It's nice to see the Buds Plus with a larger internal battery, but a shame the charging case didn't get something more substantial. For comparison, the Apple AirPods contain 5 hours in the buds themselves, with an additional 20 provided by the charging case, for 25 hours in total. That 11-hour battery life is pretty long for earbuds – but for the charging case, it’s not a huge amount of battery. The earbuds themselves contain 11 hours of charge, while the charging case provides an additional 11 hours, bringing the total battery life to 22 hours. The Galaxy Buds Plus boast a far longer battery life than the original Galaxy Buds. (Image credit: Future) Battery life and connectivity As you'd expect, the charging case uses USB-C, like Samsung's flagship phones, which means you don't need to carry a separate cable. It should fit fairly easily in your pocket and provides an additional charge for the earbuds in between uses.
For comparison the Apple AirPods Pro are IPX4 water-resistant, and while that's not as good as being fully waterproof, it should assuage any fear you have of damaging them at the gym or outside in the rain.Īs for the case itself, it's fairly light and smooth with rounded edges. That means they're mostly fine for workouts, but won't be the kind of thing you'd want to take with you to the pool or beach, where they could easily get damaged. The only other glaring issue we've found so far with the Buds Plus is that they're only IPX2 splash-resistant. It would've been nice if Samsung decided to implement an always-listening virtual assistant here, but unfortunately decided not to. Using the touch capacitive button as the means to control the earbuds can be slightly uncomfortable at first, as pushing the button pushes the earbuds further into the ear canal, but you'll soon learn to exert less pressure when using it. Single, double and triple do what you'd expect them to do and the long press can either activate your virtual assistant, lower the volume or turn on ambient sound amplification. On the outside you'll find the touch capacitive button that understands single, double, triple and long presses. In terms of customization, inside the box you'll find additional eartips in three different sizes, a larger nub to hold the earbuds in place if they're falling out and a rubber ring if you don't want any nub on the outer edges of the buds. Because of that design choice we had issues wearing these earbuds while laying in bed as the constant pressure on the buds from the pillow made them uncomfortable in the ear. They come in red, white, blue, and black, and you should be able to find a color that suits your sense of style – something that can’t be said for the strictly-white AirPods.Įschewing the long ear stems of the AirPods and the AirPods Pro, these sleek little buds pop neatly into their charging case and into your ear, being held in place by a small nub that catches a fold in your outer ear.Īt 17.5 x 22.5 x 19.2mm, they fill up most of the ear canal (which helps them stay in while working out) and protrude slightly out of the ears. The Galaxy Buds Plus sport a very similar design to their predecessors, with slick pearlescent housings and adjustable silicone eartips.
In comparison to the competition and in their value for the money, the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus are smack-dab in the middle. You can find cheaper true wireless headphones out there – like the JLab Go Air that are just $29 / £29 (about AU$40), for example – but there are also much more expensive earbuds out there like the yet-to-be-released Klipsch T10 that are slated to cost $649 (about £490 / AU$930). Now that these buds have been usurped by two new models, that price is often discounted, too.
They're also significantly cheaper than the best true wireless earbuds of 2021, the Sony WF-1000XM3, though these buds come with premium features like active noise cancellation. Samsung launched the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus at its Unpacked 2020 event in San Francisco.Īt $149.99 / £159 / AU$299, they're about the same price as the original Samsung Galaxy Buds (depending on your region) and a little cheaper than their biggest competitors, the Apple AirPods.