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- Verified Buyer
Galaxy Buds 2I've been a big fan of the OG Galaxy Buds for the past two years I've owned them, so naturally I was interested in these new ones. However, not only could I not get them to fit snugly in my ears, I also encountered a plethora of small irritations that bothered me to the point of giving up on them. Here are some thoughts:ProsThe audio quality is far superior to the original Galaxy Buds. There is a lot more bass and the audio has more depth to it for sure. I'm not an audiophile, so I can't exactly describe the way these sound in proper terminology too well, but they sound awesome to me.Ambient sound mode is far and away better than the original Buds had. It is far easier to hear what is going on around you, and there are several levels of ambient sound so you can get exactly the amount of outside sound you need for your particular situation. It also doesn't have that faint hiss that the ambient sound mode on the original Galaxy Buds.Cons-Let's start off with one of the major selling points of these earbuds. Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is marketed as quieting your environment so you can hear whatever you're listening to more clearly without having to turn the volume all the way up. However, I found that the ANC on these earbuds doesn't actually do much. It didn't filter out voices, music, papers rustling, or most other common noises very effectively, and even the constant hum of an air purifier in my room nearby wasn't cut down by that much. Considering the 33% hit to battery life you're taking by using the ANC, I would expect it to work well, and it definitely doesn't. In fact, the original Galaxy Buds have better noise cancellation, simply because they fit in my ears better and thus provide a better seal for noise isolation.-They would not fit in my ears properly, no matter which eartip sizes I tried. This is the most fundamental aspect of a pair of earbuds for obvious reasons; it doesn't matter how many incredible features they have if they don't fit correctly. Keep in mind that these do not have any wingtips like the original Galaxy Buds to keep them secure in your ears, so they have a much greater chance of falling out and getting lost. Every time I yawned, ate, or did any other kind of jaw movement, they would come loose in my ears, and I would have to grab the buds and push/twist them back into place. This introduced even more problems, as I will discuss in the next few points. It's also worth mentioning that the ANC is worthless when the earbuds are loose, as there is no seal, defeating one of the main reasons to buy these over the original Buds or the Buds+.-I'm not a big fan of the design of the Buds 2. They are very small, round and glossy, which means they are extremely difficult to grip compared to the original Galaxy Buds. The lack of wingtips makes this even worse, as I find myself gripping the wingtips when I'm putting in my Galaxy Buds or taking them out, and that feature is gone. Every major YouTuber seem to be fawning over the fact that these buds are smaller and lighter than previous iterations, but I don't see any meaningful increase in comfort from this design, and trying to grip these tiny things is incredibly frustrating. I was always worried I would drop them when trying to take them out of the case and put them in my ears. With the original Galaxy Buds, you had the wingtips, the touchpads on the ends, and matte-feeling plastic surfaces in the middle, so they were easy to grip when you wanted to put them in or remove them. The larger size didn't hurt, either. On the other hand though, these new Buds are a more unibody-like design, so it's not clear where the bud surface ends and the touchpad begins.-The touch areas are poorly defined. It seems like every time I actually want to use them, I can't get them to activate, and when I just want to adjust the buds in my ears, they trigger, pausing or skipping whatever I'm listening to or watching. It's not clear where the actual touch surface is, so accidental presses are constant, and since they didn't fit me well, I was constantly having to touch the earbuds to adjust them, meaning plenty of accidental touches were had. The original Galaxy Buds didn't have this problem at all, as the triangular touchpads were clearly defined and easy to feel out due to their smoother texture compared to the rest of the buds. It may just be me, but I even felt like the original touchpads were far more responsive to my touches compared to the ones on these. The frustration I experienced with these touchpads really made me realize how much I use the touchpads on my original Galaxy Buds, and how functional they were in comparison to these.-The case isn't as good as the original. They decided to have the cases for all colors be white, with the color of the specific buds in the middle. Why? Why do I have to have a white case? This may seem petty, but I would prefer a black case, or at least a darker color, and I don't get that option unless I shell out $20 more for a quality external protective case, which also adds bulk.-Something I did with the original Buds case was utilize it as a phone stand. Because of its wide pill shape, it is surprisingly well-suited to this purpose. However, it is impossible to use the Buds 2 case for this purpose for several reasons. First, the more square shape means that when the phone is in landscape mode, pressing the sides of the phone screen will make the whole thing collapse, which is annoying as ****. Secondly, the glossy finish makes it too slippery to be used for this purpose anyway.-Instead of going with a sleek matte finish like on the original case, Samsung decided to follow Apple and use a glossy finish on this new case, and I find it to be inferior for several reasons. One, fingerprint magnet. Two, it makes the case so slippery to hold that I'm afraid I'll drop the damn thing and lose my $150 earbuds when I'm out and about and trying to get them out. The matte finish on the original case didn't have either of these problems, it was grippable enough and didn't collect finger oil like a smartphone screen.-The square shape of this case means that charging it on a wireless charging stand is impossible. With the original, the pill shape meant it could be stood up on its short end and the Qi wireless charging coils would meet up, meaning it could be charged on wireless charging stands in addition to flat pads. This extra level of flexibility was awesome, and I used it to great effect many times. Not an option with this new case.-Petty complaint, but the snap when you close this new case is far inferior to that of the original case. Closing your earbud case with a satisfying snap after you're done using them is great, and it's not as much so here.-Eartips aren't that great. Not only did I have problems with the fit, but when I took the earbuds out of my ears, the tips would turn inside out half the time, which would require correction. I don't know if they're using inferior materials or what, but regardless, another minor annoyance I have to deal with a significant portion of the time when I want to stop using them.-No popup when opening the case and auto-pairing the buds. The Galaxy Buds and Buds+ show a card at the bottom of the phone screen displaying either the battery content of the buds (original buds) or the battery content of the buds and the case (buds+). For some reason, I never got a popup like this when I opened the case of the Buds 2. Why? It was nice to be able to see battery percentage upon opening the case without having to go into the app or create a dedicated widget on the home screen to monitor it. The Buds+ also have a nice animation of the buds flying out of the case and to their respective positions on the popup, a nice visual touch borrowed from Apple. It's possible that this needs to be enabled in the app somewhere, but I never had to do that with the original Galaxy Buds 2 I have, and I can't imagine Samsung would make the UX mistake of requiring a dig through the Wearable app to enable such a simple feature.I'm terribly sorry if this review is overly long and nitpicky. I'm just interested in presenting every thought I had throughout the course of trying to like these earbuds in order to give you a more complete picture of what you might be able to expect if you buy these. They aren't bad by any means, but when you get annoyed a bit by this minor problem and a bit by that minor problem and so on, the nitpicks add up to significant frustration, and that made me quit even trying, sell these to my brother for $140, and go back to my original Galaxy Buds, which are tried and true. I am considering buying the Buds+ for my return to college instead, as they combine the tried-and-true design of the original Galaxy Buds with the best features of these new Buds 2, notably better audio quality and ambient sound mode. They also hold 11 hours of playback time in the buds alone, vs. 7.5 hours for the Buds 2 with ANC off, and 5 with it on. The case is also much better than the case for these new ones, and they are $50 cheaper to boot.Hopefully some of this helped you come to a decision, and I hope you have a nice day.-Josh H.I've been using an older set of Bose Headsets since sometime around 2014. It's the model that doesn't cover the ear, but it was always great a canceling noise, and the sound quality while watching movies on my tablet was great. The headset was wired, and it came with 2 batteries and a plug-in wall charging device. They were used, but high quality, noise canceling and when the ear muff pleather goes bad, you can replace them easily. It's been a tank for me, but they were bulky to pack when you're trying to travel lite with a carry-on and personal item. Additionally, I was ready for a wireless bluetooth solution. I will also preface that this is not my first attempt at noise canceling earbuds, I had purchased an "Amazon" off brand, on sale $49 set a couple of years back, and perhaps I didn't do something right when using them, but I just felt they plugged my ears, more so then it actually having a Noise Canceling feature (there's a difference, I'll get to that).I was getting ready for a New York trip where I needed to consolidate as much space as possible, because in this particular occasion I had a carry-on and a personal item. So, I ran across, a deal where the olive color SAMSUNG Galaxy Buds 2 were going just shy of $99. Based off the reviews, it appeared to get the job done, albeit I was still a bit skeptical since the price was excellent, and I thought simply plugging the ear with a bud and filling it with music or sounds from a movie was good enough to call it noise canceling.Result? I was pleasantly surprise how great these things were, there's a bit of trick to the ear buds when you don't have actual buttons to push, but it's a simple as holding your finger on the ear bud for a period of time turns on and off the noise canceling feature, and tapping the ear bud pauses it. And yes, I could tell the difference when I used the noise canceling feature, and it was freaking great in my opinion. I only used to watch a television series on my Amazon Fire Tablet, but it was fantastic, I have absolutely no complaints for the time I used it on the trip. Until I make a significantly longer trip (2 hrs for me to get to NY), I will not know how good the battery life is, or how long this product will last overall, but for $100, I highly recommend this product if you want a lean ear bud that noise cancels and sounds great watching movies and/or tv shows are your tablet.20 min usage review. I will update if anything changes.I've tried 3 other much more expensive pairs of ear buds (bose, apple, Sony) before landing on these. The others would hurt my head, L ear, and trigger migraines, which I rarely get. Some you couldn't turn noise processing off. These samsung ones cause a very small amount of pain near the left ear, but it is bearable, which I'll take for the convenience of buds. You can also adjust the ambient noise volume, and turn off processing completely. The ambient mode sounds natural and there's next to no latency unlike I noticed on higher end buds. Controls are intuitive.Additionally, the design is sleek and feels well built. The material feels like airpods through and through, which I love. It's portable and not clunky, easy to open and close. The small size is very comfortable and easy to insert.The audio quality is great. It has crisp highs, decent lows. It's better than my bose soundlink, although those have literally been dragged through the mud multiple times, so take that with a grain of salt.Small complaint: it didn't come with a USB c charger like it said. (I ordered refurbished)Update: still love the buds. Some minor complaints: ears get itchy sometimes, buds get warm occasionally, buds may play music when you're adjusting the bud due to the tap, but these can be changed in settings. Tap is on both sides (annoying for adjusting). Mic works well as far as I can tell. Great battery life. Buds kind of stick together due to magnet which is good if you're setting down.Estos Galaxy buds 2 son justo lo que se ocupa en unos audífonos true wireless con cancelación de ruido en 2021.Su precio está bastante razonable con lo que todo lo que ofrece el producto en general. Muchos podrán decir que hay mejores audífonos con cancelación de ruido, pero obvio el costo de estos es mucho mayor.Este producto se Samsung es recomendable en especial si no habías renovado a partir de los primeros Galaxy buds, los buds + o los buds live.Mi recomendación es que si ocupas renovar tus audífonos, quizás valga la pena considerar esperar a que estos bajen de precio en unos 6+ meses o comprarlos ahora por los 3,000 pesos. Pero si valen la inversión como los audífonos que traes en la oficina, en el Gym, en el carro, para cualquier actividad.Como nota adicional, recuerden que la cancelación de ruido se nota más cuando el ruido del exterior es constante, como en el metro, en una plaza con gente o caminando por la calle con los coches pasando cerca.Antes que nada, alcarar que cuando los compré tenía un Samsung Galaxy. Todo era excelente. Funcionan muy bien. No me considero audiófilo pero si sé distinguir entre un buen y un mal sonido. Calificaría estos audífonos como buenos, sin llegar a ser excelentes.SONIDO: En cuanto al sonido diría que son un 4 de 5. Es bueno pero en ocasiones puede ser muy brillante al punto de lastimar los oídos en volúmenes altos. Los medios son adecuados y los bajos están en el promedio. Al conectarlos usando Samsung Galaxy wear, se pueden también ecualizar por lo que puedes tener ajustes más personalizados, pero creo que no cumplirían con las expectativas de un audiófilo.RESISTENCIA AL AGUA: No los he mojado pero sí los he usado para el ejercicio. Soportan bien el sudor, ninguna queja aquí.CONECTIVIDAD: Al usarlos en Android se conectan en cuanto se abre la caja, lo cual brinda una buena experiencia de uso. Me he alejado varios metros del teléfono y no se desconectan. La conexión es estable, aunque si tienen un ligero retraso en el sonido, calculo que son unos 300 a 400 ms de retraso, por lo que no los recomendaría mucho para videojuegos y para video solo los recomendaría si ese pequeño retraso no te parece molesto. Si no prestas mucha atención puede ser incluso imperceptible.BATERIA: A máximo volumen con el silencio activo encendido, le duran unas 4 horas la batería. La caja puede cargarlos otras 3 veces, por lo que completamente cargados te dan unas 16 horas totales de uso. La caja se carga como en una hora y los audífonos como en 45 minutos.CAJA DE CARGA: Es bonita, pequeña y se siente sólida. La bisagra funciona de forma excelente y se siente mucho la calidad en construcción. La carga inalámbrica también funciona muy bien.CANCELACION ACTIVA: Si bien no he tenido la oportunidad de probar muchos productos con cancelación activa, puedo decir que funciona bien. Si se nota la diferencia cuando está encendida vs cuando no lo está. Por ejemplo, yo los uso mucho en la oficina. Con la cancelación activa logro disminuir los ruidos exteriores como en un 50%. Los ruidos fuertes como personas hablando muy cerca o un teléfono sonando aun se filtran pero se disminuyen bastante. Creo que en este aspecto hay mejores audífonos en el mercado, pero también vienen con precios mayores, por lo que considero que están bien para el precio.MODO AMBIENTE: Este modo no me encanta tanto. Si la música está pausada, puedes tener sin problemas una conversación con alguien sin quitarte los audífonos, pero con música, aunque sea a volumen bajo, se vuelve un poco complicado. Para oficina funcionan muy bien ya que logras escuchar sin problema si alguien te habla para poder pausar la música o removerlos. Lo que no me gustó para nada es que en exteriores no filtran bien el ruido del viento golpeando en los micrófonos, lo cual se puede volver molesto si los quieres para correr o hacer deporte al aire libre.CONTROLES TOUCH: A veces funcionan muy bien y a veces simplemente no funcionan. No entiendo muy bien de que depende lo anterior. En ocasiones quiero adelantar una canción o pausarla y tengo que tocar varias veces para que funcione. En ocasiones a la primera responde y funciona de maravilla. También resulta un poco molesto querer ajustar el auricular y que por accidente pauses o adelantes la canción. Creo que en este aspecto también hay competidores que lo hacen mejor.APP: Aquí es donde inician mis problemas. La APP Samsung Galaxy Wear funciona de forma excelente si tienes un dispositivo Android. Desde la app puedes localizar los audífonos, ver el nivel de carga tanto de audífonos como del estuche así como activar los distintos modos y ecualizadores, sin embargo esta app está disponible únicamente para Android. Hace unos meses cambié mi Samsung Galaxy por un iPhone 13 y no he podido utilizar de la misma manera estos audífonos. Existe una APP para iOS llamada Galaxy Buds, pero únicamente soporta los modelos Buds Live y los Buds +. Hasta ahora no hay soporte para este modelo. Los audífonos se pueden emparejar por Bluetooth con cualquier teléfono, pero al no tener una app nativa que lo controle, pierdes ciertas funciones como por ejemplo cambiar los modos de sonido (ambiental o cancelación) desde el teléfono, localizar los EarBuds e incluso ecualizarlos. Quedas completamente a merced de los botones touch y sus funciones. Si bien, los modos de sonido (Ambiental y Cancelación activa) se pueden cambiar desde los controles touch, resulta un poco molesto en ocasiones ya que como dije anteriormente, estos no siempre funcionan de maravilla.EN RESUMEN: Son una muy buena opción calidad precio si tienes un Android, en especial uno de Samsung. Si tienes iOS, creo que es mejor comprar unos Bose o ir directamente por unos AirPods para disfrutar de todas las facilidades que brinda el ecosistema.Simplemente son los mejores galaxy buds relación calidad precio.La cancelación de ruido es muy buena con sonidos bajos, ya sea que vayas en camión o uses el metro o metrobus no escucharas nada de ruidos, con las voces y platicas de la gente no lo logra bien, aunque si las disminuye notablemente. El sonido ambiente es muy bueno.Para las llamadas es excelente, te escuchas sin problemas.En general cumplen muy bien en todos los aspectos, rutina diaria, llamadas y hacer ejercicio (no se caen)Quiza lo único "malo" es que a veces es difícil atinarle a la zona para que baje o suba el volumen.Suenan muy bien, la cancelación es excelente, de verdad dejas de escuchar ruido externo. son muy cómodos, lo único que no me gusta y me deja con el pendiente es el IPX2 que no es completamente resistente al agua. Según dicen que si sudas no les pasa nada, pero no me han visto sudar a mi, parece que me eché una cubeta encima, entonces no los uso cuando voy a hacer una actividad que implique sudar. Por todo lo demás bien, buenos materiales, se sienten bien al tacto y funcionan muy bien.Totally in love with these earbuds. At first, I was hesitant to invest in these buds since they were pricey. However, I took a leap of faith and purchased this. I am glad I bought these!! They have an amazing sound quality and the clarity I experience when I receive calls is extraordinary. I have tried a variety of cheap replaceable earbuds available in the market. By far, these are the best quality buds ever purchased. Go for this if you want to experience listening to some good music and want to hear the person clearly in the other end this is a must-buy product!
