I’ve had the opportunity to use both of the latest earbud offerings from Google and Samsung: the Pixel Buds Pro 2 and the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. I’ve used each of these as my only earbuds for at least 3 weeks strait. I am eager to share my findings with you from the perspective of a blind user. These are both premium earbuds that don’t come cheap, so I hope I can help you to make the right decision. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 are priced at $229 (US) and the GALAXY Buds 3 Pro are priced at $249 (US). Although the Pixel Buds Pro 2 are $20 cheaper, Samsung puts their products on sale more often and allows you to trade in your old earbuds to help cut the cost. For the sake of simplification, I will be referring to the earbuds as “Pixel Buds” and ” Galaxy Buds” going forward.
Table of Contents
Physical Description
The Galaxy Buds are similar to AirPods Pro. They have silicone ear tips (3 sizes included) that go in your ears and a stem for controlling them points down.
The Pixel Buds are much smaller and lighter. They have four sizes of silicone ear tips and no stem. They have a fin that locks them in place when you twist them backward (right earbud counter-clockwise and left earbud clockwise).
While fit and comfort will be different for everyone, I will still share my thoughts. The Pixel Buds seem to go deeper in your ears and have a tighter fit. For me, this means the Galaxy buds are a little more comfortable, but more prone to falling out.
The Cases
Both cases are around the same size, but shaped very different.The Pixel Buds case is an oval shape with a flat back and front, but no defined edges or corners. The Galaxy Buds case is a rectangular shape with rounded sides, but a completely flat top and bottom.You could stand it up on end if you wanted. The Galaxy Buds case has a glossy finish to it while the Pixel Buds case feels more matte.
Both cases support wireless or USBC charging and both have a physical button for pairing. However, what sets the Pixel Buds case apart is that it has a speaker on it. While the main point of this is to be able to ring them when they are lost, the case also makes sounds to let you know that it is charging (wired or wireless), that the case battery is low, and that they have paired successfully.
I also have to point out that putting the Galaxy Buds back in their case is overly complicated. You have to turn them around so that the ear tips are facing outward and then get the stem lined up perfectly before it will slide into the channel where it rests. The pixel buds you can just set down in the case the way you are already holding them and the magnets will take it from there.
Controls
The Pixel Buds have a capacitive area for touch controls. Tap either earbud once to play or pause, twice to go to the next track, or three times to go to the previous track. For calls, tap once to answer or twice to reject or end the call. The touch and hold gesture for each earbud can be customized to either bring up your digital assistant or switch noise controls. To raise or lower the volume, swipe forward or backward respectively on either earbud.
The Galaxy Buds have a capacitive and pressure sensitive stem to pinch or swipe. pinch either earbud stem once to play or pause media, twice to skip to the next track, or three times to skip to the previous track. For calls, pinch once to answer or end the call or pinch and hole to reject the call. In addition to noise controls and digital assistant, the pinch and hold gesture for each earbud stem can also be set to play music from Spotify. And if paired with a Samsung phone, you can also assign the gesture to play from Samsung music, mindfulness (to play relaxing sounds), or to bring up the interpretor for instant translation (if your device supports Galaxy AI). To raise or lower the volume, swipe up or down respectively along either earbud stem .You can also control the Galaxy Buds with your voice if you enable it in the settings. Without needing to use a wake word, you can just issue any of the following commands: play music, stop music, next song, previous song, volume up, volume down, answer call, reject call.
I found the Galaxy Buds’ controls to be the most reliable in my experience. Occasionally, the Galaxy Buds would not register a pinch or swipe, but I had more issues with the Pixel Buds. Firstly, sometimes a tap would register as a swipe and change the volume instead of play or pause. Second, your hands have to be completely dry to interact with the Pixel Buds. Even just holding a cold drink with condensation on it would keep the Pixel buds from responding to taps.
Sound Quality
I’m no expert here and you can find much better opinions elsewhere, but I will say that both sound great to my ears and I didn’t notice a difference in quality when switching between them. Both also have equalizer presets and customization if you are into that.
When keeping them both at their default settings out of the box, the Galaxy Buds have more bass to them and seem to be a bit louder as well. The highest I would comfortably use the volume at with the Galaxy buds was 60 percent, but the Pixel Buds sounded about the same at 67 percent.
Microphone Quality
I will let you be the judge. Here are some samples to listen to.
Noise Cancellation
I honestly can’t tell you which has better noise cancellation. They are both good and both (like any other earbuds) depend highly on you choosing the correct ear tips for the best fit. I did switch back and forth between the two to see which does it better, but could not confidently declare a winner.
Transparency Mode (Ambient Sound(
This is one of the most important features to me when it comes to earbuds. This is why I have been using the AirPods Pro 2 as my earbuds of choice for a couple of years now. I am happy to say that neither of these disappoint in this area like both of their previous generations did. In my opinion, the AirPods still do it slightly better, but the Galaxy Buds come in a close 2nd and the Pixel Buds a close 3rd. They are all three close enough that I will not be going back to the AirPods, and will be satisfied with either the Pixel or Galaxy Buds.
The Galaxy Buds allow you to choose between 5 levels of transparency, while it is simply on or off for the Pixel Buds. Even though I think you can hear just a little more with the Galaxy Buds (at level 5), I think the Pixel Buds have more of a natural sound to them. I also think that the looser fit of the Galaxy Buds and the fact that they don’t go as deep into your ears play a part in making you feel like you can hear your surroundings better.
The Galaxy Buds also allow you to enhance the ambient sound mode from within the accessibility settings. This will make sounds even louder than they sound without the buds, but also sound very unnatural.
Experience with TalkBack
Like any Bluetooth device, these do have latency, but in my opinion, it isn’t bad at all. Neither of them feel any more or less responsive than what I was used to with my AirPods. This is a big improvement for the Pixel Buds Pro 2 since the latency was the reason I couldn’t use the original Pixel Buds Pro. I should also point out that the Galaxy Buds has a gaming mode for low latency (when connected to a Samsung Phone), but I didn’t notice a difference with TalkBack use whether this was turned on or not.
The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro had an annoying design flaw that would fade in sound if there was nothing being played for a few seconds. This would cause you to miss the first bit of whatever TalkBack said. I am happy to say this is no longer an issue with the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about the fact that Samsung is still preventing you from disabling absolute volume from within the developer options on the Galaxy Buds just like they did on the previous generation. You can still turn this option on, but it won’t be respected by the Galaxy Buds. This means you will not be able to adjust the accessibility volume independently from the media volume as if you had no earbuds connected. However, this will only apply to you if you are using a Samsung phone with an up to date version of One UI.
From time to time, the Galaxy Buds will fall slightly out of sync with each other for a second or two if you are using TalkBack but not playing media. This is a minor annoyance and happens very rarely, but wanted to point it out since I did not notice the same on the Pixel Buds.
Software Features and Accessibility
Both the Pixel Buds app and the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro Manager app are very accessible. I did not notice any issues with the Pixel Buds app at all and just minor issues in the Galaxy Buds app. For example, you cannot adjust (or even know the value of) the slider for setting the ambient sound level. You would have to adjust it using the plus and minus buttons and just try to listen for a change in the earbuds. Also, while you can adjust the custom equalizer sliders with TalkBack, they have no labels to differentiate them or let you know which frequency you are adjusting.
While I’m not going to go into specifics, I will say that the Galaxy Buds and their app have many more features and customizations then the Pixel Buds and their app.
Conclusion
I don’t think you can go wrong with buying either of these sets of earbuds. To be honest, I still haven’t even decided for myself which I want to use as my daily driver going forward. So I can’t tell you which I think are better or which you should get, but I hope this comparison helps you to make the right decision for yourself.
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