Samsung Galaxy Buds Live Review: It's all about the design
Samsung has offered yet another TWS earphones and this time around they took a whole new design approach. Is it worth giving a shot? Find out in our full review.
Samsung Galaxy Beans? Nope, Samsung decided to call them the Galaxy Buds Live. While the reason behind the naming scheme is left inside the closed-door meetings, we all know that the design of these Buds has been inspired by ‘beans’. With a whole different design language, the company also aims to deliver a truly different sound experience to the user when compared to something like the Apple AirPods or the Samsung Galaxy Buds+.
Looking at the buds for the first time, anyone would ask “How do they fit?”, “Do they sound any good?”, “Are they worth the asking price?” and lots of other questions. In this review, you are going to find answers to all those questions along with a lot more details about the Samsung Galaxy Beans - or - Galaxy Buds Live.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Live Review
Samsung Galaxy Buds Live look refreshing to the eyes as we have been sick of seeing stem-based or circle-shaped truly wireless earphones. Samsung went out of the way to create something that would fit perfectly to most human years. In order to ensure that, the company has even included an extra wingtip in the box. However, I ended up using the earphones without any wingtips to achieve a greater level of comfort.
With or without wingtips installed, the Galaxy Buds Live fit quite snug in the ears and they do not fall off easily. This means you can confidently wear them for your short runs or even while hitting the gym.
While heading outside with the pair of truly wireless earphones, you will also need to carry the case around. Thankfully, Samsung has made the case of the Galaxy Buds Live quite small and pocketable. I got the Mystic Black colour variant for review and on this, the case gets a glossy finish. However, I would have loved to see a matte finish like on the Bronze variant of the Buds Live.
As mentioned above, the case itself is quite sleek and does support wireless charging. During my review period, I often had my Galaxy Note 20 Ultra connected to a wired charger and kept the Buds Live on the back of the phone to take advantage of Samsung’s Wireless Power Share feature.
Speaking of the charging habits, the Galaxy Buds Live managed to offer an impressive battery life during the review period. With Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) turned on and music playing at 70 per cent volume, I managed to get around 5 hours of music playback. Putting the earphones back in the case got me at least 10 more hours of listening period.
Though the Galaxy Buds Live managed to offer a great battery life, they were not really as comfortable for me when I tried wearing them for longer durations.
As for the sound quality, even with the new design language, Samsung has some really impressive sound on offer. My taste is a bit bass-heavy and for that reason, I usually prefer in-ear design. As expected, the Galaxy Buds Live were not good with bass out of the box. In the Samsung Wearable app, I had to switch the Equilizer to ‘Bass Boost’ mode in order to pump up my excitement while listening to Diljit Dosanjh’s G.O.A.T album.
The Galaxy Buds Live also come with the Active Noise Cancellation feature, which basically helps in cutting through the unwanted background noise while listening to music. Since the Buds Live does not feature the in-ear design, the ANC feature did not work as well as the Galaxy Buds+, Jabra Elite 75t or the Apple AirPods Pro.
In my review period, I even made a couple of phone calls using the Galaxy Buds Live. The call quality was surprisingly good for both parties. Even the connectivity was good with the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, iPhone 11 as well as the OnePlus 8 Pro.
Overall, the Galaxy Buds Live offered good quality sound and I was left quite impressed. If the earphones were a little more comfortable for my ears and had a slightly superior bass, they would have been my go-to choice for truly wireless earphones.