollipop stems, which serve as a vehicle for interesting lights as well as controls. If you don’t want to use a series of taps and swipes to control your earbuds, you can also bark orders to them — just be aware that it won’t be a complete picnic if you have cheeky friends. I had to avoid keeping this feature toggled because my five-year-old, sweet as she is, sees any piece of technology as a way to call other people. Because the earbuds have a tendency to allow anyone speaking the commands to control your earbuds… it was wise to avoid giving up that kind of control.

These earbuds are a solid choice for workouts. Because of the IP57 rating, the secure fit, and ambient sound modes that allow sirens to pass through, the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro would do as well on a commute as they would if you decided to run to work instead.

Should you use the Samsung Wearable app for the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro?

Yes, you should use the Samsung Wear app with the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro. Though apps can sometimes be a huge pain, the Samsung Wearable app is necessary to make use of the most advanced features of the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro, including voice commands, adaptive noise control, AI translation services, 360 audio, Find My, and more. Long story short: the earbuds just aren’t the complete package without the right hardware and software behind them — and that means using the app.

Though that might sound like a drawback, it’s not a huge one. If you’re looking at the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro to begin with, you’re likely someone who’s already got a Samsung phone, or at the very least an Android phone.

How do the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro connect?

The Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro connect to your source device via Bluetooth 5.4 over the SBC, AAC, Samsung Scalable Codec, and Samsung Seamless Codec. However, just be aware that unless you have a relatively new Samsung phone, you cannot use the latter codec for higher-bitrate listening. Though SBC and AAC are more than fine for most, much hay was made by Samsung for supporting a higher-quality codec at launch, and you should know that it’s not a given that you’ll be able to use it. If you’re hoping that your earbuds will provide you with lossless or near-lossless listening, you’ll have to have a relatively new Samsung phone in order to use it.

Audio quality up to 24bit/96kHz’ is available on Galaxy S24 series, S23 series, Z Fold6, Z Flip6, Z Fold5, Z Flip5 and Tab S9 series with One UI 6.1.1 or above.
Additional devices may be supported in the future. — Samsung, on the product page for the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro

We had a few issues managing devices in the lab, as we had to pair and re-pair the earbuds to the test computer and phone to do things like change EQ, presets, or turn the ANC on/off. But there weren’t any dropouts, or other common issues with Bluetooth earbuds, so that’s a plus. It was only when we tested the buds with a new phone that we experienced our only stutters in playback. If that edge case is what it takes to get some of these hiccups, a firmware update might be able to handle it.

New to the world of Samsung earbuds is Auracast support, which is a bigger plus for you down the road than it is now. Auracast can be used to broadcast and share your tunes, as well as hear venue-specific announcements and more.

How long do the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro’s batteries last?

Withstanding our standardized battery test for 4 hours and 31 minutes, the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro chew through battery a bit faster than we’d hope — but it’s still well beyond what’s needed for a commute. International travelers might want to take note, as this short battery life would require several charge cycles to last an intercontinental flight (depending on how long that actually is).

Having products with poor battery life also means more frequent charge cycles, and could end in a battery that loses its ability to recharge as well as you need it to. True wireless earbuds only last so long, and models without replaceable batteries tend to end up as e-waste pretty quickly compared to other kinds of personal audio products.

How well do the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro cancel noise?

The Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro are quite good at blocking out noise, and decent — not amazing — at canceling it. With a good fit, you can expect about 57% of outside noise to be hushed without ANC, and about 76% when the unit is enabled. While that’s fine enough for most, it’s definitely a cut below what other products at this price point provide, and it’s unclear whether a firmware update will fix this or if this is as good as it gets.

For those of you interested in more advanced features, Samsung baked in a few goodies into the Wear app to attempt to make the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro’ ANC a little more useful in daily life. However, when it’s as poor as it is, some of these features — namely, siren detection — are probably not necessary. As a gut check with newer earbuds, sometimes I pass around new products around the office, and my colleague Adam confirmed it wasn’t just me: the ANC isn’t quite as good as it was on the Galaxy Buds2 Pro. He had no trouble hearing things around him while walking into the office.

How do the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro sound?

Samsung has a lot of institutional knowledge on how to make personal audio products that sound good, and it shows with the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro — with relatively high scores across the board, most people will like the sound of the earbuds.

Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)

The chart below shows how the sound of the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro was assessed by the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics.

The simulated panel of listeners returned high scores for Timbre and Immersiveness, with a merely “okay” level of distortion. Remember that this sample, in particular, was not recorded using Samsung’s proprietary codecs, so this should be viewed as the performance floor of the earbuds. Depending on your tastes, you may also perceive different EQ presets to be better or worse than this.

For example, the “Clear” EQ preset — the preset that most closely aligns with our Headphone Preference Curve among the provided options — posts a higher Distortion score with only a mild hit to Immersiveness (but is still rated positively). This EQ mode slightly edges out the default behavior by one-tenth of a point, so it’s entirely possible you won’t really care too much about the difference. Any way you slice it, though, the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro will likely be a crowd-pleaser.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Objective Measurements

The default sound of the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro is pretty much what you’d expect out of a set of earbuds nowadays, with a 5dB bass overemphasis to compete with outside noise and more masses-friendly tuning. There really isn’t much more to talk about until you get to the highs, where there’s a rather pronounced over-emphasis from 4kHz to 9kHz. We’ve seen this one before, and it’s unlikely to truly sour anyone’s listening experience — just make a mental note of it, and if you find that music with lots of high-end is fatiguing, try another EQ preset if you like.

I am heartened to see as much treble extension as I do, as many earbuds tend to tail off a bit earlier than the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro do. The upside here is that it’s much easier to tone down something that you don’t want to hear than it is to rescue an underemphasis — especially when it comes to wireless audio products. Sure, this does depart from our preferred response, but if there’s anything we’ve learned from the last few years, it’s that different responses can attain similar listener preference scores. Given that Samsung has access to a lot of research from very talented audio engineers, I’m unsurprised to see a response that differs in the specific ways that the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro do.

Can you use the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro for phone calls?

Yes, you can use the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro for phone calls, and they come with a number of advanced features as well. For example, you can use “super wideband call” functionality that will allow you to record up to 16kHz instead of the usual 8kHz. The intended consequence of this is improved call quality, but there are a number of factors, including your network, that will determine what your conversation mates actually hear. Below are samples we collected in the lab.

Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro?

If you own a newer Samsung phone, there’s really not much downside to picking up the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro, as they’re the company’s vision of what earbuds in 2024 are meant to be like. But if you’re like me and don’t need AI in every damn thing, you should probably look for something a bit more affordable. Two hundred and fifty dollars for earbuds is a lot of money, and anybody asking that much needs to deliver a lot for the purchase to make sense. While the Samsung-only features are extremely useful to someone who travels a lot, they may not be as necessary if all you want is a simple set of ANC earbuds.

For one thing, there are earbuds out there that are a little easier to control and block out more noise than the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro. Additionally, these can sometimes be difficult to fit, and if you don’t have a Samsung phone: you’ll lose access to some of the advanced features of the earbuds. If you own an iPhone or older Android phone: you should probably search for something else, instead.

How do Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro compare to Apple AirPods Pro 2?

The Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro take square aim at providing a credible alternative to the Apple AirPods Pro 2 for Samsung devices, and it delivers — but should you still give Apple’s earbuds a look? Well, that depends entirely upon whether you’re using an iPhone or a Samsung phone. If you’re on the fence about jumping into one platform or another, then there’s a few things to consider. For example, whether you’re hoping your earbuds are going to be used more for entertainment or dealing with ever-changing demands from the world around you.

In terms of pure performance, the AirPods Pro 2 have the edge on ANC and battery, but sound quality is a bit of a push — though the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro do offer higher-bitrate listening with Samsung devices than the AirPods Pro 2 can accommodate. Given that Bluetooth codecs — and specifically AAC in particular — have come quite a ways, it’s not as big of a deal as it used to be.

How do the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro compare to the Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro?

Though it might annoy some, the Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro are very different than their successors when it comes to ANC performance and features. Additionally, we found the older earphones slightly easier to fit than the newer ones. Both sets of earbuds are excellent, and if you aren’t crazy about AI features: you may want to just grab the older buds on sale if you can find them, $179 at Amazon.

As far as sound quality goes, both earbuds are great — though it’s slightly more likely that the newer Buds3 Pro will be more preferred by more people. However, the ANC is much better with the Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro than it is with the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro. We’re unsure why there was a drop in ANC performance from generation to generation, but it’s noticeable.

What should you get instead of the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro?

Because the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro are so locked to a single ecosystem, listing alternatives will be difficult. To be sure, no alternatives are going to offer all the same features as the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro for Samsung phones, so you have to decide if the real-time translation, ultra-wideband mic, and higher-quality Samsung Bluetooth codecs really are worth the extra money. If you have an iPhone or non-Samsung Android phone: you can easily find something else.

To wit, the JLab Epic Lab Edition ($199.99 at Amazon) might not offer all the bells and whistles of the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro, but they do offer very decent audio quality and a lower price tag. Alternatively, you could look to snag a Jabra Elite 8 Active ($229.99 at Amazon) on sale, or the somewhat-aging Sony WF-1000XM5 ($298 at Amazon) as credible competitors in the sound quality department. All of the above also edge out the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro in terms of noise canceling, though none of these options have the AI features of the Samsung buds.

Frequently asked questions