The February 11 Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event is now part of the history books and, as suspected, the company included the debut of its Galaxy Buds+, the true wireless follow-up to its popular Galaxy Buds.
Here are all of the details you need to know:
Price, availability, and colors
The Galaxy Buds+ are $150 and they’ll be available on Samsung.com starting February 14, 2020, and then at retailers and mobile phone operators starting March 6, 2020.
If you pre-order a Galaxy S20+ or Galaxy S20 Ultra, which were also unveiled at the event, you will get Samsung credits of up to $200 that can be used toward the purchase of the Galaxy Buds+, which could make them effectively free.
You’ll be able to buy them in one of these Samsung colors: Cosmic Black, White, Red, and Cloud Blue.
Battery life
Battery life will be a very generous 11 hours per charge. As with the Galaxy Buds, the case will only carry about one full recharge, for 22 hours of total playtime. Three minutes of fast charging will get you an extra 60 minutes.
Audio performance
With a new dual-driver design and audio tuning by AKG, sound quality is expected to be even better than the Galaxy Buds. Samsung has described it as “studio-quality that is balanced, detailed and natural.” The company says that Ambient mode — which allows the passthrough of outside sounds via the onboard mics — has also been beefed up.
Water-resistance
Somewhat disappointingly, Samsung has elected to leave water-resistance on the Galaxy Buds+ the same as the Galaxy Buds, which is to say, it’s IPX2. That’s going to be fine for the occasional sweaty workout, but not much more. Virtually all new true wireless earbuds are shipping with a minimum of IPX4 these days.
Noise cancellation
This is something of a surprise: The Galaxy Buds+ will not have active noise cancellation. Given that since the debut of the Galaxy Buds, we’ve seen the appearance of the Sony WF-1000XM3, the Echo Buds, the AirPods Pro, and the Master and Dynamic MW07 Plus — all of which have this feature — you’d think Samsung would want to compete here too. However, the Echo Buds are the only earbuds to offer this feature for less than $150, and perhaps Samsung reasons that few people will expect a $150 set of earbuds to have it.
Given that the Jabra Elite 75t and Elite Active 75t don’t have ANC either and cost even more than the Galaxy Buds+, perhaps Samsung’s decision is the right one.
Extras
Beyond these top-line features, the Galaxy Buds+ will also have a few other cool aspects:
- Multiple Bluetooth connections will be supported
- One-touch access to Spotify via the earbuds
- An iOS app at launch, something the Galaxy Buds never had, and which will give iPhone users full customization control
For the price, Samsung has definitely provided a lot of value. Should they be your next true wireless earbuds? Check back with us soon — we’ll have our first impressions and a full review shortly.
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