NOT better in every way - Samsung Galaxy buds4 Pro

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, we are back with the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pros.

0:03 And this is a good timing because I'm kind of in the market.

0:06 My Sony XM4s have been kind of failing me on the plane.

0:09 But one little spoiler for the audio testing that we did

0:12 on these puppies is that I took a little sneak peek

0:13 at the graphs and I had to raise an eyebrow

0:16 or two because they measure it a little differently than last year.

0:20 But we'll get to that later.

0:21 Right now, let's look at what's in the box

0:23 or maybe we should say what's not in the box.

0:26 Like look at this.

0:27 You get the buds, you get some paper, you get some ear tips.

0:31 That's it.

0:32 They're boiling the frog all the time

0:33 with not only is there not a charging brick,

0:35 there's not even a USB-C cable anymore.

0:37 And there used to be.

0:38 Now, these do have wireless charging.

0:40 So I guess technically,

0:42 you do have everything you need to at least make them function.

0:45 But if they didn't have that, this would be an absolute travesty.

0:48 And even still, it's pretty egregious cuz I don't charge with wireless charging.

0:52 And I don't have a wireless charging dock.

0:53 This is getting crazy.

0:54 It's not cheaper than last year, either.

0:55 They didn't shave $3 off.

0:57 Looks like it comes with three sizes of ear tips.

0:59 You got your small, you got your large,

1:00 and then I'm assuming that there's mediums on buds themselves here.

1:04 Woo!

1:04 The case is a little different than last time.

1:07 Now it's opening hamburger style instead of like AirPods style.

1:12 Last time it was all AirPods kind of industrial design rip-off.

1:15 This time, they flattened it out so

1:17 it's no longer this like pyramid-shaped blade.

1:20 Should make it more usable cuz that was kind of hard to grab,

1:23 that triangular thing.

1:24 I'm really liking the look of this, but let's just slow down for a second here.

1:28 Back to the tips.

1:29 They're silicone, they're not foam.

1:30 They again seem kind of proprietary.

1:33 Like they have this rigid form here that is going to click onto the driver.

1:37 Then there's a little kind of perforated speaker grill looking thing there.

1:40 That's about it.

1:41 They're white.

1:41 I assume they match the colorway that we got,

1:43 which is white, whereas black is available.

1:46 And there's even an online exclusive pink gold color.

1:49 Checking out this case, it does look pretty nice and sharp right now,

1:54 but I I anticipate this getting scuffed up and scratched up pretty quick.

1:58 If you care about that, don't put these in your pocket with your keys.

2:01 Oh, wow.

2:02 I like the sound of that.

2:04 And it has a really satisfying, like, snap open.

2:06 You can actually see it.

2:07 It catches at a certain point and opens itself.

2:10 Boom.

2:11 Attention.

2:12 That's cool.

2:13 So, USB charging port on the back as well as a physical pairing button,

2:17 which I always love to see cuz I just I hate when there's ambiguity about,

2:21 like, you put them in the case and then it automatically isn't pairing mode.

2:25 Just give me some positive feedback.

2:27 Now, let's look at the buds.

2:29 I think the look of the buds is really nice and premium.

2:32 It's got some really nice lines.

2:34 They advertise this like craftsman-grade milled aluminum or metal body,

2:39 but it is just the blade, I believe, that is metal.

2:42 I don't It's It can be hard to tell, but I don't think that this is metal.

2:46 I think this is just plastic.

2:47 It's really great plastic.

2:48 But, the fact that they say metal blade on the website

2:51 makes me think it's just this band they're talking about.

2:53 Now, you used to be able to like swipe down

2:56 the stem and then squeeze and click the bottom of it.

2:59 Without turning these on, I don't discern any clickiness here.

3:02 It may be a thing you can squeeze, but it does What I'm saying is it doesn't

3:06 deform or click at all that I can tell.

3:09 Now, these have six microphones,

3:11 but they are all behind little grills like this one.

3:14 Sometimes earbuds have little holes where you can count the mics, but not here.

3:18 So, there's a grill there.

3:19 There's a wider grill here.

3:21 And then there's ones on the outside here.

3:23 And there could be some more microphones in here.

3:27 But, I can't confirm that.

3:28 Then you've got the pogo pins and legend kind of indicator

3:31 that this is the right one and this is Yeah,

3:35 that's the left one and that looks like that's just kind of printed on there.

3:38 I don't feel any texture to it.

3:40 And it's nice that they label left and right cuz sometimes they only label one

3:42 of them and then when you're looking at the other and just it says nothing,

3:45 you never really know until you pull out the other one.

3:47 Cool.

3:48 And the IP rating is IP57.

3:50 Now, normally IP54 is what you get on just about every earbud,

3:54 and that's enough for splashes or sweat.

3:57 But, 5/7, man, like you could you could work

3:59 at a car wash and your buddy is spraying you all day.

4:01 You can be a lifeguard and and fall in the water

4:04 to go and save somebody and you're you're going to be fine.

4:06 You could drop these in the toilet when you're drunk.

4:07 You will be all right.

4:09 Let's get them in the old head holes here.

4:11 Oh, yeah, that was so easy.

4:13 It's nice having the stem, too.

4:14 You kind of just put her in and twist,

4:16 point the stem forward, and I feel like I have a good seal.

4:19 The ANC kicked on right away.

4:20 My voice totally sounds different to me.

4:22 So, they are sealed pretty nicely with the mediums for me.

4:25 Cool, they're they seem pretty comfy.

4:28 Oh, I would like to headbang, but you know,

4:30 this old jujitsu neck is less and less mobile all the time.

4:33 Oh my god, if you guys could hear the sounds this is making.

4:37 Anyway, they're really they're really in there.

4:44 I'm just having fun now.

4:45 Yeah.

4:46 All right.

4:47 Yeah, good fit.

4:49 Lightweight, too.

4:51 How much do these weigh?

4:52 Let me see here.

4:53 11 g single bud.

4:56 Probably 5 and 1/2, right?

4:57 And case, 55.

5:01 Well, I want to listen to these, see how they sound,

5:02 and check out the measurement graphs you

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5:42 We're back, and we have here a Samsung phone,

5:44 which is noteworthy because there are a couple Samsung only features

5:48 and the magic pairing is probably going to be one of them.

5:51 So, let's see how it looks if I just open the case.

5:54 I got a red dot on the front.

5:55 What if I press this button?

5:59 What if I hold this button?

6:01 I probably could read this start quick start guide.

6:03 Oh, now we're flashing red, green, blue.

6:06 All right.

6:07 Uh this is just the normal Bluetooth menu, but it's available here.

6:10 Okay, I was expecting like, you know,

6:11 the card to come up from the bottom and look all sexy.

6:14 And I'm pretty sure I saw a picture of that on their website,

6:16 but it didn't happen here.

6:17 Whatever.

6:18 You're looking at the experience uh you non-Samsung people will get.

6:21 I'm a non-Samsung person.

6:23 Bring me to life by Evanescence.

6:25 That's going to be our first test track.

6:26 Why not?

6:27 2.6 billion plays can't be wrong.

6:30 Such an iconic like piano intro.

6:33 Uh this is awesome.

6:34 Where are you now, Amy?

6:35 What is Amy doing now?

6:40 Oh, wow.

6:41 I didn't even know there was like a boo kind of thing at the beginning of this.

6:45 I never noticed that before.

6:46 It might be overcooked in the on these Oh my god,

6:49 yeah, there's this low rumble coming through.

6:59 I should have a rule where I only listen

7:00 to like 2000s new metal on Short Circuit for now.

7:03 This is so fun.

7:04 Wake me up.

7:06 I can't wake up.

7:09 Save me.

7:11 How loud do these go?

7:13 That's too loud.

7:15 Oh.

7:16 See, the rule with headphones is the good ones,

7:20 the louder you turn them up, the better they sound.

7:23 If you're cringing or flinching, they're distorted.

7:27 That high hat shh shh shh shh shh That feels a little little sharp.

7:32 Okay, okay, gets That's enough.

7:34 I want something smooth and warm now.

7:37 I'm going Dreams, Fleetwood Mac, you know,

7:39 go longboarding with hair down to your ass.

7:41 Oh, the do this bass is just so so fat.

7:47 And you might like that, but it's sounding weird to me cuz

7:50 I've listened to this song a million times on a million setups.

7:53 I've never noticed this big fat bass guitar.

7:56 And again, the high hat is just like right in my ear.

7:58 Yeah.

7:59 Okay, yeah.

8:00 And Stevie Nicks is sounding, you know, she always kind of sounds like a goat,

8:03 but she's like even more nasally than normal here.

8:05 So, let's go to the graph and see

8:06 if there's any explanations for what I'm experiencing.

8:09 Yes, so here we have the measurements.

8:11 You can see this gray clouded kind of area

8:14 is the range that most people like to be in.

8:16 That's our target kind of range.

8:18 And the bass in particular, look how cooked that is.

8:21 It's way out there, and I can hear that.

8:24 Then you go into the mids and there's this dip followed by a peak.

8:27 Now, those are generally in bounds.

8:29 Then you get another dip followed these big big peaks,

8:33 and that's what I'm hearing in the treble there when it's getting then

8:35 the when the symbols and the brass are just too kind of crispy.

8:39 The interesting thing here that DMS called out is that when

8:42 you have these kind of peaks and valleys and peaks and valleys,

8:45 they kind of emphasize each other.

8:47 So, let's say you have this dip that's only 5 dB or something like that.

8:51 That will sound more accentuated if it is preceded by a peak cuz you're really

8:56 hearing the difference the contrasting difference between

8:59 those peaks and valleys impacts how you perceive it.

9:02 So, that's kind of on full display here.

9:04 And it's funny cuz the main thing they show front

9:06 and center on the website is like true high-fi listening experience,

9:10 new bigger diaphragm, super woofer.

9:14 So, I guess they delivered on that part.

9:16 So, the drivers on these compared to last year are almost 20% bigger.

9:20 That's cool.

9:20 19.8%.

9:21 The if the non-pros, you get the non-pros,

9:23 they only have one driver, but these have two.

9:25 Dual driver, dual amp, baby.

9:27 One other thing that is nice to see that we confirmed on this set

9:30 compared to last year is a like a Fletcher-Munson curve volume dependent EQ,

9:35 which basically equates to the sound of some frequencies, particularly bass,

9:38 changing depending on how loud you play it because we can't

9:41 hear bass as we're not as sensitive to bass as other frequencies.

9:44 So, if you turn them way down,

9:47 you actually want the bass to go up so that you can still hear it.

9:50 And then when you crank them way up, you want the bass to go down.

9:52 And these do that.

9:53 They didn't before.

9:54 They didn't last year.

9:54 So, that's an improvement.

9:55 Needless to say, I don't love the sound of these out of the box,

9:58 but I should be able to EQ it to something I do like.

10:00 So, let's open up the app and see what options they give for that.

10:04 And there's there's everything in here.

10:05 Got your battery level reading up here.

10:07 Couple different modes for the active noise canceling.

10:10 Off, ambient sound, adaptive, and just on.

10:13 I like on.

10:14 But, let's try out the ambient sound cuz I've

10:16 learned that some people really care about this feature.

10:18 I'm not the kind of person who does, but I've saw people in the comments saying,

10:21 "I use ambient all the time because I have my kids.

10:24 I want to listen to music and be able to hear my kids,

10:26 make sure they're safe." And And you know what?

10:27 As a dad, valid.

10:29 Maybe I should use this more often.

10:30 As I speak right now, my voice sounds natural to me.

10:34 It actually sounds more natural than when I had the ANC on.

10:36 Can you speak to me?

10:37 Hey, how's it going?

10:38 You sound like normal.

10:39 Awesome.

10:40 All right, that's pretty good.

10:40 Let's go back to having that on though cuz I like to be alone.

10:43 Then you get this active noise canceling level.

10:45 So, that's just how intense is it?

10:46 That's cool.

10:47 There's five levels there.

10:48 Auto switch to ambient sound.

10:50 I believe that means when you take it out.

10:52 Turn on ambient sound do do do do do.

10:54 Oh, no.

10:54 No, it's not when you take it out.

10:55 It's when you start speaking, which is crazy.

10:58 What if I start yelling at a podcast or singing along?

11:00 I don't want the ambient sound to turn on.

11:02 And there's options.

11:03 It can be based on when you start speaking or when it hears sirens,

11:06 which is kind of cool.

11:07 Wow, this is interesting.

11:08 It says that if you can't hear your own voice,

11:10 that can be kind of less comfortable

11:12 and it can lead to you yelling while talking,

11:15 which I'm probably doing right now.

11:17 You know what would be a great first step though is

11:18 if people just used headphones at all while talking in public.

11:22 I don't know where you live, but it seems like it's it's a spreading around

11:25 the world where people are just You know what?

11:26 Why don't I have a call on speakerphone while I'm on the bus?

11:30 We should be allowed to volleyball slap phones out

11:32 of people's hands if they do that Grow up.

11:34 Your ear butt controls is something I always look for.

11:36 You can pinch to play and pause and you get a really

11:39 satisfying tick tick kind of sound in there when you do that.

11:41 I like that a lot.

11:42 Pinch to play and pause, that's intuitive.

11:44 Double for next, triple for previous.

11:46 Swipe up and down for volume control.

11:47 That's actually exactly how I would set it.

11:49 But you can just turn all of that off if you don't want media controls,

11:52 which is kind of interesting.

11:54 Then you get your left and right.

11:55 Oh, so this is just for pinch and hold.

11:58 So you can choose between, you know,

12:00 Bixby for some reason they haven't canceled it yet.

12:03 Switching between your ANC, digital assistant,

12:05 which says Google, that's a that's a good one.

12:07 Okay, and then you can just turn on and off whether pinching answers

12:11 or ends a call or declines a call if you pinch and hold.

12:14 So it's just there's some options.

12:17 I've seen better, but at the same time at least they

12:19 happen to pick the default config that I would run anyway, so I'm okay with it.

12:25 Wow, that's just not even in English.

12:27 That's weird.

12:28 Whoa, this whole menu is just not in the language that we have selected.

12:31 That's bizarre.

12:32 What if we go to English Australia?

12:33 English India?

12:35 What is that?

12:35 How is that different from English UK?

12:37 I'm ignorant on this topic, guys.

12:39 Hit me up in the comments.

12:40 What is English India?

12:41 English Can- Where's English Canada?

12:43 What the hell?

12:44 This is Uh I want to get to the EQ.

12:47 Wait, why is it so buried?

12:48 Oh, equalizer, there it is.

12:50 All right, equalizer, we found it.

12:51 Wow.

12:53 Nine band equalizer, that's nice.

12:55 And plus or minus 10 different gradations, too.

12:59 So this is a really nice kind of gradual equalizer.

13:02 It has some presets.

13:03 I guess balance is what we started with.

13:05 Smooth gives you even more bass.

13:07 Clear might be the one.

13:09 Bass boost.

13:10 Just get ready to Yeah, I would probably would do something like,

13:15 I don't know, bring those down, maybe bring those down.

13:18 Yes, this is something like this.

13:19 I wonder if you can upload one.

13:21 That would be cool.

13:22 I've seen that before.

13:23 I don't see an option to do that now.

13:25 Shall we?

13:26 I will just check out advanced features real quick.

13:28 They got the neck stretch reminders, you know.

13:31 Oh, you got to calibrate though.

13:32 Look forward with your head level for 10 seconds until you hear a chime.

13:36 Tilt your head down until you hear a chime.

13:38 Oh, can imagine I'm on my phone like this far.

13:40 Couldn't do it.

13:41 It's telling me to make sure I'm following instructions carefully.

13:44 I Sorry, those were simple, but I I'm not smart enough.

13:48 Find my earbuds, that's always nice.

13:50 I thought that the last year's model also lit

13:52 up cuz it had an LED bar down the stand.

13:55 And that would have been cool like in a in a dark room or in the couch cushion.

13:59 These ones are just making sound.

14:01 Pretty basic these days.

14:02 Now, one of the new features this year on these anyway

14:05 is the ability to respond to notifications with a head gesture.

14:09 You can nod or shake your head no to answer

14:12 a phone or to like read a text, that kind of stuff.

14:15 And the button for that would be right here.

14:18 But on this S23 Ultra, which is running One UI 8 instead of 8.5,

14:23 we don't have it yet cuz that update isn't coming until it says April or May.

14:27 So, unfortunately, we can't try that out.

14:29 But I don't know, I have mixed minds about it.

14:31 To me like when I when I see that feature get announced,

14:34 I think who the heck is going to use that?

14:35 It looks so lame.

14:36 However, you know, Brad's telling me that he uses it

14:39 all the time on his AirPods and it's really useful.

14:41 Let's say your hands are wet or you're they're not.

14:43 Maybe they're just in your pockets and you're walking outside.

14:45 It's just really intuitive and fits into your life apparently to just

14:48 be able to deny things or accept things just by moving your head.

14:51 So, your mileage may vary.

14:54 Mic test.

14:55 Okay.

14:55 Recording with Galaxy Buds 4 Pro.

14:57 This is what they sound like.

14:58 Now, that last nodding and whatever gesture

15:01 feature is a Samsung only feature as well

15:05 as a couple other features I'll tell you about now including one of the codecs.

15:08 So, the codec this comes with are SBC,

15:11 which is the just normal Bluetooth codec, and AAC, which is a pretty good one.

15:16 But if you have a Samsung phone, you also get their Samsung seamless codec,

15:20 which gives you 24-bit audio at 96 kHz wirelessly.

15:24 And this is over Bluetooth 6.1, the latest and greatest.

15:28 And another exclusive feature is Samsung's super clear call, even in noise.

15:31 And one problem I have with these is

15:33 that they advertise them on the front of their page,

15:36 but they only tell you that it's Samsung only in a little footnote.

15:39 It's kind of scummy.

15:40 For battery life, Samsung is saying 7 hours with ANC off,

15:44 which I would never do, and 6 hours with ANC on.

15:48 So, that's the claim that matters to me.

15:50 You get 25 to 30 hours in total

15:52 with the case charging your buds a bunch of times.

15:55 So, how do we like it?

15:55 Well, it's going to come down to the price.

15:57 Same price as last year, even though there's no cable in the box,

15:59 $250, which makes them more expensive than

16:02 Bose Quiet Comfort non-Ultras, which are 180, more expensive than AirPods 4s,

16:08 which are 130 or 180 depending on whether you got ANC,

16:10 and more expensive than the Samsung Buds non-Pro 4s, which are 180.

16:16 Makes them the same price as AirPods Pro 3s, and cheaper than Sony XM6,

16:21 which are 300 bucks, and the Bose Quiet Comfort Ultras,

16:25 which are also 300 bucks.

16:26 However, we should know Samsung does put their buds on sale quite often.

16:30 So, if you see them on sale, why not give them a try?

16:33 They're really slick.

16:34 If you can EQ the sound to something you like,

16:36 I think that there's really no reason to not at least consider them.

16:40 Earbuds, you know, you can't really go wrong with some of the big ones.

16:43 They're They're all pretty dang good these days.

16:46 So, maybe it just comes down to the look.

16:47 Maybe you want that pink.

16:49 But if you're on the fence about getting something that goes in your ear at all,

16:52 maybe check out these over-ear headphones from Nothing that we recently covered,

16:56 the Nothing headphone A.

16:58 Or is that what they're called?

16:59 Yep.

17:00 Yeah.

17:00 Their names You always got to check what their names are.

17:03 They're all over the place.

17:05 Okay, bye.