Introduction and unboxing
Samsung owns Harman, which is the dad or mum firm of a number of high-profile audio manufacturers, a lot of which make headphones. But you will see that only a few Samsung-branded headphones outdoors of the Galaxy Buds sequence. The corporate hasn’t even launched over-ear headphones in years – briefly, Samsung is betting that the Galaxy TWS buds are the one headphones that most individuals want.
We now have the brand new Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Professional in our ears proper now – they’re the most effective of the three-tier construction that Samsung settled on (FE, vanilla and Professional). We expect these are a notable enchancment over the earlier era – however let’s not spoil the ending.
The Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Professional include simply the fundamentals
You possibly can decide up a pair for your self for $250 / £220 / €250 / ₹23,000. Notice that this time across the retail bundle is as fundamental as it will probably get. There are solely two additional pairs of ideas (S and L sizes to go together with the M dimension that’s already on the buds) and a fast begin information. There is no such thing as a cable, however you need to use the USB-C cable or Qi wi-fi charger that you just use to cost your cellphone.
Design
Final yr’s Galaxy Buds3 Professional had a controversial design that didn’t fairly match their “headphones match for all” standing – the triangular stems and particularly the blade lights seemed like one thing that Samsung’s gaming monitor division cooked up. The brand new design for the Buds4 Professional is a lot better suited to the common Joe.
Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Professional (left) and Galaxy Buds4 Professional (proper)
The buds nonetheless have stems, however they’ve flat sides with a brushed metallic look. They arrive in Black, White and Pink Gold (the latter is unique to Samsung.com). Whereas we want there have been a number of extra colours, particularly a dual-tone design, these pair nicely sufficient with each outfit and cellphone that you could have.
The charging case is again to a sq. form – it’s a tad greater than the Buds2 Professional case, however it’s much more pocket-friendly than the Buds3 Professional case. Listed below are the official dimensions. To substantiate what the numbers and our eyes had been telling us, we put the Buds2 Professional case contained in the Buds4 Professional field and it was a unfastened match because it left a fraction of a millimeter on all sides. The brand new case is visibly thicker, however nonetheless fairly manageable.
Case dimensions
Buds2 Professional
Buds3 Professional
Buds4 Professional
Peak
27.8mm
48.7mm
28.3mm
Width
50.0mm
58.9mm
51.0mm
Depth
50.2mm
24.4mm
51.0mm
Weight
43.4g
46.5g
44.3g
And that’s not the one excellent news – Samsung went again to the lay-flat design of earlier generations. This makes the buds simpler to take out of the case and far simpler to place them again in. It’s apparent the place every bud is meant to go – with the earlier era it was simple to swap them round (i.e. placing the left bud in the fitting socket).
Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Professional and case (left) and Buds3 Professional and case (proper)
One design aspect we’re blissful that Samsung retained from the earlier era is the clear high for the case. It seems to be cool and is sensible too since you possibly can see that each buds are secure at house of their case with out having to open the case.
Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Professional (left) and Galaxy Buds4 Professional (proper)
The case has a tiny LED that reveals you the case cost standing (you may get an in depth battery share within the app) and a button on the again to set off pairing mode. Additionally on the again of the case is the USB-C port, whereas the underside has a Qi coil for charging. This lets you high off the buds utilizing your cellphone’s reverse wi-fi charging mode, even should you don’t have a cable available.
The clear high is sensible • The lay-flat design is far simpler to take care of
Like earlier than, the buds are rated IP57 (the non-Professional Buds4 are IP54). Be warned, although, the case is just not water resistant. In the event you misplace the buds, you need to use the Samsung Discover app – it reveals the final identified location on a map.
Controls
The stems on the Buds4 Professional provide pinch and swipe controls. There’s a little divot on the stems that will help you discover the touch-sensitive space by really feel. If you pinch the buds, they produce a “click on” sound that’s simple to listen to even with music enjoying (the press is simply audio performed by way of the buds – folks round you gained’t provide you with bizarre seems to be about your clicky headphones).
Earbud controls
A single pinch does play/pause whereas double and triple pinches are for subsequent and former tracks, respectively. Swiping up and down adjusts the quantity accordingly.
There’s a customizable pinch-and-hold gesture too, which you’ll be able to set individually on the left and proper buds. You should utilize that to launch an AI voice assistant or to allow the Interpreter mode (dwell translation). The default configuration is for pinch-and-hold to vary the noise cancellation setting (extra on that later).
Moreover, pinch and pinch-and-hold can be utilized to reply or decline calls. New this yr are movement gestures that you just do along with your head – you possibly can nod to just accept a name or shake your head to reject it. This will likely turn out to be useful in conditions the place your arms are busy, e.g. whereas driving or cooking.
Consolation
We discovered the Galaxy Buds4 Professional fairly comfy to put on for lengthy durations. They match securely with out placing an excessive amount of pressure on the ears.
Even after years of utilizing the stem-less Buds2, the Buds4 Professional felt fairly pure – although it took some time earlier than we obtained out of the behavior of tapping the buds and began pinching the stems as an alternative.
Name high quality
The Galaxy Buds4 Professional help Tremendous Huge Band Speech (aka Tremendous Clear Name). This transmits voice name audio at 16kHz bandwidth. Nevertheless, you will want a appropriate Samsung Galaxy cellphone for this characteristic to be enabled. And never simply any Galaxy however a latest S or a Z-series mannequin. And help is fairly shaky – we’ve seen reviews that Samsung broke it on the S24 sequence.
We did this take a look at with a Galaxy S23, so Tremendous Huge Band Speech wasn’t even an choice. Nonetheless, the decision high quality sounded nice – higher than the Buds3 Professional and a lot better than the Buds2 Professional. The older Buds2 are at an obstacle right here, as a result of Samsung has added an additional microphone on the backside of the stem – this retains it outdoors of the ear and presents a lot better pickup of your voice.
Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Professional use Bluetooth 6.1 for his or her connection and provide solely a restricted collection of codecs – there’s the Samsung Seamless Codec (SSC), the fundamental SBC and AAC, plus LC3.
SSC is proprietary to Samsung, so solely Galaxy telephones can use it. In the event you plan on utilizing the Buds4 (vanilla or Professional) with a non-Samsung cellphone, you must actually verify whether or not it has LC3 help as that’s the solely non-proprietary, high-quality codec on the record.
Sound settings
That is an odd and irksome limitation. There’s one other one – the Buds4 technically help multi-point connectivity. Nevertheless, the way in which it’s carried out, it solely works with a Samsung cellphone and a Samsung laptop computer. So, except you’re a Galaxy die-hard, the Buds4 Professional don’t even have multi-point connectivity.
A couple of different issues price mentioning – Auracast is supported and you may management the reception from the Samsung Put on app. Auracast is a localized broadcast that goals to interchange that previous FM radio blasting within the nook of the health heart. Some airports and prepare stations have began utilizing Auracast for arrival and departure bulletins too.
Some options like multi-point connectivity and 360 Audio are Samsung-exclusive
There’s additionally 360 Audio, which creates an immersive soundscape from the fitting supply – Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max have sure titles out there with spatial audio.
Audio high quality
Like earlier generations, the Professional buds have 2-way audio system (woofer + tweeter). This yr, the woofer is 20% bigger. And you’ll really feel it – the buds increase bass above a flat sound profile. The excellent news is that additionally they bump up the highs, which ends up in a balanced sound. Sure, it’s accentuated, however it’s the identical with shows – most individuals favor saturated colours over correct ones.
In case you are not pleased with the default setup, the app presents a 9-band equalizer if you wish to dial within the sound manually in addition to 6 presets that you would be able to select from. We used the default equalizer setting (Balanced) as that’s match for various music genres but additionally audiobooks.
As famous a number of instances above, we did the take a look at with a Galaxy S23, so we listened to the SSC codec. Reception was robust even behind a concrete wall, so you possibly can depart your cellphone and stroll from room to room with out shedding connection.
A 9-band equalizer is on the market
Lively Noise Cancellation (ANC)
Samsung advertises enhanced Lively Noise Cancellation (ANC) for the Galaxy Buds4 Professional. You possibly can management it through the pinch-and-hold gesture, from the app or from a widget.
Within the app there’s a slider with 5 settings to dial within the energy of the cancellation. For the battery take a look at under and simply on the whole, we had the ANC slider set to most. With that, the buds did job of tamping down tire and engine noise when on the street, although some nonetheless leaked by way of. They had been rather a lot higher at muting loud conversations close by.
Ambient sound and Lively Noise Cancellation Settings
In the event you don’t need to shut out the world round you, you need to use both the Ambient or the Adaptive mode. Ambient mode (aka transparency mode) has a barely audible noise in a really quiet room, whereas outdoors it feels very pure.
The Adaptive mode routinely adjusts the ANC energy between Ambient and full ANC. In our testing, it stored ANC under most degree and it maintained a relentless quantity for the skin noise.
There’s a characteristic that routinely allows Ambient mode when it detects human voice (i.e. when somebody is speaking to you) or sirens. It might probably additionally allow Ambient mode throughout voice calls – this allows you to hear the sound of your personal voice when speaking, which feels extra pure.
Battery life
The Galaxy Buds4 Professional have a 61mAh battery inside every bud and a bigger 530mAh cell contained in the charging case. Formally, they’ll play audio for as much as 6 hours repeatedly with ANC enabled and for as much as 26 hours complete with the case.
With ANC on (and set at max), the buds dropped underneath 10% cost in 6 hours, matching Samsung’s claims. We additionally tried it with noise cancellation disabled and obtained 8 and a half hours of listening time earlier than the buds dipped underneath 10%.
After each tries, we put the buds again of their case to measure how a lot it takes to recharge them absolutely – each instances the case misplaced round 40% (a bit roughly, relying on the precise cost of the buds earlier than we began). In the event you absolutely cost the buds and case earlier than you allow, you may have three and a half prices – that works out to 21 hours with ANC on and round 30 hours with ANC off.
The app
We’ve coated principally every little thing that the Galaxy Buds app has to supply, right here we’ll simply word that it’s constructed into One UI, whereas different Android branches (and iOS) should set up it as a separate app.
The Home windows model of the Galaxy Buds app
There’s additionally an app for Home windows, which provides you an identical controls because the Android app. Once more we’ve to complain that some options like multi-point connectivity are gated behind the Samsung brand. Different options like 360 Audio didn’t present up both.
Conclusion
Are the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Professional the most effective buds in the marketplace? When you have a Galaxy cellphone, particularly a brand new high-end mannequin, the reply is a transparent sure. You may avoid wasting cash by going with the Buds4 and even the Buds3 FE, however you’ll miss out on options.
And you’ll find the Buds4 Professional on sale fairly usually, anyway, so their premium worth is much less of a priority if in case you have persistence. The costs we listed – $250 / £220 / €250 / ₹23,000 – are the MSRP, not the market worth.
Nevertheless, the reply is extra difficult should you don’t use a Samsung cellphone – and even should you do, since (as we noticed above), some options are solely out there on latest S and Z fashions.
The Buds4 Professional ship on noise cancellation with any model of cellphone and can ship on sound high quality, in case your cellphone has the LC3 codec. However between codec limitations and locking non-Samsung gadgets from sure options (multi-point connectivity, 360 Audio, and so forth.), the premium worth turns into more durable to justify.
Professionals
- Nice sound high quality
- Improved Lively Noise Cancellation
- Snug
- Improved design for the buds and case
Cons
- Battery life is common
- Restricted codec help
- Some issues (e.g. multi-point connectivity) are just for Samsung gadgets
We might get a fee from qualifying gross sales.
