Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Buds alongside the Galaxy S10, replacing a couple iterations of the admittedly mediocre IconX earbuds. These new earbuds traded off some of the less important features from its predecessors while making improvements in all the right places, at least according to Samsung. They're compact, sound good, easily connect to your phone, and all kinds of other things to get hyped about as a companion to your Galaxy S10.

Samsung has talked these things up a lot, but how good are they really? Let's find out if they've really developed something to beat Apple's AirPods.

Design

By now you're probably very familiar with how wireless earbuds are designed. You're getting a plastic case/battery/charger to hold the actual earbuds in and recharge them while they're not being used, which also makes carrying them around much easier. I think this is actually something that often gets overlooked, and you'll see manufacturers create these enormous charging cases with 100+ hours of battery life, but then they don't really fit in your pocket anymore. I get it, you want to make sure the headphones always have a charge, but I still need to be able to carry them with me to actually use them.

Samsung, fortunately, understands this. The Galaxy Buds have relatively short battery life when you factor in the case next to just about every wireless earbuds, but the case is also compact and will fit in your pocket without causing problems. It's light, and roughly the same size as an AirPods case, albeit shaped a bit differently.

If there's one thing I think Samsung did miss here, though, is in the polish and small details of the case. Using the AirPods as a comparison again, this case just feels cheap. It's light in an old school plasticky Samsung way that doesn't feel premium in hand, and the hinge has some weird resistance when you're trying to close it. The AirPods case easily click open and shut, and the magnets just have a satisfying snap that makes it fun to play with. Samsung is much, much utilitarian here.

Inside the case is where you'll leave your earbuds when you're not using them, and once again, a little more attention to detail would've made these perfect. The AirPods use a magnet to pull the earbuds into the case and keep them secure, and it's a really pleasing experience to just take them in and out of the case. The Galaxy Buds just sit in their dock with no magnets or snapping into place, and they will fall out if you don't close the lid. Again, very small things that don't matter much in the overall picture, but Samsung should be able to match Apple's premium designs every step of the way.

The Galaxy Buds case does charge via USB C, and it has wireless charging without costing an extra $80, though. Big, big wins for Samsung there.

The earbuds themselves are much different than the AirPods, offering true noise isolation and a few different tips and wings to fit your ears. I think that generally makes them more comfortable just because they are more customizable, but I think most people would argue that soft tips fit better than plain plastic, anyway.

On the inside of the buds you'll see two contacts for charging, plus a sensor to tell when the earbuds are taken in and out of your ear. There's a touch sensor on the outside of the earbuds that you use to control playback and call up your voice assistant. It's all touch, no physical buttons here.

Sound

Okay, they're earbuds. Let's talk about how they sound. That's going to be important, right?

Fortunately, earbuds have come a long way in the last few years. The first few iterations, including Samsung's own IconX, sounded like absolute garbage, and some of them do still sound pretty bad. You're buying these kinds of things for convenience, not because you're an audiophile.

You won't have to make a huge trade-off with the Galaxy Buds, at least not to the extent that older models would have required. I'm not going to say the Galaxy Buds sound great, because they really don't. But as far as earbuds go, they're not bad.

Bass is pretty fickle, and while I don't think it's lacking, per se, it's not as punchy as some of the competition. I've read some suggestions on Reddit and other forums that suggest a few third-party apps to touch up the low-end performance, but I've never had much luck with running multiple equalizers on Android simultaneously. The Galaxy S10 offers its own built-in EQ plus some Dolby Atmos configuration, and the Galaxy Wearables app will let you fine-tune that even further. I never got the low end exactly where I wanted it, but for most people, I think they're plenty satisfactory.

The mid-range and high-end is pretty clear and crisp, although I do think you're going to want to use those aforementioned EQs to tweak the treble. By default, I think the earbuds are a little harsh and fatiguing, but that's a pretty easy fix.

I like the Galaxy Buds much more for music than videos or podcasts, personally, which is definitely related. But keep everything in perspective, since Samsung is charging just $129 for these earbuds; that's considerably cheaper than some of the competition while being every bit as good.

I will say, though, that the Galaxy Buds coupled with Dolby Atmos makes movies a blast. I can't credit that 100% to Samsung's earbuds since the phone is doing part of the heavy lifting, but I'd imagine many buyers of these earbuds will be people that have a recent Samsung phone or at least something that supports Dolby Atmos. Like I mentioned earlier, a little more oomph would be nice for action movies, but otherwise the earbuds do a great job of making blockbusters sound crisp and detailed without muddying things up.

They do not support aptX, however, which seems like a serious omission on Samsung's part, opting instead for Samsung's own proprietary codec. Long story short, aptX helps a phone intelligently manage the bitrate of music to keep your songs sounding great, but also minimizing disconnects and hiccups when bandwidth gets strained. Samsung's own codec does not do as good of a job, and while disconnects were rare, they do happen here, especially in crowded areas. I never personally experienced a full disconnect from my Galaxy S10, but I have had the earbuds jump out of sync for a second or two, or just general audio choppiness happen for longer than it should. Maybe this was a way for Samsung to keep costs down, but it comes at a price.

Smart Features

The Galaxy Buds are more than just regular old headphones, though. If that were the case you'd probably be looking at something from Anker or one of the other myriad of choices on Amazon. What makes these stand out, at least in marketing, is how they work and integrate with your phone. Samsung has managed to simultaneously impress and disappoint here.

These earbuds are smart, don't get me wrong. They have an ambient mode that will grab sound around you from each bud's microphone, then pump that ambient noise into your ears so you're not totally oblivious to what's going on. It works well, too. The microphones are also great for phone calls and are an improvement over the built-in phone mics.

When you take the earbuds out of the case and in your ears, they turn on thanks to that sensor. You tap the side to start playing music, which is cool. And when you take them out… they keep playing music. The AirPods have a nifty little feature where taking one bud out will pause your music so you can talk to someone, but the Galaxy Buds require using the touchpad. They have the sensor built in, so why not go the extra step and add that kind of convenience?

You also can't really utilize hands-free voice assistants. Bixby can do things like turn on ambient noise mode, but you're not getting the full digital assistant that you can do other smart stuff with. You can use a digital assistant if you set up the long-press shortcut for the buds to call up an assistant, but again, that's not really hands-free. On the bright side, you can assign just about any assistant you want to it, so if you don't like Bixby (we won't blame you) you can use Google, Alexa, Cortana, or whatever else. Drawback; those assistants can't do as much to integrate with the Galaxy Buds, and if you want to be able to raise and lower the volume on your earbuds, you'll have to do that instead of using an Assistant. More customization options in the future would be nice.

Worth buying?

The Galaxy Buds are a great integration of Samsung's hardware and software teams, with just a few drawbacks. If you're just looking for value, you can pretty much stop reading and go ahead and buy some. For $129 they sound good enough, they'll complement your Galaxy S10 effortlessly, and they're easy to carry around all the time. That's a win for Samsung.

But if you're trying to be a little more discerning, it's a mixed bag.

There are some features that I really expected Samsung to bring with the Galaxy Buds, like automatic music pausing like the AirPods do, that would really cement these headphones as a must-have accessory. Even if that was exclusive to Samsung phones, it seems like something that should be doable, just like Apple does with their phones. The Galaxy Buds are smart, just not quite smart enough.

If you're a stickler for audio quality, these also may just not do it for you, especially when you go for something from a company like Anker, Sony, or even the Samsung-owned JBL that will likely do the trick better than the Galaxy Buds for a higher price. And going a step further, if you don't have a Samsung phone, you won't have aptX or that proprietary codec that Samsung is leaning on here, which is going to put another notch in the cons column.

These things are good, and they're almost great; but Samsung is this close to tying everything together in a perfect package, which I really hope we get in the Galaxy Buds 2.

Buy it now: Amazon, Samsung