To those whose primarily use earpieces while on a work desk, undoubtedly, the standard over-ear headphones would be the typical go-to device. However, with traveling back on the menu for many of us, nothing beats a good pair of earbuds while on the go. In late 2022 we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. Long story short, we loved it. A great companion while travelling, even more so should you opt to indulge in content consumption such as gaming while on the go.

And with its successor, the Buds3 Pro, Samsung have improved on what worked especially when it comes to fit and form. The better seal improves on the audio output across the board. Be it going through your playlist on Spotify or simply enjoying your favourite show on streaming services, sound quality is where the Buds3 Pro excel in.

Right out of the box, it is highly recommended that you custom-fit your earbuds using the Samsung Wear app on your phone. Once you’re done, we can confirm that the listening experience on the Buds3 Pro is noticeably better than the Buds2 Pro.

According to Samsung, the Buds Pro3 is their first earbuds model to feature planar tweeter and debut the dual amp on Galaxy Buds. In return, this enables the capture of a high range of intricate details thanks to an enhanced 2-way speaker. Honestly, that’s a lot of marketing mumbo jumbo and coming from a non-audiophile such as us. But to sum it up: the sound coming out of the Buds3 Pro is better & of higher-quality than your average earbuds, but nowhere near a set of good, over-ear headsets.

Speaking of fit, each of the buds ear pieces are colour coded, with red for your right side ear and blue for the left. This color coded identifier is much welcomed, negating the need to fiddle about, searching for ‘R’ or ‘L’ markers when putting them on. We have to point out though, that the ear pieces resemble the Bellsprout Pokémon at first look.

We have to admit that we aren’t fans of the design of the Buds3 Pro. Almost mimicking Apple’s AirPods Pros, the arms do make increasing and lowering the volume much easier and intuitive. You can further customize the gestures, assigning specific commands to single, double and triple pinches to either play, pause or even launch specific apps altogether.

You can choose to either leave the light bar turned on, pulsing or totally turned off. For battery life’s sake, we kept ours permanently disabled.

Sound quality and effects are managed via the Wearable app on the smartphone, with several presets installed and of course, the ability to create a custom sound profile. The 360 Audio is a nifty addition, whereby the software adjusts the sound automatically, relative to the position of your head to the screen. The idea of an artificial surround sound system is cool but since we mostly use this on a small screen – it is hardly noticeable. And no, do not expect to effectively identify the direction of enemies’ footsteps when playing CoD Mobile.

Like the model it is replacing, the Buds3 Pro comes with Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) that negates outside sound interference. Switching to Adaptive mode turns off ANC when sirens or voices and you can also control the ambient sound volume during calls.

The microphone is another aspect in which Samsung has improved on. While the microphone on the Buds2 Pro was good, the voice from it can sound a tad robotic at times. The sound quality picked from the microphone on the Buds3 Pro now sound much more natural and less artificial. But we have to emphasize, this factor alone isn’t sufficient to sway one to upgrade.

What would be the major point, is how long the earbuds last following a full charge. As far as battery performance goes, Samsung claims a 30 hours standby and 7 hours of play time with ANC turned off. The performance dips to about 26 hours standby and 6 hours of play when ANC is turned on. For comparison’s sake, the Buds2 Pro it is replacing only had an 18-hour standby and 5 hours worth of play with ANC turned on.

In our last review, we christened the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro as the best Android wireless earbuds in the market. The Buds3 Pro is a worthy successor to it on all discernible metric and if we are to be super nitpicky on the negative traits the new model carries, it would its shape and increased retail price. Available now at RM999, it is RM100 more than the Buds 2 Pro at release.

Final Score: 90/100

A review unit of the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro was sent to us for review courtesy of Samsung Malaysia. Further details of the product can be found here.