Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro review: Excellent ANC, ecosystem limitations

Samsung has been a notable participant within the buds recreation for some time now. Throughout that point, it has dropped two generations of vanilla true wireless earbuds, combined it up with Plus and Professional fashions, and even tried out new type elements just like the bean-tastic Galaxy Buds Dwell. These Professional buds are the flagship providing although, and we’re now on spherical two with the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional. What have they got to supply this time round and do they do sufficient to warrant an improve from the first-gen Buds Professional? Discover out in our Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional overview.

Who’re the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional for?

• Samsung Galaxy gadget homeowners: Anybody invested within the Samsung ecosystem will get essentially the most out of the Buds 2 Professional, together with entry to unique options just like the Samsung Seamless Codec and automated gadget switching.
• Folks searching for nice ANC: The Galaxy Buds 2 Professional are a number of the best noise-cancelling buds round.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional characteristic a matte floor, in distinction to the shiny plastic of their predecessors. They really feel premium, however we discovered that the brand new end is a bit more liable to scratches. And that applies to the case too, which additionally readily attracts mud if left open. Luckily, sturdy magnets retains the case’s lid closed and stow the buds in place, although they don’t do a fantastic job of orienting them accurately. Generally you’ll must shift them round manually to get every thing to suit earlier than closing the lid.

The Galaxy Buds 2 Professional characteristic an IPX7 rating, so rain and sweat shouldn’t be a giant concern. Every earbud additionally has a helpful vent to alleviate the “pressurized” sensation some folks expertise when enabling energetic noise-cancelling (ANC). Nonetheless, the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional won’t be the perfect selection for individuals who partake in intense exercises as they don’t have ear hooks or stabilizers to assist maintain them in place throughout speedy actions.

Whereas they is probably not essentially the most safe buds on the market, the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional proved to be fairly comfy in our testing. The ear ideas are made out of silicone, and you’ll select 11mm, 13mm, and 15mm ideas. We discovered that the Match Take a look at within the companion Galaxy Wearable app is helpful, and swapping the information out isn’t too tough both.

For those who’re the sort of individual that’s all the time on the go, the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional can ease into your schedule by studying out your notifications. Voice detection can be obtainable for those who’ll continually be having conversations all through the day. This routinely switches the buds into Ambient mode so you possibly can hear your environment and chat to a different individual whereas maintaining the buds in your ears. This transparency characteristic will deactivate after ten seconds with out speech, therefore Samsung’s “Clever Dialog Mode” moniker. There’s additionally a neck stretch reminder characteristic which, as you may anticipate from the outline, reminds you each ten minutes to stretch for those who allow it. Thanks, Samsung!

Samsung’s buds have all the time had a little bit of a difficulty with being a tad too delicate with contact instructions, with minor changes to the buds’ positioning in your ears typically mistaken for faucet enter to pause or skip tracks. Fortunately, the Buds 2 Professional have squashed this specific bug. Now you can alter the match of the buds all through the day with out too many unintended actions (it nonetheless occurs sometimes). Once you do faucet the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional for a fast command you’ll hear a corresponding tone. This can be a good little bit of consumer suggestions so you already know your buds really did one thing.

By default, the controls are set to the next:

You may set touch-and-hold to activate your voice assistant of selection, equivalent to Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. Bixby followers pairing their buds to a Galaxy cellphone have the choice of going totally hands-free by activating Samsung’s assistant with a primary “Hello, Bixby” wake work. Spotify Tap is on the market to all cellphone customers, although. Spotify subscribers can rapidly begin listening to their favourite tunes with only a single contact.

The Galaxy Buds 2 Professional’s controls are pretty sturdy general, however — and it is a huge bummer — you don’t get a lot in the best way of customization. You may solely tweak one enter: touch-and-hold. By default, holding on the left bud is ready to “quantity down,” and the best is “quantity up.” You may change these inputs fully, however there’s no mixing and matching. That’s, if you need the best earbud to be “quantity up” and the left to be ANC controls, for instance, you’re out of luck. For “Professional” buds, it appears odd we will’t fine-tune the enter controls on a extra granular stage.

We additionally encountered a reasonably severe bug with the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional’s contact controls throughout our testing: they merely refused to register any faucets after some time. Disconnecting and reconnecting the buds fastened this difficulty, however that’s hardly a everlasting resolution. Hopefully, a future firmware replace will repair this difficulty.

Whereas you should utilize the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional by way of Bluetooth with out the Galaxy Wearable app, you’ll have to obtain it and register your buds to realize entry to the complete suite of the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional’s options. It ought to be famous that the app calls for entry to a good quantity of non-public knowledge by way of app permissions. You may opt-out of issues like location tracking initially, however the app gained’t run the following time till you allow it. There’s additionally no Galaxy Wearable app for iOS, so don’t anticipate firmware updates or characteristic entry for those who’re an iPhone consumer.

The Galaxy Wearable app presents you with EQ presets (no full EQ, boo), shows what listening mode you’re at present in, and allows you to management these aforementioned contact instructions. That is the place Samsung Galaxy gadget customers can entry unique options equivalent to spatial audio, which Samsung calls “360 Audio.”

As for the remainder of the app, the aforementioned notification readout capacity, accessibility choices, cellphone name choices, SmartThings Discover, and the ear tip match check are all additionally right here. The SmartThings Discover characteristic is just like choices from Apple and Google, nevertheless it’s tied to Samsung’s ecosystem, so that you’ll have to be rocking a Samsung cellphone with Android Oreo or later. It’s clear that present Samsung customers are the core target market right here as a result of many ecosystem-exclusive options.

Total, the app is ok and mandatory for enabling some optionally available options. We actually want it had a full equalizer and didn’t ask for as a lot knowledge, although.

Bluetooth connectivity is the place the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional totally showcase their ecosystem-focused characteristic set. Specifically, they assist the Samsung Seamless Codec on Galaxy gadgets working One UI model 4.0 or increased in apps that assist 24-bit audio. Everybody else will get AAC and SBC codecs. The Galaxy Buds 2 Professional additionally assist automated switching assist when paired with Samsung gadgets beneath the identical Samsung account, although there is no such thing as a assist for Bluetooth multipoint. As a result of they use Bluetooth 5.3, these earbuds ought to assist the LE Audio down the road, however we’ll have to attend and see. Samsung may have included aptX for broader low-latency Android assist — one other sacrifice for the walled backyard method.

How do you pair Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional?

The pairing mild on the inside of the case makes it easy to pair the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional to nearly any gadget:

1. Open the case and depart the buds inside.
2. Guarantee Bluetooth is enabled in your gadget.
3. Put your fingers on the contact panels of the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional and maintain them there till the sunshine blinks purple, blue, and inexperienced.
4. Select the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional in your gadget’s Bluetooth settings.

Future connections with the identical gadget ought to occur routinely after you’re taking the buds out of their case. For Samsung gadgets, specifically, you may even see a window if you open the case close to your cellphone or pill asking if you wish to pair the buds, even when Bluetooth is off.

We sometimes discovered that reconnecting to Samsung gadgets after a interval of inactivity additionally opened the Galaxy Wearable app. This received tiresome fairly rapidly.

In line with our checks, the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional hit round 4 hours, 50 minutes of playback time. That’s fairly near the 5 hours Samsung claims they’ll get. This isn’t the longest battery lifetime of any true wi-fi buds on the market, nevertheless it’s fairly typical for ANC earbuds. In any case, it takes quite a lot of computational energy to get good noise-cancelling outcomes.

In terms of complete battery life, Samsung claims that for those who drop the buds into the case, you possibly can stand up to 18 hours of battery life general with ANC on. Switching it off permits that to climb to as much as 29 hours.

You may recharge the case and buds with USB-C wired charging or wirelessly with Qi-compatible pads. When you have a Samsung cellphone that helps Wi-fi Powershare (or any gadget with sturdy sufficient reverse wi-fi charging), you can too use that to prime them again up.

Noise-cancelling might be the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional’s largest draw to these exterior the Samsung ecosystem. In brief, they do a superb job of it. That’s very true within the low vary of audible frequencies, the place these earbuds knock down undesirable noises considerably. Nevertheless, their efficiency has peaks and valleys, as seen within the chart above. That would result in a less-than-seamless expertise at occasions. Nonetheless, for those who pop these buds in whereas on the subway, for example, you’ll rapidly understand simply how effectively they deal with noise and the way loud the world actually is.

The buds’ isolation is alright, too, so higher-frequency noises get amply blocked, although that is very depending on getting a great match from the included ear ideas. We didn’t discover it to be too tough, however the Galaxy Wearable app’s ear tip match check is helpful for individuals who could be struggling to get a safe match.

The isolation mixed with ANC ought to make your commute a lot quieter and forestall you from cranking up the amount a lot that you simply threat damaging your ears. For those who don’t need ANC, you possibly can disable it or go for the transparency mode within the app to listen to every thing round you. And as talked about, the dialog mode characteristic works fairly effectively if you wish to strike a stability between noise cancellation and situational consciousness.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional observe our sister web site SoundGuys’ house curve fairly carefully, as you possibly can see within the chart above, however they deviate barely within the lows and highs. They stick near the curve within the mids, so the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional ought to reproduce vocals precisely. We don’t have main complaints concerning the Buds 2 Professional’s sound high quality typically. Largely, we simply have minor quibbles.

A kind of is how these kicked up far ends of the audible frequency spectrum could make the hi-hats sound too loud in comparison with the guitar in a music like Nothing To Be Done by The Pastel. The bass guitar and kick drum are additionally fairly noticeable which makes the vocals appear somewhat quiet, although for those who like bassy audio, you may discover this frequency response to your liking. Nonetheless, every thing is distinguishable sufficient and nothing will get completely misplaced.

You may experiment with included EQ presets if you want, however none of them will instantly deal with these amped-up ends of the frequency response curve. You’ll have to make use of a third-party equalizer for that. Once more, we want Samsung had included a real customizable EQ for those who need to tinker with the combination.

Sure, the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional can take and make cellphone calls, and the microphone rejects exterior noise fairly effectively. Nonetheless, your voice might not sound “pure” to listeners. That’s effective for work calls or informal conversations, however remember the mic might create a “lisp-like” sound or make plosives (such because the letter “p”) too emphasised. Anybody with a deep voice might discover this extra in our expertise. Total, utilizing these earbuds in an workplace setting or for chats with buddies shall be effective.

You may hearken to pattern recordings from the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional under. Inform us your ideas within the ballot beneath.

Galaxy cellphone homeowners will completely get essentially the most advantages from the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional, which isn’t an enormous shock. Samsung is clearly focusing on its walled backyard first by providing unique entry to its Seamless codec, high-bitrate audio, spatial audio, and rather more. When you have a Galaxy cellphone already or want to purchase one quickly, these earbuds will make a fantastic companion to it. For everybody else, the state of affairs is a little more nuanced.

The Galaxy Buds 2 Professional’s stellar ANC efficiency is the massive draw for all Android customers, however there are notable drawbacks elsewhere. Probably the most limiting is that you simply solely get AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs on non-Galaxy gadgets, which could lead to latency and mismatches between visible and audio content material. Whereas the Galaxy Wearable app works on all Android gadgets and provides helpful options, it calls for plenty of private knowledge that’s necessary for it even to work.

Samsung’s omission of a really customizable equalizer at this worth level is disappointing for everybody, nevertheless. And at last, iPhone homeowners ought to steer clear — there’s no app assist for iOS and different buds are much more suited to Apple’s gadgets.

Samsung has been making earbuds for some time, so it’s not stunning the first- and second-generation Galaxy Buds Professional share quite a lot of DNA when put head-to-head. The largest improve is the ANC, which is much extra spectacular on the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional.

Like most of Samsung’s earlier earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Professional characteristic a shiny case and buds, and we discovered that these scratch simply as simply because the matte Galaxy Buds 2 Professional. Each buds use the identical Galaxy Wearables app and supply the identical primary options, although 24-bit audio is reserved just for the brand new Galaxy Buds 2 Professional. Battery life is roughly equal — our checks received 4 hours, 48 minutes for the first-gen Galaxy Buds Professional, which is only some minutes lower than their successors.

If you have already got the Galaxy Buds Professional, your fundamental purpose to improve to the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional could be the much-improved noise-cancelling. For those who’re contemplating each and wish the most effective worth, the unique Galaxy Buds Professional are cheaper and will go on sale extra typically and with higher reductions now that they’ve been changed in Samsung’s lineup.

Samsung’s extra budget-oriented earbuds, fall in the midst of the pack compared to the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional. Apparently, regardless of being older and extra reasonably priced, the Galaxy Buds 2 really block out higher-frequency noises barely higher by way of isolation than the brand new Galaxy Buds 2 Professional. Nevertheless, their ANC doesn’t do as effectively within the low and mid ranges, which is the place the Buds 2 Professional actually shine.

Moreover, the Galaxy Buds 2 solely have an IPX2 score. Which means they’re solely proof against occasional splashes, versus the tighter water resistance of the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional. The older Galaxy Buds 2 even have a shiny case and earbuds. And very like the matte Galaxy Buds 2 Professional, each textures present scratches simply in our expertise.

Each units of earbuds supply AAC and SBC for each non-Samsung gadget, however the Galaxy Buds 2 use the Samsung Scalable Codec on Samsung gadgets, whereas the newer Buds 2 Professional use the Samsung Seamless Codec. These two codecs operate equally, however you gained’t get 24-bit audio assist and different latest-and-greatest options with the previous. Likewise, the Galaxy Buds 2 use Bluetooth 5.2, whereas the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional use Bluetooth 5.3.

In terms of sound high quality, the Galaxy Buds 2 observe the SoundGuys’ home curve extra carefully than the Buds 2 Professional. Nonetheless, each fashions are more likely to please most listeners, and the variations are minor at finest.

With all that stated, worth is what is going to seemingly tip you over to the Galaxy Buds 2 for those who’re undecided. They’re a stable selection if you need good ANC earbuds with out spending loads.

The opposite producer looming giant within the ANC-equipped earbuds world is Sony. The Sony WF-1000XM4 ($278), nonetheless retain loads of options that make them a dependable choose on the planet of noise-cancelling true wi-fi earbuds. They don’t deal with sub-bass in addition to the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Professional, however they provide good ANC general. Plus, their foam ear ideas successfully block high-frequencies noises. They’re additionally rather more platform-agnostic than Samsung’s earbuds. Crucially, their LDAC Bluetooth codec assist is on the market on many Android telephones, and iPhone customers nonetheless get AAC. The Sony Headphones app works on each platforms, too. Which means it doesn’t matter what gadget you employ them on, you’re going to get a clean expertise.

However iPhone all the time customers also can all the time fall again on Apple’s trusty AirPods Pro (1st generation) and AirPods Pro (2nd generation), that are tightly built-in with iOS gadgets proper out of the field. The primary-gen AirPods Professional don’t do ANC in addition to the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional, however they nonetheless work effectively sufficient to drown out distracting noises. The second-gen AirPods Professional enhance on their ANC and are available in at a comparable worth to the Buds 2 Professional.

In order for you one thing cheaper, the Sony Linkbuds S ($179) — not the doughnut-hole Linkbuds WF-L900 — supply higher battery life at seven hours, 43 minutes with noise-cancelling enabled. They sound good on their very own, and an equalizer within the Sony Headphones app is there, simply in case.

For Google die-hards, the Google Pixel Buds Pro ($199) supply tight Android integration and dependable noise-cancelling. Their case is IPX2 rated, and together with IPX4-rated buds, so sweat and drips shouldn’t be a priority. Plus, the battery life hit seven hours, six minutes in our testing. Oddly sufficient for Android-focused earbuds, they solely assist the AAC and SBC Bluetooth codes, although that places them proper according to the Galaxy Buds 2 Professional on any non-Galaxy gadget. Lastly, the app (at present) lacks an equalizer, very like the Buds 2 Professional, although Google says it will arrive in a future replace.