This is the review of the comparison between two earbuds from two popular brands in the market. The comparison here is between the Sony WF-1000XM3 and the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus. There is around seventy dollars difference in their price range which brings the difference in their features and performances too. To know which one is better than the other, go to the detailed review.

Sony WF-1000XM3	Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Active noise cancellation works exceptionally well. The audio quality is great. EQ adjustment allows for musical tweaking. Battery life is excellent.	Bluetooth 5.0. Scalable Samsung codec and AAC. Qi Wireless charging. Deeper iOS integration. Better call quality. Impressive sound. Rated 11-hour battery life.
CONS	CONS
No waterproofing. Frequent fliers may miss a cable option. No wireless charging. No on-earbud volume controls.	Lacks aptX. No auto-resume playback. Limited multipoint. Touch controls can be sensitive. Still only IPX2 rated.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Sony WF-1000XM3

Sony is one of the popular brands in the market for its great noise-canceling technology. As with its other products with noise-canceling technology, the Sony WF-1000Xm3 is also popular for noise-cancelation. These earbuds are retailing for around a hundred and seventy-eight dollars currently on Amazon. These earbuds also offer a longer battery life and great performance which is really good for the price.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus is the updated version of in-ear earbuds from Samsung. This is the successor of the original earbuds known as the Samsung Galaxy Buds. These earbuds are retailing for around a hundred and ten dollars. These earbuds are very popular in the market for their really small and compact design.

DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY:

Sony WF-1000XM3

These earbuds come in a nice charging case and there is a nice LED outside the case, so if it’s charging the earbuds it will glow in red color. The earbuds themselves also have LEDs on them, so when it’s charging it will also glow red in color. When you take them out of the case and if they are connected then it blinks in blue color but once you wear it, the blinking actually stops. So, it’s just there to actually show that the earbuds have been connected.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

In terms of shape and everything, it’s almost similar to the original Galaxy Buds but definitely, I can easily say that the build quality on this one is better. The hinge when you open is a lot smoother while in the original one it was not that smooth. In the original Galaxy Buds, the earbuds actually wobble around and it doesn’t sit in their place properly but on the new one, they are perfectly fit in its place.  Definitely, in terms of build quality, Samsung has done a much better job. Overall, it feels a lot sturdier but in terms of look, it’s the same. Inside the charging case, we have a LED that shows the charging level of the earbuds, and on the outside also there is an LED that shows the charging level of the charging case. At the back, you have the USB Type-C port for charging.

When we take a closer look at the earbuds themselves there we have the two pinpoints are over there and these will contact with the charging case pinpoints and you don’t need to worry about it and it works very well almost every time. On the upper surface of the earbuds, we have the touch sensitivity on both the earbuds left and right. Like the previous generation, these are touch-sensitive, and you can customize the function of the touch panel as you want. For example, a single tap on it will pause your music and playback, you can even skip tracks by double-tap or triple track like that. In terms of build quality, they have done an excellent job.

COMFORT:

Sony WF-1000XM3

These earbuds are slightly on the bigger side, so it takes a little bit of time to get used to. In fact, I used a lot of truly wireless earphones and headphones, and mostly the default ear tips fit perfectly fine on most of the earbuds but on this one, I had to actually try all the extra eartips to get my actual fit and finally the smallest memory foam one was the most comfortable one to me and it fits in my ear properly.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

It fits in your ear very firmly, so I would say it fits even better more firmly compared to the last generation. For me, it’s slightly on the tighter side but the advantage is that it just never falls off. But that it’s a very tight fit, so you don’t have to worry even if you run around and stuff, it will not fall, so that is nice. 

In terms of comfort, I would say these are comfortable but I felt was slightly on the tighter side for me after an hour and that was not the case with the original ones but you have got some extra tips you can use to get your comfortable fit. It’s very sturdy, it will not fall out of your ear. When you wear this it goes in properly with the proper fit which can be dangerous if you were outside, so they do have an ambient mode and if you enable that you can hear the surroundings very clearly, so that’s actually implemented very well.

FEATURES:

Sony WF-1000XM3

On the box, Sony claims these are leading noise cancellation earphones, and it claims some of the features such as they support both the voice assistants Google assistant as well as Alexa, also has 360 reality audio sound, this has the sony QN1e chip which we actually found even on the bigger Sony headphones and now its definitely on this one. This also has NFC for pairing these easily, DSEE that is for sound enhancement for low-quality audio, and also, ANC is there. This also supports the Sony Headphone Connect app. This works even with the iPhones as well as android.

When you open the box, you will get the instructions guide, your earbuds themselves, your charging case that feels very premium, then you get the 360 reality audio free trial music service, then you get the user manual, and then you do get a bunch of extra ear tips three pairs of silicone ear tips and three pairs of memory foam ear tips. So, we’re getting quite six over here and one is pre-attached, so a total of seven, and then the last thing we get in the box, is a small USB Type-C cable that is used for charging, so that’s what we get in the box.

I have tested the Bluetooth connectivity with three different smartphones, so as far as the connectivity goes there were no issues regarding it at all. Whenever you wear it the first time, it tells you the battery charge percentage, so that’s actually nice. One of the features that I really like about this is the ambient sound mode because when you just wear it in your ear, it’s because these are sort of in-ear earphones they go in your ear and they block a lot of sounds and make you unaware of your environment. If somebody is here and he wants to speak to you, you can just press that and ambient sound comes in, so you can easily talk to them without taking them off. Also, they have one more functionality in which if you just hold on to the left earbud control for half a second, if someone wants to talk with you for a minute then you can hear that person.

As far as the ANC on these, these have active noise cancellation but you don’t have to actually use the ANC all the time because by nature they go in your ear, so passively they will block a lot of sounds. But when you invoke ANC some sound, for example, your air-conditioner sound, or the fan sound those are completely eliminated but again if you are expecting that if you block people who are talking around you that’s not the case. Definitely, the ANC is actually pretty good but if you’re expecting the ANC level as good as the Sony’s full-sized headphones that are the WH-1000XM3, it’s not the case here. But the ANC comes and it removes all that humming sound, AC sound, fan noise, etc. I was mostly using them with the ANC on because I felt it was giving me a better sound signature because of the isolation that was happening.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

In the box obviously, you get the charging case, your actual earbuds, your USB Type-C cable for charging these up, and some extra four ear tips that we would get apart from the one that is attached, so that’s what we get in the box not that much. There is an app called Samsung Galaxy Wearable app available for this earbud that is applicable for both on an Android phone and also, on an iOS device but I feel it works best with Android phone, and obviously, it connects over Bluetooth. So, when you open up the case, it shows you how much charge is left and stuff like that on your mobile. When you open up its app, it will again show you how much charge is there, then you can toggle on and off the ambient mode there and one thing that I already feel that has improved is this built-in equalizer. So, you can take the advantage of that and you can change the sound signature with this one and it does make quite a bit of difference.

Then you can even customize the touch controls in the app like you can add to your single tap will pause and play, a double-tap will go to the next track, the triple tap will take you to the previous track, and you can touch and hold it for some more functions like that and you can even customize whatever function you want it on. But what I’ve noticed is that if you set up the volume by default, then the left one will be the lower volume, and the right will become higher volume, so you can’t keep it to ambient. Apart from that, it does a good job and even in an advanced setting, I’ve found you can toggle some more options like labs.

If you go to labs on the app, you can have the gaming mode also on and that is for low latency. I did not use it but I did watch quite a bit of video and I did connect with two devices the S20 Plus and even with the iPad Pro and I didn’t watch a movie with the iPad Pro and I did notice any lip-syncing issue but strangely on Android phone with some YouTube videos with the gaming mode off. I did notice minors lip-syncing, so maybe if able that mode that will eliminate that. But again the lip-synching issue was not very evident.

BATTERY AND ITS LIFE:

Sony WF-1000XM3

Sony claims a battery life of about six hours, during my testing I was always using it with ANC, and it gave me slightly over five hours and if you put this back, it can charge it three times. Actually, it provided you a total time of 32 hours with the ANC on and 24 hours with the ANC off. These earbuds use USB Type-C for charging which supports fast charging, so 10 minutes of charging will give you around one and half hours of playback.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

One major improvement that Samsung is claiming is battery life. On this one Samsung claims on paper that these will give you about 11 hours of charge, so that’s a big thing. Obviously, we are not going to wear these for that long period of time continuously but for testing these out I watched one full movie with these and then continuously used it for a couple of hours for music, and then also the battery life was about 60%. So, definitely, their claim around 11 hours of battery life is close for regular usage will give you about 8 to 9 hours of usage without any issue, so that’s a good thing. So, in terms of battery life, it’s a huge improvement. This also supports wireless charging which is really good to have at this price point.

MICROPHONE:

Sony WF-1000XM3

These have integrated microphones and actually, I did take a lot of calls, and the call quality was actually surprisingly good in this area. The one thing that I noticed is that while taking calls it just uses mostly the left earbud not the right one if we wear both. I also took some calls with these on and I found that the microphone quality is very good.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

Samsung says that this one has a dual driver and also, has three microphones, hence it also has that ambient mood and the microphone has improved here compared to the original one. If you recall the original Galaxy Buds also has the microphone in it so you can take calls with this one but the thing is that with the original one the microphone quality was not that good. But in this, the microphone quality has improved quite a bit and I think the three microphones do make quite a bit of difference. Even if you take calls outdoors, and it does a good job of noise-canceling also.

SOUND:

Sony WF-1000XM3

These sound beautiful, this is one of the best true wireless that I have experienced and much better than some of the earlier premium true wireless earbuds that I have used like the Airpods Pro or even the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus. The big strength is that you can customize the sound signature however, you want. If you like excessive bass you can do that, if you want enhanced vocals you can do that, so it’s totally customizable.

Again, these sound beautiful, the bass is there, when it’s required it comes, it’s not muddy, the mid-tones are good, and also the vocals are produced excellent on this one. Even the high tones are produced very well, and it’s not actually very sharp. Even after listening to music continuously for one hour, my ears were not fatigued with this one, so in that area, in my opinion, they have done a beautiful job. If it’s just for the sound quality, these are some of the best true wireless earbuds that I have personally used. In terms of sound signature, its really good even without any customization or playing with the apps when I just used it for the first time within two minutes I felt it to be amazing. 

Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus

The big improvement I would say in this one compared to the original Galaxy Buds is in terms of battery life and also the sound quality has improved drastically. But I don’t feel that sound was that much punchy but you can change this and then tweaks it to sound quite a bit. I found the best sound signature for my listening needs was dynamic, it did provide a little bit more punch and the treble that I was looking for. So, I felt I got the best results with this one.

These have a lot better bass, I would say it’s not over bassy, if you are a bass head then you might not like it but the bass definitely has improved tremendously on this one. If you keep it on that dynamic mode, you will really enjoy the music and even the mid-tones are also very clear. The vocals are good, and the treble on the high notes are really good.

WHICH ONE IS BETTER?

In my opinion, the Sony WF-1000XM3 is better than the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus because even though the price on these is higher than the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus they worth that price range. The XM3 has really good noise-canceling technology that works really great, and also its sounds a lot better than the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus. Even the microphone on this works pretty good and definitely compared to Galaxy Buds Plus it’s really better.

Expert Reviews of Sony WF-1000XM3:

By liveatpc.com
I’ll get straight to the point. At RM 949, these earbuds are not cheap. For the most part, however, you get what you pay for. Of course, we have to take its price into account, so. Are the WF-1000XM3s good all-around true wireless earbuds? Sort of.Are…

By pokde.net
The Sony WF-1000XM3 is a pretty solid offering and is definitely one of the best ones around among truly wireless…

By MobileSyrup
I’ve been using Sony’s latest wireless earbuds, the ‘WF-1000XM3s’, for more than a month and they’re fantastic. While I’ve experienced struggles with the earbuds, there’s one phrase that thoroughly explains my feelings about them: “Sony, take my money.”…

By goodhousekeepin.co.uk
While these wireless headphones are expensive, if you’re looking for incredible sound quality, they’re well worth investing in. They offer an ideal balance between treble and bass, and the audio and noise-canceling tech can be tweaked to suit your…

By Andriod Central
I wouldn’t say reviewing phones is easy, but there’s a sameness to it. You unbox it, put your SIM in, set it up, and start using it as the phone before it. You do some tests — call quality, photos, maybe a drop test if you’re feeling bold — and…

Expert Review of Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus:

By Good Gear Guide
The Samsung Galaxy Buds+ aren’t earbuds that you’re likely to be disappointed by but I’m not exactly recommending you rush out and buy them…

By TheStraitsTimes
Launched together with the Samsung Galaxy S20-series smartphones – resulting in their flying under the radar – the Galaxy Buds+ true wireless in-ear headphones are the successors to last year’s Buds. With the “plus” in the name, you can probably guess…

By Pocket-line
The Samsung Galaxy Buds+ is a solid pair of wireless in-ears. Sound and battery life is improved compared to the generation-old Buds model. And with features like the easy-to-control app for managing settings and features, Samsung certainly has its…

By theguardian.com
Samsung’s latest Galaxy Buds+ strikes the right balance of comfort, battery life, pocketability, and sound to make some of the very best day-to-day wireless earbuds. The controls are good, connectivity is rock solid, call quality is greatly improved, and…

By Stuff
Last year’s Galaxy Buds were a bit of an also-ran, but a series of improvements have transformed these second-generation versions into a front-runner, at least within their price bracket. The Galaxy Buds+ have few rivals under £160 that combine design,…