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Samsung's new truly wireless earbuds – the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live – are now official, promising a premium audio experience, and looking quite unlike any other truly wireless earbuds out there.
Here's what we know about the new AirPods Pro competition:
Galaxy Buds Live features and design
Aside from their unique and stylish bean-like design, that is said to allow for comfortable all-day usage, the Buds Live's notable features include a Qi certified wireless charging case (which can also be charged via its USB Type-C port) and active noise cancelling (ANC). The Buds Live also support all of the useful touch gestures we can expect, such as a single tap to play and pause, double tap for jumping to the next song, and a triple tap for the previous song.
The Galaxy Buds Live will be made available in three colors – Mystic White, Mystic Bronze and Mystic Black, which are all glossy. It's also notable that their case opens up like a wedding ring case, also differentiating itself from the crowd.
Galaxy Buds Live: sound quality and active noise cancellation (ANC)
The sound on the Galaxy Buds Live is tuned by AKG. Samsung promises deep, live and spacious sound, the latter made possible thanks to a dedicated air vent on each earbud. Along with the 12mm speaker inside each earbud is also a bass duct, so bass is supposed to be deep and clean.
Samsung says call quality via the Buds Live will be crisp, thanks to the three mics and a "voice pickup unit" on the Buds Live. The three mic system will work to reduce background noise and focus their signal on where the user's voice is coming from.
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The ANC on the Buds Live will reduce low-band background noise under 700Hz, such as noise from buses and trains, while still allowing for the user to hear important sounds like voices and announcements.
Bixby and customization options
If rocking a Samsung smartphone, users will be able to voice-activate Samsung's Bixby smart assistant, and ask it questions or give it commands entirely hands-free. Such commands can be to send a message to a contact, check the weather for you, play music and more.
Customization options will be made available to Galaxy Buds Live users via the Galaxy Wearable app. Those are to include an equalizer, the option to turn ANC on and off and a user-customizable touch gesture.
Buds Together, Game Mode and Swift Pair
A new Buds Together feature will allow you to share a song with a friend by syncing your Buds with theirs. It will work with their Galaxy Buds Live, Galaxy Buds or Buds+, and essentially allow for you and them to enjoy the same songs together, for example on a bus ride.
Game Mode is another feature, which will aim to improve audio latency. Thanks to its reduction of any audio delay, Game Mode can be particularly useful to streamers and gamers.
Swift Pair, a third notable feature, will easily pair your Buds Live with a Windows 10 PC, and is meant to make the earbuds useful for work-related tasks, such as video calls.
Galaxy Buds Live Battery life
As for battery life, Samsung says that the earbuds can last up to 6 hours without the case, on a single charge, or up to 21 hours with the case, if ANC or Bixby Voice Wake are on. With ANC and Bixby both on, those estimates are down to 5.5 hours and 20 hours respectively. With ANC and Bixby off, the earbuds can last up to 8 hours on their own, and up to 29 hours if using their case for the occasional recharge.
Those estimates were for playing music, but as for talk time, Samsung says that with ANC on, the earbuds can last up to 4.5 hours on their own and 17 hours with their case. With ANC off, those estimates are up to 5.5 hours and 19 hours of talk time respectively.
Galaxy Buds Live price and release date Specifications
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live will be using Bluetooth 5.0 for connecting with your phones and tablets. Compatible smartphones are both iPhones running iOS 10 or higher and Android phones running on minimum 1.5 GB of RAM and Android 5.
As previously mentioned, the earbuds' charging case is Qi certified for wireless charging, so you can conveniently charge your Buds Live via the reverse wireless charging on your Galaxy S20+, for example.
The Buds Live are also IPX2 water-resistant, which means that they should survive contact with drops of water in certain conditions, but it definitely doesn't make them suitable for use in the rain. They'll be fine if you're sweating at the gym, but nothing more extreme than that.
On to their dimensions and weight. The earbuds are 16.5 (W) x 27.3 (H) x 14.9 (D) mm, weighing 5.6 grams. Their case is 50 (W) x 50.2 (H) x 27.8 (D) mm, weighing a comfortable 42.2 grams.
Galaxy Buds Live price and release date
The Buds Live can be preordered right now for the price of $169.99 and will be available on August 6.
Rado, a tech enthusiast with a love for mobile devices, brings his passion for Android and iPadOS to PhoneArena. His tech journey began with MP3 players and has evolved to include tinkering with Android tablets and iPads, even running Linux and Windows 95 on them. Beyond tech, Rado is a published author, music producer, and PC game developer. His professional work on iPads, from producing songs to editing videos, showcases his belief in their capabilities. Rado looks forward to the future of mobile tech, particularly in augmented reality and multi-screen smartphones.
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