If you’re looking for a more general set of earbud options, take a look at our list of the best wireless earbuds. And if you’re having trouble deciding between the AirPods Pro and the Jabra Elite 75t, read our take on how they compare. The fit is more comfortable, makes a better seal of noise isolation, and is less likely to fall out of your ears. You also don’t have to worry about taking it to the gym since they’re IPX4 water and sweat resistant, though obviously, you should avoid full immersion. The Samsung Galaxy Live Buds have a distinctive design compared to both the AirPods Pro and their predecessors, the Samsung Galaxy Buds+. Jokingly called the “Galaxy Beans” by many people, the nickname is valid. The Buds Live are available in Mystic White, Mystic Black, and Mystic Bronze, and resembles a pair of kidney beans. Interestingly, the Buds Live don’t have eartips, their shape is designed in such a way that they’ll stay in without it just by sitting in your ear, not your ear canal. The Buds Live are IPX2 water and sweat resistant, which is a lower rating than the AirPods Pro, but they should still hold up fairly well for workouts and gym use as long as you don’t get them soaked. On the other hand, if you want to hear your surroundings you can do that too by switching from ANC mode to Transparency mode. This is done by pressing or holding one of the haptic Force Sensors on either AirPods, letting ambient noise back in. This is a handy feature if you’re commuting and need to quickly turn the noise-canceling off to hear an announcement. As for the audio itself, sound quality is good with sharp highs and great boosted bass. The AirPods Pro have an H1 chip just like the previous AirPods to support all these audio features. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live are the first pair of earbuds from Samsung to come with ANC. They work similarly to the AirPods Pro in terms of using external microphones to balance out ambient noise, but they don’t match the level of sophistication Apple has brought to the table. The AirPods Pro are able to blot out a great deal of background noise, from a screeching train to a chattering crowd and loud PA system. The Buds Live, by contrast, dampens noise, but not nearly to the same level. Where the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live does excel, however, is with the sheer number of audio features and enhancements they come loaded with. They have 12mm drivers with Harman Kardon tweaks, giving them rich sound, booming bass, and reverb. The Buds Live are good jack-of-all-trades when it comes to sound profile because they come with six EQ settings in the app, along with full customization for more advanced users. The AirPod Pro does have Adaptive EQ which is powered by the H1 chip and does it automatically, but you can’t tweak individual settings. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live can last an impressive 5.5 to 6 hours with both ANC and Bixby voice commands on. With both off, the runtime increases even more dramatically to 8 hours. That’s nearly enough to cover you for a full workday. The charging case adds an extra 29 hours of runtime and supports fast charging, both wired and wireless. In 5 minutes of charging, it can offer an hour of runtime. Among the new features that rolled out with iOS 14, comes Spatial Audio which creates a faux virtual surround sound that can be handy for games and other immersive media. The update also came with battery optimization improvements. As always, Siri is built-in, letting you activate it with voice commands to interact with your phone, smart home devices, and control things like volume and track playback. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live are loaded with extras on the software end. We already touched on the various EQ options, but in addition to that you have remappable touch controls (they can be changed through the app), Dual Audio, which allows you to do playback on two pairs of devices if you want to share music with a friend, and the Bixby voice assistant for commands.
