Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro review: Up there with the best

Samsung’s Galaxy Pro earbuds are often overlooked when it comes to headphones headphones standards, and the simultaneously released smartphones of the brand are taking up most of the hype. And it becomes even more difficult when they are up against strong opposition from big manufacturers like Bose, Sony and Apple.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 4, however, deserve a lot more love than they’re bound to get. Not because they are very good earbuds for sound quality or noise cancellation – those awards belong to Sony WF-1000XM6 – but because they are close to each other and combine those qualities with high levels of comfort and convenience.

What you get for money

At £219, the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro sits in the same price bracket as the Apple AirPods Pro 3which makes sense since they are the same product – specifically designed to complement the Samsung flagship The Galaxy S26 smartphone serieswhich presents simultaneously.

In this model, Samsung suggests improved sound quality, “improved wearability” and a refined design. The latter is certainly an obvious step forward. Gone are the bright “blade light” LEDs of the previous model, to be replaced by an understated, delicate, graduated metal top and an angular, aggressive look. The earbuds are also available in white and pink gold colors for anyone who thinks the black ones look too boring.

Samsung has also given the charging case a bit of a makeover, with a new transparent cover that’s more stylish and square.

As for the sound quality, the buds boast two drivers, as before, but this time those drivers are bigger, thanks to better bass and more detailed treble. Plus, there’s advanced, adaptive noise cancellation that automatically adapts to each user’s ear condition – no setup required.

Samsung has improved the noise cancellation of the microphone and added 360 sound recording. And, naturally, there are plenty of new AI-driven features here, with live translation, head gestures to answer or reject calls, and always-on activation of Bixby, Gemini or Perplexity using a simple wake-up phrase.

What did we like about them?

The Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro does a lot of things right, until there really isn’t much that separates them from their closest competitors. If you have a Samsung phone and want to get some noise canceling earbuds, just get a pair. The difference in performance between this and the Sony WF-1000XM6 is not great enough to justify the pain of your decision.

Comfort and fit

And, if you value comfort, this is where the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro delivers over its competitors. Not only are they lightweight and secure in the ear – never once did I feel like they were going anywhere when I put them on – but they’re also very comfortable.

This is one area where the class-leading Sony WF-1000XM6 falls short; you have to put them in your ears to get the right fit, and the Buds4 Pro fit just right. Your mileage may vary, of course, but it comes with at least four sizes of ear tips to choose from, giving you the best chance of getting the perfect fit.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of true wireless earbuds with stems as it’s easy to catch them on clothes and take them out, but at least these don’t stick out like the AirPods Pro 3. They’re very unlikely to catch, as a result.

Noise cancellation

The noise cancellation is also very good. I wasn’t impressed after putting them in my ears at first; they seem to allow a lot more sound than the WF-1000XM6. However, if you give them a switch and wait a bit, the adaptive ANC kicks in and silence – well, silence – follows.

There’s nothing like the customization Sony gives you here, but the Buds4 Pro will turn up and down the noise canceling power depending on how loud your environment is at any given time.

Ultimately, these can’t compete with the best noise cancelers — Sony’s WF-1000XM6 is better at blocking out high-frequency noise, for example — but I wasn’t at all disappointed with them on a recent transatlantic flight.

Controls

Like the AirPods Pro 3, the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro opts for pinch- and automatic swipe controls instead of the touch-sensitive Sony WF-1000XM6. These work well. Give the right stem a squeeze and the audio will play or pause, while double-squeezing skips forward and triple-squeezing skips backward. All of this works well.

You can also assign a custom function to pinch and hold, while swiping your finger up and down the front of the stem adjusts the volume. This is a big improvement over the Sony WF-1000XM6, which requires you to repeatedly tap the right or left earbuds to adjust the volume, which isn’t comfortable or accurate.

Meanwhile, a long squeeze of the left stem lowers the sound volume and mixes in some noise. Again, this works well, but it’s slow. It takes a few seconds to kick in, and you have to hold and press again to re-engage the noise cancellation.

I have to say that I prefer Sony’s way of doing this: simply hold your finger on the left earbud to temporarily listen to what’s going on around you, then release it to return to noise-cancelling mode.

Sound quality

In general, though, the controls worked well for me, and I think the sound quality is fine at its best. There is support for 24-bit 96kHz hi-res audio, as are their competitors, and they hold their own admirably.

The strength of the Buds4 Pro is the weight of the bass delivery and the separation of the instruments. I fired Justin Grey’s The tapestryit’s a track that mixes all kinds of acoustic and electronic instruments together, which needs a nice touch to keep things from getting dense and muddy.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro handled well, bringing out all the fine details at the edges of the mix, delivering Gray’s bass guitar with heft and definition, while introducing plenty of space between all the different instruments of the track.

This resonates with other genres of music, too: from classical to hard rock and everything in between, the Buds4 Pro delivered a confident, balanced performance.

I felt that the presentation is a little bit louder than the Sony WF-1000XM6’s, but like the noise cancellation, this is not really a big problem. Unless you could sit down and listen to these earbuds in the background, you probably wouldn’t notice much of a difference.

Indeed, you may like the way they sound; if not, there are many ways to adjust the sound profile with Samsung’s EQ. There are several presets available along with the ability to create your own custom EQ.

What can be improved?

There’s only one major area where the Galaxy Buds4 Pro falls short, and that’s call quality. While I was impressed with the microphone’s ability to reject background noise, the clarity of voice pickup leaves a lot to be desired.

I tested this by leaving myself a bunch of voice memos using WhatsApp in various noisy environments, and while I was able to make out what I was saying, my voice sounded very garbled. Call quality on the WF-1000XM6 wasn’t great either, but they were able to hear my voice more clearly.

I also have a problem with the way Samsung limits some headphone features to Samsung phones only – head gestures, for example, only work on phones running Samsung’s One UI 8.5 or later. Samsung is not alone here, of course.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro?

Ultimately, however, despite the odd weakness, the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro are truly impressive wireless headphones. They fit comfortably and securely, cancel ambient noise with uncanny efficiency, and sound low.

Better yet, they come at a price that undercuts their biggest rivals by a small but significant margin of £30. If you’re after a pair of high-quality noise-cancelling earbuds, these should be at the top of your list.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro are available for pre-order from February 25, 2026, and ship from March 11..