Samsung Galaxy Buds Buds4 Pro

Incredible sound and noise cancelling trapped in a love-it-or-hate-it fit. Samsung owners will be thrilled, everyone else should try the Sony XM6s first.

The two-way speaker setup is the real deal. You get a dedicated tweeter and woofer in each bud, and it creates a soundstage that's way wider than you'd expect from something this small. The 24-bit hi-fi codec pulls out details in tracks you've heard a hundred times. What surprised us most, though, was the ANC. It's adaptive and aggressive in the best way, easily hanging with the top dogs from Bose and Sony. It crushes low-end rumble on a plane or train without that weird cabin-pressure feeling you get from lesser noise cancelling.

The Buds4 Pro go head-to-head with the Sony WF-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra. Sony still has a slight edge in pure sound customization and a more universally comfortable fit. Bose fights back with an even more relaxed, stay-all-day fit and slightly better call quality. Samsung wins on sheer tech density and that IP57 rating, which neither Sony nor Bose can match. If you want the smartest buds for a Samsung phone, these are it. If you want the safest, most comfortable fit for any phone, grab the Bose.

At $250, you're paying a premium for the Samsung ecosystem and top-tier ANC. The sound quality justifies the price if you have a Galaxy phone to unlock the 24-bit codec. If you don't, you're leaving performance on the table, and the mediocre battery life becomes harder to swallow. It's a fair price for what it does, but only if you can use all of it.

Samsung packed a ridiculous amount of tech into the Galaxy Buds4 Pro, and for the most part, it pays off. The sound is genuinely impressive thanks to that dual-driver setup, and the ANC is some of the best you can stuff in your ears right now. But there's a catch, and it's a big one: the fit is a gamble. If these don't sit perfectly in your ears, all that fancy audio engineering goes right out the window.

These are built for the Samsung faithful, especially anyone rocking a Galaxy S26. The AI tricks like real-time translation are slick party pieces, and the IP57 rating means you don't have to panic if you get caught in the rain. Just know that you're trading some battery life and a universal fit for that bleeding-edge Samsung integration.

If you prioritize all-day comfort or marathon battery life, these aren't your buds. The fit gets fatiguing after a couple of hours for a lot of people, and 6 hours of playback is just not competitive at this price. Go get the Sony WF-1000XM6 for a safer, longer-lasting fit, or the Soundcore P31i if you want to spend way less and get better battery life.

If you own a recent Samsung phone and the fit works for you, buy these without hesitation. The sound and ANC are absolutely top-shelf. But you have to be honest about the fit. If that ear-hugging design doesn't hug your ears just right, you'll be fidgeting with them constantly, and no amount of hi-res audio can fix that. Try before you buy if you can.