The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are the best sign yet that Samsung can compete with Sony and Apple

It’s great to see progress. Samsung isn’t anywhere near a young brand, and a long way from some plucky underdog trying to swim its way, Dory-like, through a sea of well-fed tech sharks. But in pure performance terms, it hasn't quite cracked the wireless earbuds market like its rivals have.

Samsung was actually pretty quick out of the traps to jump onto the wireless earbud trend, releasing its first-ever wire-free in-ears, the IconX, in 2016, a year before Sony unveiled the WF-1000X and two years before Bose revealed its Bose SoundSport Free.

The Korean tech giant has not, however, put as much emphasis on wireless audio as its competitors. Sony’s range of headphones and earbuds is extensive, as is Bose’s, whereas more dedicated audio brands such as JBL and Sennheiser have tended to pump out their own rivals at far higher rates and with far greater critical acclaim.

That all seems to be changing.

Over the past few years, Samsung’s efforts to make a pair of flagship wireless earbuds to match the likes of Sony, Bose and Apple have gathered serious momentum. The brand’s latest flagship buds – the impressive Galaxy Buds 4 Pro – show the clearest indication yet that this is a company taking audio seriously.

A short history lesson

‘Twas not ever thus. While the likes of Sony tended to take to this particular game like the proverbial mallard to the pond, Samsung’s attempts have tended to be middling at best.

We awarded the first standard Samsung Galaxy Buds a measly two stars when we reviewed them in 2019; and things didn’t exactly improve by leaps and bounds in the coming years. 2021’s flagship Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro? Three stars. The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2? How about the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro? More three-star ratings.

Things really shifted, however, in 2023 with the launch of the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. The third-generation flagships were a different proposition to what had come before – they looked different, offered new and different features, and crucially, they sounded different.

For different, of course, read ‘better’ – these four-star wireless earbuds were by far the best we had yet heard from Samsung, with a crisp, clear signature that really shone when using the company’s own 24-bit/96kHz SSC UHQ hi-res Bluetooth codec with a compatible Galaxy smartphone.

Taking sound seriously

Thankfully, Samsung has refused to rest on its laurels. Learning the lessons from the successes and failures of the third-generation Pro buds, it came back even stronger this year with the launch of its best effort yet: the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro.

What impressed us most about the Buds 4 Pro is how they seemed to take everything we liked about their predecessors and refined them all for a genuine step forward.

This wasn’t a reinvention, but more of a clear and conscious tinkering of something that had worked reasonably well the first time around.

Gone were those rather unnecessary stem ‘blade’ lights and Apple-inspired design, replaced by a more premium metallic housing, a new charging case and, most importantly, the best Samsung sound yet.

As we say in our review: “These might well be the best-sounding buds that Samsung has yet made, and certainly a clear step up in detail and clarity over their third-generation predecessors. The Buds 4 Pros’ outstanding levels of textural insight and clarity make a recording of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca sound appropriately regal, before bringing out the lean, retro feeling of Elvis Costello’s Veronica with aplomb.”

Those improvements are no mere coincidence.

According to the engineers at Samsung, the fourth-gen model inherited many of the same design features from the Buds 3 Pro, such as two-way, dual-amp drivers, but with “refined tuning based on an enhanced woofer driver” for a more “rich and clear sound”.

That said, there is a clear openness to experiment to see what works best: "We do not have a specific preference for types or materials. We are continuously considering drivers to maximize various audio performances, including sound quality and noise control."

We’re not quite in five star territory yet – the competition is fierce in this category – but it really does feel as though Samsung is getting closer to that promised land. The class-leading Sony WF-1000XM6 are more musically refined and engaging, while the Apple AirPods Pro 3, while perhaps not quite as clear and crisp, have the edge in terms of dynamics and overall musicality.

Samsung's desire to improve and adapt has worked wonders, however. When you consider that the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro offered “disappointing, unengaging dynamics” and a sound which we described as “lacking subtlety and precision”, the sparky, detail-rich audio of 2026’s flagship earbuds really feels as though it comes as the result of an audio team taking sound seriously.

Finding that fifth star

This all leads to the next logical question: where does Samsung go from here in order to hunt down its class-leading competitors?

According to the company itself: “The market's anticipation for the integration of audio devices with AI is steadily increasing. In this context, we possess the advantageous positions of the Galaxy Eco system and Galaxy AI. Moving forward, we aim to deliver an unparalleled experience through the synergy between Galaxy Buds and Galaxy AI, offering what other companies cannot provide.”

That’s all well and good, but what we urge Samsung to remember is the very reason it has made it to this point in the first place: sound. We have seen major strides from the thin, detail-light disappointment of the company’s early efforts in the current earbuds. While AI integration is all well and good (the Buds 4 Pro have live translation just like AirPods Pro 3, for example), it is those sonic strides that have taken the Galaxy line from rank outsiders to number one contenders.

Just look at Apple. A few years ago, we were awarding each iteration of AirPods a predictably mediocre three (or sometimes four) stars, before Apple upped its audio game with the five-star AirPods Pro 2 in 2023.

Since then, the superb AirPods Pro 3 and appealing AirPods 4 with ANC have taken things to new heights, proving that while fancy features and seamless user-integration are all well and good, sound quality remains king.

Technics also struggled to find that fifth star with its early efforts, but a constant drive to improve its sonic performance culminated in the excellence of the Award-winning EAH-AZ100 last year.

If Samsung can take those lessons and emulate a similar sort of success by focusing on sound first, then it might give Sony, Bose, Apple and co. something to really worry about in the wireless earbuds scene.

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