Samsung today unpacked Galaxy Buds Plus, its answer to Apple’s top-selling AirPods. The Korean company’s latest truly wireless headphones offer better sound quality and longer battery life. But they lack the hallmark feature of AirPods Pro: active noise cancellation.
A comparison of these two hearables isn’t as simple as saying that one is for Samsung phones and the other for iPhone. As Samsung said today when it was unveiling this product, “Buds Plus also works seamlessly with iOS. Just download the Galaxy wearable app from the App Store to customize your music experience.”
And AirPods can be used with Android devices, too.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus vs. AirPods Pro
Samsung barely tweaked the shape of its second-generation Galaxy Buds, but packed in internal improvements. Each earbud boasts a two-way speaker with a tweeter for the high notes and a woofer for low tones. Dual dynamic drivers promise to improve audio quality.
Samsung clearly worked hard on improving the battery life of Galaxy Buds Plus, too, promising up to 11 hours on a single charge. Compare that to the 4.5 hours offered by AirPods Pro, which Apple introduced last fall.
But it’s a different story with their respective charging cases. Samsung’s brings total listening time to 22 hours, while Apple’s case jumps listening time up over 24 hours.
Samsung’s hearable comes with three microphones built in: an inner one and two outer ones. The company says this will bring better sound during voice calls. But these microphones aren’t used to enable active noise cancellation. That’s going to make it harder for these earbuds to compete against AirPods Pro, which offer this popular feature.
Perhaps Samsung’s answer will be price. Galaxy Buds Plus cost $149. AirPods Pro retail for $249.
Given the price and feature set of this new wearable, Samsung seems to have set its sights on the standard AirPods that start at $159.
Today was also the unveiling of some handsets compatible with these in-ear headphones, including the Galaxy S20 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Flip.
Source: Samsung
