Review: Samsung Galaxy Buds3

I used to love Samsung’s wireless earbuds. They came in all types of magical shapes and sizes, with designs that genuinely seemed to embrace the new frontier that totally portable listening devices offered. Why on earth the brand shifted course and began imitating Apple (badly) for its third generation of wireless buds, I honestly can’t say.

The new Galaxy Buds3 look (and mostly act) like a Cybertruck version of standard AirPods, rather than an updated version of the Buds2 that I gave a 9/10, WIRED Recommends badge a few years ago. They cost more than the AirPods, are even less comfortable, and sound worse.

What’s particularly baffling isn’t that Samsung is bobbing for Apple’s designs, it’s that it had perfectly excellent earbuds to begin with. The Galaxy Buds3 sound worse than their predecessors, work worse than their predecessors, and cost more than their predecessors. They aren’t very good at all, even when compared to AirPods (which also aren’t very good).

Back in the Box

It gets embarrassing as soon as you start unboxing them: The case is a rip-off of the rounded rectangular thing you get with the AirPods Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends), but with a clear plastic top that makes it look and feel cheaper. The case works fine, with wireless and USB-C charging so you can place them on a mat by your door so you don't forget them when you head out.

The buds themselves look as though AirPods took a flight to Austin, Texas, with nearly identical rounded plastic upper ear tips that transform into silver triangles as you go toward the tip of the elephant trunk. (They also come in white, where they look so much like Apple's product that you probably would mistake them if you saw someone wearing them.) There is a bright red accent on the right earbud (and inside the case) to tell you which bud is which, which is admittedly a nice addition over Apple's drab white nothingness, but otherwise these look like Cybertrucked AirPods in every sense of the word.

Photograph: Parker Hall

They're larger and more cumbersome to insert than standard AirPods, especially thanks to said triangular design: Gripping a triangle to adjust an ear tip is significantly harder than gripping a rounded cylinder, which makes putting them in and out of your ears a test of dexterity.

Same goes for the controls, which use the same squeeze and swipe controls that AirPods offer, except the shape of the buds means I always messed up the way they were sitting in my ears whenever I wanted to adjust volume or change tracks. What happened to the simple touch controls and shockingly comfortable design of the Buds2?

On the Go

The main feature Samsung is touting for these new buds is that they have AI onboard, so you can use voice controls to change songs, adjust volume, answer calls, and even do real-time translation. The voice controls work fine, but Samsung's AI-based translation isn't great; I asked my wife, who is fluent in Spanish (the most likely language to be used for this here in the United States), to speak a few sentences, and the app missed all context and translated poorly. Stick to Google Translate.

The app is full of all sorts of other unhelpful features too. The headphones will, for some reason, remind you if your neck has been bent over for too long. If you're bent over for so long you're getting neck pain, I'm not sure a pair of headphones cheerfully chirping at you will solve the problem.

Then there is the active noise canceling: Because the headphones have such a poor seal, it's like putting an air conditioner next to an open window. Sure, the ANC does what it can to remove outside noise, but without a physical barrier (like ear tips) to seal out the world (or place it through some sort of venting like Apple does with the AirPods Pro and Samsung used to do with the older Galaxy Buds), its abilities are limited. All this to say: You won't get silence wearing these buds, even with ANC cranked and your music blasting along with it.

Photograph: Parker Hall

Sound quality from a pair of 11-millimeter dynamic drivers is decent overall, but it tends toward the dramatic. Listening to Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt, the bass is overpowered even for '90s hip-hop. There can be a bit of shrillness up high in the cymbals on cool jazz records like Kind of Blue that have been remastered for brighter sizzle. I don't have the ability to test frequency response of earbuds, but my gut tells me these have a sizable scoop in the midrange, or just boosts down low and up high, that give them a sort of classic hi-fi effect, much like I used to get from older Beats headphones.

The headphones are sweat-resistant enough that I had no issues using them on runs and in the sauna, but I really dislike tipless buds when working out, especially ones that don't have any sort of ear fin to keep them in my ears. If I had spent $180 on a pair of these, I'd hate to lose one down a storm drain on my afternoon jog.

Then again, I might be happy to have it out of my life. There are simply a glut of excellent earbuds on the market these days, and these overpriced AirPod imitations are bested by dozens of pairs. Look no further than the Creative Aurvana Ace 2 (9/10, WIRED Recommends), which look better, have better noise canceling, are more comfortable, and feature groundbreaking xMEMs drivers that make them among the best-sounding earbuds I've ever heard. They also run about $50 less, on average.

I'd point you toward the better looking and better sounding (and equal parts Muskified AirPods Pro) Galaxy Buds3 Pro, which at least have ear tips, but those have such awful noise cancellation, connection noise, and issues with ear tips breaking that Samsung has recently halted shipment.

Needless to say: This generation of Samsung buds is worth skipping. The good news is that the Galaxy Buds2 Pro are still for sale for $160, and they're still utterly decent earbuds (that also have AI features). For those of us who love our Samsung devices—I have been married to Galaxy phones for years—let's just hope we have better luck in the buds department next year.