Galaxy Buds 4 Pro vs Buds 3 Pro: is the extra cost worth it?

Before you spend €249 RRP on the new Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, you should know whether they really do much better in everyday use than the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. The Buds 3 Pro were already so massively good that it’s hard to top them. The new Buds 4 Pro aren’t bad earbuds, but they didn’t convince me.

Design and case

I was a big fan of the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, but only the silver ones. The white ones looked like AirPods clones at first glance. The Buds 4 Pro are far from that, regardless of color. The flat stem now has a matte brushed-metal look that looks premium, clean and timeless. The plastic-bomber look is a thing of the past.

The new case also thrills me. The buds go in the way you take them out to put them in your ear, without having to turn them first. I don’t understand why some manufacturers build cases that take an engineering degree to use. Samsung solved this very user-friendly this year.

Controls

The controls irritated me a little. I thought that with the big stem you’d control the buds from the outside by tapping or swiping, which would also be easy with motor impairments. Instead, there is a rather narrow control area on the front. It takes up the narrow front almost, but not quite, so you don’t hit it every time you reach for it. I think Samsung missed an opportunity here.

Once you’ve found the area, the controls work as usual: press once, twice or three times and swipe up and down for music, calls and volume.

New is the head gesture control: when the phone rings, you accept the call with a nod and decline it by shaking your head. It works great and is ridiculously handy for me when your hands are full, wet or dirty, or you’re too lazy to lift your hand to your ear. I find it a thousand times more useful than the finger exercises of the Galaxy Watch’s gesture control.

The wearing comfort is just as good as on the Buds 3 Pro. With the right tips, they sit rock solid and feel comfortable in the ear, and they don’t fall out during sports.

Galaxy AI and translator

At the press event, Samsung had talked about deeper integration into Galaxy AI. All I found is that you can activate Bixby, Gemini or now also Perplexity by voice command through the buds, so just like when speaking into the smartphone. The buds are only the mouthpiece. I don’t know what that has to do with AI. Maybe I’ll stumble across it after updates.

Nothing has changed with real-time translation. You still have to take out the Galaxy smartphone, start the Interpreter app and get the translation in your ears. It’s handy that you can start the app by pressing and holding on the buds, if you’ve set that up beforehand. But there are two catches:

1. The Galaxy smartphone has to be within earshot, and you have to set the language to be translated in the app beforehand. The buds don’t detect it on their own.
2. The buds only serve as the audio output, not as a microphone. The smartphone handles that.

The translation is as good as AI translators currently are. For simple conversations on vacation or business meetings, it should be enough.

Settings, ANC and sound

The integration has changed: the Galaxy Buds are no longer integrated in the Wearable app, but are controlled directly through the Bluetooth menu. I honestly spent an hour trying to pair my buds with the Wearable app. Save yourself the trouble. You go to the Bluetooth menu, tap the gear icon and you’re in the settings.

There you choose the mode: everything off, ambient sound as if you had no buds, adaptive, where the AI decides how strong the ANC should be, or full ANC with levels. I couldn’t notice any difference between the levels.

Samsung says the ANC is improved compared to the Buds 3 Pro. I can’t fully confirm that, because the ANC of the Buds 3 Pro was already outstanding, in my opinion the best on in-ear Bluetooth earbuds. As a purchase decision, the ANC would make no difference for me.

I also have trouble hearing massive improvements in sound. The Buds 4 Pro contain a two-way speaker with a larger 11 mm woofer, while the Buds 3 Pro had 10.5 mm. In practice, I don’t hear a big difference. I’m not an audio expert, but with my everyday ears I only hear a tiny difference in the highs: the Buds 4 Pro sound a bit more pleasant. But the Buds 3 Pro were already really great, and after a year and a half I was happy with the sound. You can adjust the sound with the equalizer. The hi-res sound with 24 bit and 96 kHz sounds a little better, but only works with a current Galaxy device and doesn’t knock my socks off.

Call quality, battery and Bluetooth

Something has improved for the people you talk to. The microphones and the Voice Pickup Unit, meaning the bone conduction sensor, work together to pick up not only the voice but also the vibration when speaking, to separate it from background noise. The technology was already in the Buds 3 Pro, and Samsung has refined it. The voice sounds a little better to the person you’re talking to, and noise is filtered out a little better.

Nothing has changed with the battery. Bluetooth 6.1 is supposed to make the connection more stable, but I never had problems with the Buds 3 Pro either.

Verdict: 4 Pro or 3 Pro?

What you notice in everyday use, from my point of view, are the head gestures, the improved call quality for the people you talk to and the design. I wouldn’t judge anyone who chooses the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro just for the new design. If those points don’t interest you, get the cheaper Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and be happy that you saved money.