Great ANC headphones with a weakness

With the Galaxy Buds 2, Samsung offers in-ear headphones with active noise cancellation, which are lower in price than the Galaxy Buds Pro, but shouldn’t compromise on the most important points. Has Samsung succeeded in this balancing act? I took the test and am positively surprised in many areas.

The design of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 in the video:

Workmanship, comfort and operation

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 are optically very well done. Whether you think the shiny plastic is good or bad always depends on your personal taste. I personally would Prefer matte plastic. This would make the headphones feel much higher quality and feel better in the hand. The processing quality is right, however. The execution in Lavender was made available to us for the test. It makes you feel as if you have a piece of candy in your ear the whole time.

However, this does not affect the wearing comfort. The extremely light headphones fit pretty well in my ear. I would have liked to have had a small lip on the top that gently presses the Galaxy Buds 2 into your ear. Over time, the headphones slipped out of the ear bit by bit, which impaired the noise suppression effect.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 are powered by the touch-sensitive surface on the outside the headphones operate. But you have to hit relatively in the middle so that the entries are accepted. Anyone who knows wireless headphones with such controls will find their way around immediately. If you don’t have a Samsung phone, you should install the Galaxy Wear app. You can use it to make many settings. The software is self-explanatory.

Sound, ANC and call quality

When the headphones are properly seated, the sound of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 is surprisingly clear. Samsung has one Test integrated into the app that checks the seat. I set the equalizer to dynamic mode. That sounds best to me. But you can also choose Bass Boost to give certain tracks a little more power. There are of course other options available, but I felt most comfortable between the two options.

As with sound, the same applies to active noise cancellation: If the headphones fit properly and seal, that’s it ANC very effective. In the gardens in front of my office, machines that filter the headphones out well are turned on almost every day. Only when the notes are too high does it not always work so effectively. Overall, the Samsung headphones work at a high level. I only know of even better ANC shielding from the Apple AirPods Pro and my over-ear headphones from Bose.

That in my eyes The biggest drawback is the quality of the call. I can’t hear myself during a phone call or a meeting, but the people I’m talking to are so disappointed with the mechanical voice that I was even asked once to change the headphones. I was sitting in the office. The quality of the call is even worse when you are outdoors and the wind comes in. Samsung has to make significant improvements here.

Everyday battery life

The battery life of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 is average. She lies with four hours with noise cancellation activated at the level of the competition. If the battery is empty, the headphones have to be returned to the charging cradle, where they can be charged within a short time. The charging cradle itself can charge the headphones several times before it has to refuel itself. You can do this by cable, but also wirelessly on every Qi charging station.

It was strange that the right headphone of the Galaxy Buds 2 was always empty first, even though I always used both headphones at the same time. Partly I had 20 percent left on the left headphone. It is quite possible that I used the right headphone for touch inputs more often. But I didn’t expect the difference to be so big.

Evaluation in detail

• Sound: 8/10
• Carrying comfort: 8/10
• Hardware, design & functions: 7/10
• Battery: 6/10

Total: 7.3 / 10