Samsung’s earbud lineup has, for years, been very solid. Clean hardware, useful software, and an affordable price. Plus, they long had their own identity in a market dominated by AirPods. Samsung tried something “new” in the Galaxy Buds 3 series a couple of years ago, and by that I mean, they basically just copied the AirPods. Still a solid product, but not what I’d come to like about past generations. Over the past few days, I’ve been trying the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, and I think Samsung has something special here.
The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are, in many ways, a game of refinement. These new earbuds take the foundation set by the Galaxy Buds 3 and make a bunch of welcome improvements.
That starts with the design. These earbuds are, thankfully, not quite AirPod clones anymore. With a nice brushed metal finish and a redesigned case, they’re only AirPods in the same way that any stem earbuds are. The updated look is nice, and the case even more so. While I didn’t mind the vertical design of the Buds 3 generation, the finish on that case scratched up super easily. The new design fits in my pocket just about as well, feels more durable, and is a nice throwback to the past several generations of Galaxy Buds.
Plus, some very minor tweaks to the actual earbuds make for a more comfortable wear. While I’ve only had about a week of use so far, I’ve been able to throw these in and largely forget about them. Even after 3 or so hours of continuous wear, there’s no ear fatigue or anything.
Wins all around on the hardware front!
Another highlight is the stem, which is much easier to pinch now. The indent on the stem and the loss of that triangular shape really makes play/pause and track control gestures feel a lot nicer.
Circling back to how these look less like AirPods now, the colors help too, with the white variant getting a silver accent, and a gold-ish color that looks great.
So, what about the sound quality?
It’s pretty good! Through a variety of songs and genres, I’ve been very happy with the quality. The default sound profile is fairly neutral, though I still prefer Samsung’s “Dynamic” profile which has a bit more punch. The bass, in either of those, feels natural and not overbearing, while everything generally sounds pretty crisp and clean, at least to my ears.
As for noise cancellation, it’s solid. It obviously filters out already-quiet rooms quite well, but also stood up well to an airplane engine while on the tarmac (I still prefer over-ear for the actual flight). I’ll have to keep testing here, but they basically feel about as good as any other pair of decent noise cancelling earbuds I’ve tried as of late. There’s certainly no major leap, as Apple’s latest AirPods have been revered for.
There are some smart features here too. You can have notifications read aloud, which now defaults to a “read briefly” setting that just announces the app a notification came from. That led to some funny “Gmail” announcements in the middle of my music, but it is nice to not just have everything read aloud right away. That setting is granular, so you can change it to “read briefly” or “read in detail” on an app-by-app basis. Head gestures and upgraded Bixby integration are two features I’ve not yet had a chance to try.
The experience here, for the most part, will be familiar if you’ve tried Galaxy Buds in the past. Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, even with their $250 price tag in mind, have been excellent thus far. There’s nothing deal-breaking, nor really anything of note to complain about. They’re solid across the board, and I can’t really find anything else I’d want from a pair of earbuds.
Pre-orders are open now.
More on Samsung:
- Samsung launches Galaxy S26 series, and higher prices are basically all that’s new
- Galaxy Buds 4 go back to the old case with redesign, head gestures, upgraded sound from $179
- Galaxy S26 series hands-on: More of the same, but not in a good way [Video]
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