Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 are the best earbuds you can get without silicon tips

While I’m a little sad Samsung has moved away from the small design of 2020’s Galaxy Buds Live, the new Galaxy Buds 3 carries forward some of the best tech from the late great earbuds and repacks them with stronger microphones and improved sound quality.

Don’t get me wrong; Samsung could have added a few more perks to these buds, but at the end of the day, there is a lot to love about them, especially for Samsung users.

A new design, for Samsung

When I first saw these buds, I laughed because they were so similar to Apple’s AirPods. However, after seeing the silver design in person, it instantly grew on me. Once I put them into my ears, I was pleasantly surprised. They’re comfortable and fit into my ears really well, even with the larger, more angular stems.

The Galaxy Buds 3 don’t feature silicon tips, but like the Galaxy Buds Live, they feature Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) to block out some extra noise. They’re not perfect since they don’t fully isolate you like the Galaxy Buds Pros, but the added active notice cancellation (ANC) helps compensate for the lack of a tight silicon seal around your ear.

This gives these buds a leg up on the competition, making them extremely comfortable to wear and great at blocking out distractions when you have some music playing. The sound isolation is similar to using an earbud with a silicon tip but without any ANC turned on. And while this might not sound like a big difference, I’ve found in 90 percent of scenarios, it’s enough.

If you’re looking for full isolation, you’ll need to get over-ear headphones or buds with silicon tips, but if you want something comfortable that will block out a bit of background noise to help you focus on your music more, these are perfect. If you work in an open office, these will do a decent job of blocking out co-workers, but you’ll need to have music playing to really block others out.

The microphones are also primed for work. You can make and take calls with these without worrying if the person on the other end of the call can hear you. There’s actually some pretty decent de-noising tech in the microphones to help block wind and street noise if you’re taking a call outdoors.

Beyond that, there isn’t a lot special here. The battery life is pretty middling, with only five hours of music playback (ANC on). With the case, you can recharge the buds quickly to get a total of 30 hours, but it’s not breaking any boundaries. You can also make the earbuds chime to find them, but you can’t do the same with the case, which would have been a nice addition.

While the new design has been mocked online, it does let Samsung finally stop using touch controls, and it’s able to move over to squeeze buttons in the stems. These work so much better than touch controls, so I’ve had way fewer accidental pauses on these than I’ve had on previous Galaxy Buds.

One element of the design that’s a little annoying is the way Samsung placed the earbuds into their case. Since the stems are rotated toward the centre, you need to rotate the buds every time you take them out of the case and put them into your ears. It’s a menial thing, but it speaks a lot about Samsung’s lacklustre product design.