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Samsung unveiled its newest flagship smartphones at its Unpacked occasion in San Francisco this week. For audio fans, the model additionally revealed its newest noise-canceling earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 4 Professional and Buds 4. The earbuds characteristic a redesigned look, enhanced energetic noise-canceling, and a few helpful new options, like head-gesture controls that allow you to settle for or decline calls with a nod or shake of the top.
Whereas most of the upgrades are pretty modest, the place they shine is in sound high quality. They characteristic a dual-driver design with a bigger woofer, plus a dual-amplifier in every earbud. They usually have some options, like multiband customizable EQ, that set them other than rivals like Apple’s AirPods.
Design and Building
Samsung revamped the look of the Buds 4 Professional and Buds 4, with a flatter stem and metallic accents. It’s a departure from the angular, aggressively styled look of the Buds 3. Like AirPods, the Buds 4 Professional and base fashions range by eartip fashion. The 4 contains a semi-open design, with out silicone eartips, whereas the Professional 4 has a sealed design with detachable silicone eartips. The stems have fashionable metallic accents, whereas the case maintains the clear lid design discovered on the final technology’s mannequin. As for battery life, it’s pretty common, with as much as six hours with ANC on and 26 complete with the case.
Controls and Options
Samsung took a web page from Apple with the Buds 4 app controls, shifting them from the separate Wearable app on to the settings menu and management panel. The transfer is designed to combine extra seamlessly with Samsung telephones, nevertheless it additionally displays a pattern amongst tech manufacturers of constructing ever taller partitions of their ecosystems. Whereas these earbuds will work with non-Samsung gadgets, it’ll undoubtedly be a worse expertise.
The earbud controls are just like these on AirPods: sliding the controls adjusts quantity, whereas pinching the stems pauses playback. It’s reliable and intuitive, though the sensor space is considerably small.
You additionally get the dwell translation characteristic that Samsung launched with the Buds 3, plus options like put on detection and ANC that mechanically switches to ambient mode whenever you begin speaking so you may hear your voice.
Sound High quality and Noise-Canceling
The Professional 4 mannequin contains a dual-driver design with a separate woofer and tweeter, plus a dual-amp design. What that interprets to is punchy, clear bass with out muddiness and crisp highs and vocals. The soundstage is full and expansive, with devices that encompass you. You additionally get 24-bit audio with Samsung’s codec, leading to higher-resolution audio.
The noise-canceling efficiency is stable, capably dealing with bustling streets or background conversations. Louder sounds and better frequencies can nonetheless sneak by means of, nevertheless it’s a giant leap over the underwhelming ANC of the 2024 mannequin. It’s also possible to regulate the ANC stage your self, or select Adaptive ANC, which adjusts mechanically. Nonetheless, you gained’t fairly get the monastic silence of earbuds like Apple’s AirPods or Bose’s QuietComfort Ultras.
Verdict
Whereas I haven’t examined these at size, it’s clear that Samsung made enhancements the place it counts — the noise-canceling is healthier, the design is extra interesting, and there are a handful of latest ease-of-use options.
Samsung could not have taken any huge swings — there are not any headline-grabbing options like 40-hour battery life or built-in heart-rate screens, for instance. However what Samsung appears to be betting on is sound high quality — and it’s an excellent wager.
