‘Wild’ feature on new Samsung buds

If you grew up in the 80s, you probably dreamed of the day you’d get your hands on Marty McFly’s hoverboard from Back to the Future Part 2.

As a child of the 90s, my discovery came later when I saw the Babel-Fish earbuds from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

For those who haven’t seen the classic sci-fi movie, these headphones allow the user to instantly understand speech in another language.

The painful trade-off, of course, was that you had to put a live fish inside your ear.

However, Samsung unveiled the same futuristic technology on Wednesday, (thankfully) without fish.

Then Galaxy Unpacked Event At the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, the tech giant gave us a first glimpse of the new Galaxy Buds 3 SetAlong with its latest lines of foldable phones and wearables.

Like the rest Latest range of technologies from Samsungthe Galaxy Buds 3 And Galaxy Buds 3 Pro Integrating Samsung’s Galaxy phone’s AI, in this case allowing for language translation.

All you have to do is select the speaker language on your phone, and the speakers will provide the translation directly into your ear.

But how successful is this method in reality, and why do the buds look so familiar?

design

Design is, of course, the elephant in the room.

Thanks to its silicone tips and stem design, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro It bears a striking resemblance to Apple AirPods Pro 2While the open type Galaxy Buds 3 Looks similar to AirPods (3rd generation).

Samsung claims these changes are based on “collected statistical data,” showing that the shape of the stem — or “blade” — provides more stability and comfort. It also says the blade allows for easier controls (more on that later).

While some may complain, I’m not upset about this change.

Previous Galaxy Buds models were a bit bulky, and I never found them comfortable in my small ears.

Meanwhile, AirPods gained popularity due to their “universal fit,” which was comfortable for many, including me. However, they were optimized for the Apple ecosystem, which limited the full audio experience on Android devices.

The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and Galaxy Buds 3 solve this problem for Samsung users, offering a similar comfortable fit with Galaxy smartphone compatibility.

Both pairs have similar features but are designed for different listeners: Galaxy Buds 3 Pro Provides an in-ear fit, while Galaxy Buds 3 It comes with an open design for those who prefer not to close their ears.

I’ve only had a chance to try out the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, so I’ll focus on those.

Available in white or silver, these noise-canceling headphones are extremely comfortable. I wore them for a few hours on a plane without any discomfort and found them nice and stable while walking.

There are “Blade Lights” on the bottom of each earbud, which may look a bit odd, but I found them to be quite functional. These LED strips light up when your earbuds are paired, using the Interpreter feature, or when you search for them in a dark room via Google’s Find My Device network. If you don’t like them, you can also turn them off.

These earbuds come with three different sizes of ear tips, a color-matched charging case, and an IP57 dust and water resistance rating, an upgrade over the IPX7 rating on the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.

Meanwhile, setup is incredibly simple, with the buds appearing on my phone’s screen. Galaxy Z Flip 6 Once you press the pairing button located at the bottom of the charging case.

Features

New in Galaxy Buds 3 Pro This time the gesture controls are even easier to use.

When the buds are in your ears, you can use a variety of taps and swipes on the blade to change the volume, answer and reject calls, and play/pause/skip your tracks.

I found the swipe controls to be effective and easy to use, but the tap gesture required some trial and error as there is no indentation to show exactly where to tap. While I was able to play/pause music with a single tap fairly easily, controls that require multiple taps require a bit more of a learning curve.

I could of course use my phone to control these features, but I was a little disappointed that the experience wasn’t smoother here.

The feature set is also where Samsung’s Galaxy AI comes in.

The brand said the sound has been “intelligently enhanced” for both. Galaxy Buds 3 Modelswhich means they can analyze internal and external sounds and adjust the active noise cancellation (ANC) and equalizer accordingly.

The voice detection feature lets you turn noise cancellation and ambient sound on or off whenever someone is talking to you, so you don’t have to fiddle with the volume controls. I found this feature particularly useful, as it allowed me to hear my partner ask me questions without having to stop what I was doing. But if you like singing along to your tunes, you may want to turn this feature off.

Likewise, there’s a Siren Detect safety feature that automatically turns off active noise cancellation (ANC) and ambient noise levels when it detects a siren (like a police car passing by), though I haven’t tried this myself yet.

There are also some cool features hidden in the companion Galaxy Wearable app, like neck stretch reminders. If you find yourself hunched over your phone or desk frequently, you can turn this on to get an alert and some stretching lessons whenever you’ve been hunching your head down for too long.

And then, of course, there’s the translator feature.

translator

With Galaxy AI, Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro Enable translation on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone. There are two modes: listening mode for one-way translation and conversation mode for two-way communication.

In the Translator app, download the desired language, then tap the microphone button. The original speech will appear on your phone, followed by a translation… with varying success. Simply put: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

This feature works best when listening to one person at a time, as it doesn’t seem to separate different speakers. It can also mix up the context of what’s being said, making the translation it produces more difficult to understand.

I’ve had more success with Conversation Mode, which also allows you to hear the translation directly in your ears, in addition to seeing it on your screen.

Although it still doesn’t always get the desired result right, there are many cases where I was able to at least understand the context of what was said.

Ultimately, these AI translations are still difficult. But they can be good enough to help you with the basics, like asking a local for directions.

This feature alone isn’t a strong reason to buy the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, though there are plenty of other reasons worth considering.

Sound and noise cancellation

I liked the sound of the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro almost immediately.

The earbuds feature dual speakers and a two-way driver system, resulting in rich sound and improved audio quality compared to the Buds 2 Pro. There are also AAC and SBC codecs, as well as the new Samsung Seamless Codec Ultra High Quality, which features a 24-bit 96HKz sampling rate and near-lossless audio.

Better yet, the Wearables app now has a custom equalizer alongside the regular equalizer settings, so you can tweak the sound of your earbuds to your liking.

As you would expect from flagship earphones, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro It also comes with active noise cancellation.

While they aren’t powerful enough to completely block out background noise, they made a huge difference when I was working in a crowded coffee shop. The ambient sound was reduced by more than half, allowing me to focus on what I was doing.

Battery life

I did not have Galaxy Buds 3 Pro Long enough to completely drain the battery, but Samsung promises up to six hours of playtime with ANC on, or up to seven hours with it off.

With the charging case, you can get up to 24 hours total with ANC on, or up to 29 hours with it off.

And when it comes time to charge, the earbuds support both USB-C and wireless charging, with Samsung estimating a charging time of around 135 minutes.

Pricing and Availability

the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro The new wireless earbuds are priced at $399, which is on the price side of Apple’s AirPods Pro (2nd generation).

the Galaxy Buds 3 It will cost you $299, which is slightly higher than the competing AirPods (3rd generation) which are priced at $279.

Both the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and Galaxy Buds 3 are now available for pre-order through Samsung Online Storeas well as through retailers such as Amazon Australia And good men.

Initial thoughts

I’ve only had the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro for a few days, which means I’ll need more time to really test them out, but they’ve already left me impressed.

While some users may be disappointed to see a design similar to Apple’s AirPods, I found the new shape to fit my ears better than previous generations of Galaxy Buds. They also proved to be very comfortable for extended listening periods, making the design change a welcome one.

The sound quality is great, and there are some useful features here like Voice Detect and Adaptive Noise Control.

Meanwhile, the translator feature is a great addition, and while it’s not yet complete at this stage, it shows great potential to be useful later on.

I wasn’t entirely convinced by the tap gesture controls, and I would have liked more flexibility with the active noise cancellation.

However, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro This seems like a step in the right direction for Samsung, giving Galaxy device owners a solid pair of flagship earbuds.

WHERE CAN YOU PRE-ORDER SAMSUNG GALAXY BUDS 3 PRO?

Samsung

pre order Galaxy Buds 3 Get an instant $50 discount Buds 3 Pro For $80 Instantly

Discount, plus:

• Extra Clear Case ($30 value)
• 5% off your first purchase from the Samsung Shop app

Amazon Australia

good men

*news.com.au attended the Galaxy Unpacked event as a guest of Samsung.