Now I want to start off by saying that this is a great promotional freebie by Samsung and I wish Apple would do something similar. I have been using the Samsung Buds Pro for a few days now so wanted to do a bit of a review and see how they compared with my usual headphones the AirPods Pro.
I want to focus on the following key areas for me when using wireless headphones:
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Looks
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Comfort
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Sound Quality
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Connectivity
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Battery Life
I will also compare costs at the end even though I got these as a promotional freebie.
Looks
The headphones come in nice a small compact (matte black) wireless charging case, which is a bit smaller than the AirPods Pro case. I do like the size as you would have no issue putting these in your pocket when rushing out of the door. The look of the actual headphones is very different from that of the AirPods, they’re more round with no stalk (if that is the right word) coming out of your ear.
Comfort:
So I don’t find these quite as comfortable as the AirPods and they are quite tricky to get positioned correctly in the ear. I am putting that down to not having them long but certainly not as easy to put in your ear as the AirPods. I have been using these whilst on conference calls which makes up most of my day at work and have found them good but you can tell when you have had them for a long time as with any in-ear headphones. They also come with 3 different sized tips so you can change them to suit the shape of your ear to make them more comfortable.
Sound Quality:
I think the sound quality on these is really good and stands up to the AirPods Pro well. I have found that the mic is really good when on conference calls with no issues with people being able to hear me. What I was really impressed with was the active noise cancellation, I was in the office the other day and they really did block out the noise so I could fully focus on the call that I was on at the time. Is it better than the AirPod I think they are about on a par in that area. Unlike the AirPods, you can control the headphones and settings by adding them to the Samsung Wear app so you can change the amount of ambient sound or the level of ANC which I really like.
Connectivity:
So the big bonus for me with these headphones is that they connect to both my mac and windows PC (work laptop). I struggled with my AirPods when using teams on my work PC they just don’t work well whereas these connect really well and I have no issues at all. So these are fast becoming my headphones of choice for when I am working. In terms of connecting them to your device, this is really easy you just open the case and pop them in your ears and head to your Bluetooth settings and they should appear in the list for you to select and away you go. In terms of the controls they are very easy to use, you tap and hold the body of the headphones and that will allow you to change the ANC to ambient sound and so on.
Battery Life:
I have pretty impressed with battery life, I wore these for all my conference calls which makes up a big chunk of my say and it there were still going strong by the end of the day. With ANC turned on you will get 5hrs playtime with 13hrs charge in the case, if you turn the ANC off you will get more with 8hr of playtime and 20hr charge in the case. They also have fast charging where 5 min will give you another hour of playtime. The other cool feature with these headphones is the Wireless PowerShare which allows you to give your battery a boost by placing them on the back of a Samsung smartphone.
Conclusion:
I think that these stack up really well against the AirPod Pros and are well worth considering when looking for a new set of wireless headphones. You can connect them to any device whether it be an apple or android device and they do have really good battery life. In terms of price, they are in the same sort of area as the Pros costing £219 but as mentioned early in this post, Samsung does offer these for free when you buy the S22, etc. as a promotional freebie. I think this is a great offer but if you are not eligible or the offer is finished then they are still worth having a look at as they are great pair of in-ear wireless headphones.