Second Opinion #63: Samsung Galaxy Buds Review
Ryan reviews the Samsung Galaxy Buds (Galaxy S10+ pre-order gift) - surprisingly they fit and stay in his ears!
Episode Summary
00:00 | Intro
Other headphone reviews:
- Second Opinion #15: AirPods Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #60: Sony WH-1000XM3 Headphones Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #64: Panasonic ErgoFit Earbuds Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #65: Anker SoundBuds Slim Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #66: JLab Fit Sport Earbuds Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #67: Aftershokz Trekz Titanium Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #68: Google Pixel USB-C Earbuds Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #70: Corsair Vengeance 1500 Post-Mortem › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #71: ATH-M50x Review › The Nexus
- Second Opinion #72: Sony MDR-v6 Post-Mortem › The Nexus
- Galaxy Buds are Samsung’s response to the AirPods from Apple
- I received my set of Buds from Samsung as a gift for pre-ordering the S10+ prior to launch
- Regular price is $129
- My set are white, but there’s supposed to be a black option, which I can’t find?
- The case is pill shaped, pretty small
- The case charges with USB Type-C
- The case also charges with wireless charging; which is good
- Works great with a wireless charger pad
- Works ok with the built-in S10+ charging – enough to get the buds up enough to listen during a commute
- The case has a green/red charging light on the outside; not sure what the thresholds are for battery remaining
- The case has a green/red connection light on the inside
- Open the case to pair with a suitable phone; the S10+ picks up instantly, plain bluetooth might be slower
- It’s some kind of miracle; these stay in my ears
- Earbuds haven’t ever stayed in my ears, this is amazing
- There are “actions” you can do on the “touchpads”;
- Tap to play/pause
- Double tap play next or answer/end call
- Triple tap to play previous
- Long press talk to Bixby or Google
- Just ok; probably better for “talking” than music
- Kind of quiet in real life situations (on a train, in a crowd)
- Since they’re in ear, they’re actually more isolating than the bone conduction
- Definitely not as nice as Sony noise cancelling over-ear headphones
- With the Galaxy Wearable app (ugh, this name)
- You can see the charge levels
- You can tinker with an equalizer which didn’t seem to do much for me
- You can tinker with the “notifications” settings – basically, a white list of audible notifications from your phone to forward to the buds – I let calendar, slack and telegram through – I will ignore you useless emails
- By default, it provides some active noise cancelling features
- You can turn on Ambient sound, and I guess that lets some frequencies in
- You can turn on “Voice focus” and that lets talking in
- It sounds weird
- Finally, “Find my earbuds” lets you remotely find your bud if you drop it
- It plays a loud tone, so don’t have them in when you do it
Would I buy these if I needed earbuds? Surprisingly, now that I find they actually stay in my ears, maybe! I would have saved my $130 possibly towards modern Sony noise cancelling headphones, but these have a place in your audio collection if you need buds for the train, bus or dog walk – these aren’t for “working” environments.
Connect With The Nexus- Discuss this episode on our Subreddit
- Become a Patron
- Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)
Second Opinion is released under a Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International license. Feel free to use any or all of it as long as you link back to https://thenexus.tv/so63.
Listen to more at The Nexus and follow us on Twitter and Google+ for our latest episodes and news.