The Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro surprised the hell out of me. It’s not that Samsung’s previous earbuds were bad by any means, but these earbuds are just so impressive, with both their sound quality and impressive active noise cancellation.
Deep beats
The Buds 4 Pro sounds amazing, music is articulate, and you can clearly hear a variety of notes and the expression of the music. With such clarity, voices are easily understandable whether you’re listening to music or watching a movie. Bass is even more impressive with booming notes that are truly deep. This stands out most when listening to rap, hip hop, and EDM beats — it makes me want to party. And when listening to rock, the instrumentals provide a heavy rhythmic and harmonic support that’s just thrilling for the ears.
And while deep bass is my preference, the Buds 4 Pro also provides a great higher register as well, with notes that aren’t overtly irritating to the ear. Panic at the Disco’s Brendon Urie and Mariah Carey both offer such beautiful pitches that sound phenomenal.
The Buds 4 Pro offer Hi-Fi audio across the full spectrum by using two-way speakers to offer a balanced sound with a wider woofer and tweeter than its predecessor. Additionally, the buds offer ultra-high quality audio with 24-bit/96kHz, so sounds feel richer and more alive.
I can’t hear you
Music isn’t the only thing that’s top of the line. The active noise cancellation on the Buds 4 Pro is excellent and perhaps even better than some noise-cancelling over-ear headphones. They are fantastic for when I’m commuting, I have to pay even more attention when I am on the subway because I can’t hear my stop. There are five levels of noise cancellation, and I usually have it on the highest; however, even having it on the third level offers pretty solid noise cancellation.
I also find these earbuds the best when I’m sleeping beside my snoring partner. His snoring is absolutely crazy, as it can be heard from different rooms, so playing some music on the Buds 4 Pro while we’re in bed is needed.
Controls on the Buds 4 Pro are easy to use, especially on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Open the Settings app, and you’ll find the Buds 4 Pro right there, front and centre, and easily accessible. Tapping that offers you full control of the earbuds, letting you choose between different settings, including noise cancellation, adaptive, ambient sound and off.
Adaptive sound
Adaptive adjusts to the world around you, and ambient sound lets you hear voices and sirens. There’s also a feature that will pause music when you’re speaking, but since I’m always singing along to my music, this functionality isn’t the best for me.
You can also enable features like head tracking for spatial audio, adjust the equalizer, and even enable nodding gestures for answering phone calls – if you even still call people anymore.
Speaking of calling, the quality on my end sounds perfect, and voices are clear and pronounced. However, people on the other end of the call have mentioned that I’m a bit tinny. Not too badly, like they’re listening for it, as I’ve asked them how I sound, but more than one person said the same thing when I asked. Samsung says the buds use a machine-learned deep neural network (DNN) even in noisy environments to offer clearer sound.
The Buds 4 Pro offer an ‘Adapt sound’ feature that tunes for your ears and takes your age into account. Plus, you can ring your earbuds with the Samsung Find app on your phone if you can’t find them.
Blade design
I thought it was strange that Samsung once again changed the design of its earbuds. Now the stem has a metal blade-like design, which lets you control the earbuds with a variety of controls. Sliding your finger up and down the side of the earbuds lets you control the volume, pinching it once pauses and plays your music and pinching twice or thrice skips the track forward or backwards. When pinching, you’ll hear a little click that lets you know it’s working, which I appreciate.
The part of the buds that goes into your ear has silicone tops that come in small, medium, and large. However, my ears are pretty tiny — I use the XS tips for the Pixel Buds Pro — and I wish Samsung had a similar size option. It’s definitely not horrible, I’m even able to fall asleep with these earbuds, but I think they could be a tad more comfortable. You also have to play around with the fit. When I was first trying them on, they wouldn’t stay in my ear; you kind of have to turn the earbuds into your ear, similar to the Pixel Buds.
The earbuds come in a case with a transparent top, so you can easily see the earbuds in the case, which I like because I hate it when I think I’m charging earbuds, but the case is actually empty. The Buds 4 Pro case uses a magnetic connection, so your earbuds just snap into place. It charges via USB-C, but disappointingly, the case doesn’t support wireless charging.
The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro come in white, black and pink colour variants and cost $329.99. I’m a big fan of them, and while I’m not typically someone who spends a lot of money on tech, I would for a good pair of earbuds, especially for ones that work this well.
