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Right now, the vast majority of truly wireless earbuds from big name manufactures are in ear ear buds. But I think thats going to start to change cause we’re starting to see some new and interesting non in ear ear buds. Now obviously AirPods have alway been there and there’s a whole bunch of AirPods clones out there. But im referring to more like the Surface Earbuds and the new Galaxy Buds Live which I actually really like.
Now when it comes to price, the galaxy buds live retail for $170 which is $20 more than the Galaxy Buds plus. And over all even though I do like these earbuds, I do feel that youre paying a premium for these earbuds. But nonetheless I do feel that you’ll be very happy with these earbuds depending on a very particular set of circumstances. So if you want to pick these earbuds up they’ll be linked down below.
Now first off lets address the fit of these earbuds. Now these earbuds look like little beans, but surprisingly they fit very well. Now these earbuds fit very similarly to AirPods… as in they don’t actually go into your ear canal they just rest right out side of it. But they’re also very small like AirPods so id imagine that if you have a hard time keeping AirPods in, cause you have larger ear canals then you’ll might have a little bit of trouble keeping these earbuds in as well. But the thing that makes the Galaxy Buds Live very unique is that they have these little rubber feet. And what these rubber feet do is that they brace these earbuds against your ears helping them stay locked in. These feet don’t actually hook into any of the ridges in your ears like ear fins do on some other earbuds out there. Now personally for me I just use the small feet but these earbuds also come included with a second larger pair as well.
And over all for me, these earbuds fit very well. I mean you can see right now im shaking my head and these earbuds aren’t falling out. These earbuds are perfectly fine if youre walking around or even jogging… but personally for me I did find that these earbuds did need to be constantly adjusted while I was working out.
But over all these earbuds fit very well but more importantly these earbuds are extremely comfortable and you can wear these earbuds for hours on end with any problems. Cause even though in ear earbuds are fine personally they’re not my favorite cause they do get itchy after like 30 minutes. Thats why ive always been a proponent for AirPods for long use sessions and thats why im very excited to see new non in ear earbuds hit the market. Cause I think in the next few months or so youre going to be able to choose between non in ear earbuds and in ear ear buds just like how you can choose between on ear headphones or over ear headphones.
So the major pro about the Galaxy Buds Live being Non in ear ear buds is that they’re very comfortable, they don’t get itchy in your ears, and you can wear them for hours on end with any problems just like how you can with AirPods… But the biggest draw back here is that these earbuds let in a lot of noise. So if youre going to be listening to music with these earbuds or listening to a podcast while youre out an about or at the gym… you are going to have to crank the volume up on these earbuds.
Now one of the biggest features about the galaxy buds live is that they have an active noise cancelation feature. But truth be told, the active noise cancellation on these earbuds doesn’t really do much. They’ll might block out a little bit of low frequency hum, but in my experience they don’t block out a meaningful amount of noise and they don’t block out anywhere near as much noise as other ANC earbuds like the AirPods Pro or Sennheiser Momentum 2’s… But personally I don’t really care cause the main selling point for me here is the Galaxy Buds Live's comfort and portability.
Now when it comes to the sound quality of these earbuds… they get the job done but if youre really concerned about sound quality youre way better off getting a pair of in ear earbuds. Like I just mentioned due to their design these earbuds let in a lot of ambient noise even with their ANC turned on which does affect your music. But also these earbuds are mostly just bass and vocals and everything else is just jumbled up in the background. Now from a technical standpoint these earbuds are fine cause their bass doesn’t bottom out and the highs don’t get tinny… but when it comes to instrument separation thats a different story. Everything on these earbuds sounds very close together, the main things youre going to hear here is bass and vocals. Now when it comes to their sound signature while in their normal EQ these earbuds have a lot of bass which I do feel is a little over powering cause it makes it very hard to hear everything else. So personally I do prefer to use the dynamic EQ setting on these earbuds cause it does bring the vocals out a little bit and the bass gets reduced a little bit as well. So over all these earbuds sound good enough to get the job done but I do feel these earbuds are better for either passive listening or for listening to podcast and audio books or for watching videos. And if youre really concerned about sound quality then I highly recommend that you go with the Galaxy Buds Plus.
Now even though these earbuds might not have amazing sound quality or an all that impressive Active Noise Cancelation everything else about them is. The Galaxy Buds Live have up to a combined battery life of up to 29 hours if you use them with their ANC and bixby turned off. And since I don’t use the active noise cancellation on these earbuds and since Im using them with a pixel 4a so I don’t use Bixby either… for my use case these earbuds have a very impressive and above average battery life.
And I also find the Galaxy Buds Live combined battery life of up to 29 hours very impressive cause they manage to have this above average battery life all while still having a very compact case that you can either charge via its USB C port on the back or you can even charge it wirelessly. So if you’ve got a phone that supports power sharing you can always stretch the battery life out on these earbuds. And in general, these earbuds have a very compact case. This case is a few millimeters thicker than either the AirPods or Airpods pro case and its literally one millimeter thicker than the Galaxy Buds Plus case… But ultimately the Galaxy Buds Live have a very compact case that youre really not going to when you’ve got it in your pocket and personally I do prefer this case over the Galaxy buds Plus case cause it does have a smaller foot print.
But I do have one major critique about this carrying case and that going to be its magnets. I can’t help but feel that these magnets are a little weak and everytime that I go to put these earbuds away im a little worried that im going to miss and drop my earbuds especially cause the earbuds themselves are so slippery. Where as with the galaxy buds plus and a lot of other earbuds out there… the magnets in their cases are noticeably stronger so you feel more confident putting your earbuds away.
Now when it comes to bluetooth connectivity its all around good. These earbuds have a stable connection but more importantly each earbud actually establishes a connection with your phone. So if you just want to use one earbud at a time you can use either one it doesn’t matter. And when it comes to watching movies or videos on your phone these earbuds have zero latency across the board whether youre using an iPhone or an android device.
But another major critique I have about these earbuds is going to be their touch pads. Now both of these earbuds have touch pads so you can tap, double tap, or triple tap to play, pause, or skip through your music. But unfortunately for me, these touchpad have been rather troublesome. Either it takes a few times for these earbuds to actually play or pause my music… or on multiple occasions ill tap on these touchpads to once to pause my music but instead they’ll skip a track. But also there’s the fact that 9 out of ten times when you go to just adjust these earbuds they’ll interfere with what ever you're playing either by pausing your music or skipping your music. So personally this is why I wish more earbuds would just use haptic touchpads like AirPods do. Cause even though the haptic touchpad on AirPods are limited… therye very accurate. Now if youre someone like me who’s not really going to use the ANC on these earbuds all that much you can always remap what pressing a holding these on these touchpads does. By they default they’ll toggle between ANC on and off or you can make them so you can adjust your volume. But ultimately for me I do find the touchpads on these earbuds a litte bit on the finicky side and I find myself just using my phone instead.
Now one last major critique about these earbuds is their lack of an ambient mode which is somethings the Galaxy Buds Plus do have. Now Samsung says that they don’t need an ambient mode and given their design they do let in a lot of ambient noise in anyways… but I would argue that these earbuds would benefit from an ambient mode cause the point of an ambient mode is being able to clearly hear your surroundings while youre playing your music or podcast.
But the weird thing about these earbuds is that they have a feature under the labs tab that let in a little bit of ambient noise… so ultimately this is just a tease cause this feature on the Galaxy Buds Live is like having the ambient mode on the Galaxy Buds Plus set to low. So what im getting at here is that I think it would be in Samsung’s best interests and make these earbuds even better if they just get a full fledge ambient mode through a software update.
But finally here’s the microphone test and I gotta say the microphone on the Galaxy Buds Plus is phenomenal. First off my voice sound great but also this microphone does a really good job of blocking out ambient noise. Cause right now ive got this AC unit turned on and if we were to switch over to my lapel microphone youre going to clearly hear that AC unit. But if we switch back over to the Galaxy Buds Live… its gone.
And if we were to compare the microphone on the galaxy buds live to AirPods… the galaxy buds live are the winners here cause my voice sounds better and they also do a batter job of blocking out that AC unit which you can clearly hear with AirPods.
So with all that being said even though the touchpads on the Galaxy Buds live are a little on the finicky side, their active noise cancelation isn’t all that impressive, and they only sound good enough… for me the main selling points for these earbuds are their overall comfort, above average battery life and amazing microphone for phone calls. Making the Galaxy Buds Live a spectacular pair of everyday carry truly wireless earbuds. The only thing thats missing on these earbuds is a full fledge ambient mode which Samsung can easily add through a software update.