The new Galaxy Buds 3 series finally adopt stems

Alongside its new foldable phones, smartwatches, and smart rings, Samsung also showed off the next versions of the Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Buds Pro.

These new buds are Samsung finally conceding that the AirPod design makes the most sense for wireless earbuds. It helps position the microphone closer to the user’s mouth to ensure that the new Galaxy AI features in the earbuds can hear you.

Both sets of buds feature active noise cancellation (ANC), 24-bit audio support, IP57 water/dustproofing, and Bluetooth 5.4.

You can also control each set of buds by pinching the stems for play/pause controls or swiping up/down on the stems for volume.

Galaxy Buds 3

The Buds 3 are some of the most exciting earbuds to hit the market in a long time. We’ve seen a ton of earbuds with silicon ear tips that feature ANC, but these buds are more like standard AirPods, so they don’t feature isolation help from silicon tips. That said, Samsung still supports ANC on these buds, making them both very comfy and decently isolating.

Alongside this, the buds also use AI to help your noise-cancelling adapt over time. This means as you walk by a construction site, you might hear the sounds at first, but once the buds realize they’re letting in a lot more sound, the AI will tweak the ANC to block the construction sounds.

If you turn off ANC, these buds should last for around six hours per bud and 30 hours with the case. When you turn noise-cancelling on, the battery drops to 5 hours per bud and 24 hours with the case.

You can pre-order the buds from Samsung now for $209.99. If you order within the first few days of availability, you’ll receive a free case.

Galaxy Buds 3 Pro

The Buds 3 Pro feature the same ANC and adaptive ANC as the regular Buds 3, but they do have silicon tips, which should help block out sound better than the Buds 3.

One of the unique features of the Buds 3 Pro is something called ‘Blade Lights,’ which light up to show you how much battery life is left in the buds. These lights aren’t always on, but they light up when you take them out of the case to give you a quick view of how much charge you have left. This is smart, but I wish Samsung had put a battery indicator on the case, too.

Inside the earbuds, the 3 Pros feature more battery life and a larger speaker than the Buds 3. The Pro units have a dual amplifier design that Samsung claims helps improve the balance and clarity of music playback. We have yet to go ears-on with these, but at louder volumes, I expect the Pros will outperform the basic units.

With ANC off, the buds last seven and a half hours. The case can then provide 30 hours of additional playback. With ANC on, the buds last six hours, and the base adds another 26 hours.

The Buds Pro are on Samsung’s website for $329.99, and if you pre-order them, you’ll also receive a clip case.