Samsung Galaxy Buds Live Review – Feature Packed Earbuds Under 5K

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live costs Rs. 4,390 in India. The earbuds are available in three colour options: Mystic Bronze, Mystic Black and Mystic Red.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live packs the following items signed the box:

• Earbuds
• Charging Case
• Quick Start Guide
• Type-C Charging Cable
• 2 Pair of Wingtips (S, L)

Before we talk more about the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live, let’s see what on-paper specs look like:

• Connectivity: Bluetooth
• Supported OS: Android, iOS
• Battery: 472 mAh
• Weight: 5.6g (each bud), 42g (case)

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The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live features a really eye-catching bean-shaped design which I loved at first glance. It’s fresh, unique, and something different from the competitors. If you are also bored with the typical stem-design earbuds like Apple Airpods, this might be a good option for you.

The earbuds are available in three different colour options: red, black and bronze. The moment you look at them, you can tell these are some really premium earbuds. The glossy finish plays a big role in it. The rest of the body is made of plastic and feels solid in the hands. The plastic body also makes the buds quite lightweight, weighing just about 5.6 grams each.

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I found them to be pretty comfortable to wear for long durations. They snugly fit my ears and thanks to the lightweight design, I could wear them the whole day without any discomfort or pain in the ears. It also comes with additional wingtips so that you can get the perfect fit.

There are no physical buttons on the earbuds or the case. There’s a single LED on the inside of the case, whereas a type-C port is located on the back.

It only comes with an IPX2 rating, which makes it somewhat resistant to water damage. I won’t recommend you to use these in rainy weather or while doing heavy workouts.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live pack 12mm audio drivers, which deliver a really good sound quality. It handles different types of genres really well like Rap, hip-hop, and rock. The bass is decent and punchy, and I could feel the vibe of the music.

Although there is no custom equaliser setting, the Galaxy Wearable app allows you to select audio presets from six modes, including treble boost and bass boost. I played some songs on Spotify and the audio quality was detailed and crisp, and I could hear the vocals clearly.

However, I won’t recommend these for audiophiles out there, but not everyone wants the best-sounding product for daily use, right? All in all, the sound quality is good enough for casual listeners like me.

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Not to forget, these earbuds also feature ANC. The noise cancelling performance of these buds was pretty average. They do manage to reduce the background noise, but it still manages to creep in since there is no proper seal. It falls way behind when compared to more premium earbuds like Sony WF-1000XM4 or Apple Airpods Pro.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live offers great mic quality over calls with the help of its triple microphone setup. There are two beamforming microphones and one mic on the inner side on each earbud. All of these elements work together to reject background noise and transmit crisp and clear audio on calls.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live packs a 60 mAh battery on each earbud while the case holds 472 mAh. Samsung claims a battery life of eight hours on a single charge with ANC off and six hours with ANC turned on. The case adds additional 21 hours and 15 hours, respectively.

But does it live up to the claims? I got about five and a half hours of playback time with ANC on, which is not the best but really decent. And the case gave me about 2.5 cycles easily. Overall, it does last over the Apple Airpods Pro (5 hours) but falls behind the Sony WF-1000XM4 (8 hours).

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But what impressed me really was the fast charging support using the type-C port. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live can deliver a playback time of an hour with just a quick 5-minute charge. Now that’s really good. Moreover, you can also charge the case wirelessly using a Qi wireless charging pad.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live comes with Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity support to offer easy and fast pairing. You can connect the earbuds to both Android and iOS devices, but it’s much easier on Android phones.

All you have to do is turn on Bluetooth on your phone and open the earbud case near your Android phone, and voila; you’ll see a pop-up on your screen to connect. However, they do not support multipoint pairing connectivity, so you can only connect to one device at a time.

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You can also download the Galaxy Buds app on iOS or the Samsung Galaxy Wearable app on Android devices to access various features of the earbuds. The UI is simple to use and pretty straightforward.

The app lets you switch between six EQ presets (Normal, Soft, Bass boost, Clear, Treble boost and Dynamic). You can also enable the feature to read the incoming notifications, activate or disable hands-free Bixby, use Find My Earbuds as well as customise the touch controls.

Talking about the touch controls, you can simply tap the upper area of the buds to perform various functions. A single tap will play/pause the music, while a double tap will skip the current track and a triple tap will go back to the previous track.