So the new Galaxy Buds Pro are a great pair of everyday carry truly wireless earbuds to
consider. But their standout characteristic are their 2 way speakers which truly do deliver
awesome sound at a very reasonable price. But today we’re going to be directly comparing
the Galaxy Buds Pro to the AirPods Pro, Jabra Elite 85T’s and the Sennheiser Momentum
2’s. Now personally I am rather excited about this video cause I like all four of
these earbuds but each ear buds have their own stand out characteristic that they each
excel out.
Now when it comes to pricing there is quite a range here. The Galaxy Buds Pro do manage
to under cut all of these other earbuds by retailing for $200. Then are the Jabra Elite
85T’s which retail for $230. The AirPods Pro retail for $250, and then there are the
Sennheiser Momentum 2’s which retail for $300. Now if you want to pick any of these
earbuds up they’ll be linked down below and if you want to learn more about any of
these earbuds please watch their full reviews cause we’re only going over their main differences.
Now first off we’ve got talk about the carrying cases here cause to me this is one of the
most important things to consider when looking at a pair of truly wireless earbuds. If the
case is too big I don’t want it. Now with all that being said all of these earbuds have
decently small cases, but the AirPods Pro do have the smallest case here. The AirPods
Pro and Galaxy Buds Pro cases have very similar foot prints, but the AirPods Pros case is
a noticeably thinner. Now the Galaxy Buds Pro’s case is about the same thickness as
the Jabra Elite 85T’s case but it does have a slightly smaller foot print. But then there’s
the Momentum 2’s case which is the thickest case here and it also has the largest foot
print here. Personally I can make this case work, but definitely for the future momentum
3’s this case needs to shrink down a bit. But at least none of these cases are as large
as the Bose QC earbuds case.
Now when it comes to charging these cases, the Sennheiser’s Jabra’s and Galaxy Buds
all charge via a USB C port which is convenient if you daily drive and android device. Where
as the AirPods Max charge via a lighting port which is convenient if you daily drive an
iPhone. But when it comes to wireless charging only the AirPods Pro, Jabra, and Galaxy Buds
have wireless charging where as the Momentum 2’s don’t.
Now personally I do find it very ironic that the Momentum 2’s don’t have wireless charging
cause their case is the largest one here. So definitely for the future Momentum 3’s
not only do they need to shrink their case, it also needs to have wireless charging. Cause
in this respect sennheiser is starting to fall behind a little bit.
Now when it comes to battery life all of these earbuds have decent battery lives for earbuds
in 2021 but these earbuds really vary depending on how you use them. Both the Galaxy Buds
Pro and Sennheiser have an advertised combined battery life of 28 hours with their active
noise cancelation turned on. But with their Active noise cancellation tuned on the Galaxy
Buds Pro have an advertised battery life of 18 hours.
Where as the AirPods Pro have an advertised battery life of 24 hours with their active
noise cancellation turned on and the Jabra Elite 85T’s have a combined advertised battery
life of 25 hours with their active noise cancelation turned on. Now if you’re like and you only
use the ANC on your earbuds when you have to then you can easily get 20 to 24 hours
out of all of these earbuds.
But if you are someone thats looking for the longest battery life here than you’ll might
want to go with the Jabra’s cause they can go for as long at 31 hours with their active
noise cancelation turned off. Which is pretty impressive cause their case is considerably
small.
But now lets talk about the earbuds themselves, when it come to fit all of these earbuds fit
a little differently. The Momentum 2’s fit like your standard pair of in ear ear buds.
They go in a decent amount into your ear canal just like the Galaxy Buds Plus, but they don’t
go in super deep like the Sony WF-1000XM3. Where as both the AirPods Pro and Jabra Elite
85T’s are a pair of shallow fitting in ear earbuds. As in they don’t go in super deep
into your ear canal which I feel is great for comfort cause they don’t feel as intrusive
and they don’t get as itchy after awhile. However, I’ve found that the Jarba’s don’t
wiggle out as much as the AirPods Pro. There’s just something about the stiffer ear tips
on the Jabra’s that provide better lock down. But then there are the Galaxy Buds Pro
which fit between a pair of shallow fitting in ear earbuds and a pair of standard in ear
earbud. The Galaxy Buds pro don’t go in as deep into your ear canal as the Sennheiser’s
so they don’t feel as intrusive or get as itchy. But they do in a little deeper than
both the AirPods Pro and Jabra’s providing better lock down. So with all that being said
fit wise I feel it a tie between the Jarba’s and Galaxy Buds Pro. The Galaxy buds Pro provide
better lock down but the Jabra’s do feel a little more comfortable.
But now lets talk about Bluetooth connectivity cause there’s a lot of nuance here. Now
both the AirPods Pro and Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds each establish a connection with your phone.
So if you just want to use one earbud at a time you can use either one it doesn’t matter.
And for 2021 this is the type of set that we expect to see.
Where as both the Sennheiser’s and Jabra’s are using a hero and sidekick set up. So one
earbud, the hero earbud actually establishes a connection with you phone and then relays
that connection to the other earbud. So if you just want to use one earbud at a time
you gotta use the correct earbud or in this case the right earbud, the hero earbud.
Now at this point earbuds that are still using a hero and sidekick set up do feel rather
last gen, however the Jabra’s do justify their use of a hero and sidekick set up cause
they can simultaneously be connected to any two bluetooth devices at the same time. So
if you’re a power user that uses multiple operating systems like me. I currently daily
drive an iPhone and a pixel device. I can easily hot swap between my two phones with
the Jabra’s.
Where as with all of these other earbuds if you want to go from one device to another
then you are going to have to go into your bluetooth menu and manually establish a new
connection. However both the AirPods Pro and Galaxy Buds Pro allow you to easily hot swap
between any of your devices associated to their respective eco systems. So if youre
a power user thats heavily invested into the Apple eco system then AirPods are great. Or
if you’re a power user that heavily invested into Samsung’s eco system then Galaxy Buds
are great. But if you’re a power user that uses
multiple operating systems than you’ll might want to go with the Jabra’s cause they allow
you to hot swap between any two bluetooth devices no matter what operating system they’re
using and you don’t have to sign in into any extra accounts.
But more importantly when it comes to performance all of these earbuds have zero latency across
the board when watching movies or videos on your phone whether you using and iPhone or
and android device. But when it comes to audio codecs all of these earbuds are using SBC
and AAC except for the Sennheiser’s which also have support for APTX.
But now let's talk about listing to music with these earbuds. If sound quality is a
priority for you then the AirPods Pro are the last earbuds you wanna be looking at here.
Compared to these other earbuds the AirPods Pro sound very narrow, they put an emphasis
on the mids, and their bass does not resonate what so ever. Personally for me I never use
my AirPods Pro to listen to music. For me I only use AirPods Pro to watch videos or
listen to podcasts. But then there are the Jabra Elite 85T’s that sound much more open
than the AirPods Pro and they also have hard hitting bass that does resonate a little bit.
Now even though these earbuds do have a fully customizable EQ these ear buds are better
suited for people who like a warmer EQ cause these earbuds just don’t sound as open as
the Galaxy Buds Pro or the Momentum 2’s. Now if sound quality is a high priority to
you then either of these two earbuds are good options. Actually right the momentum 2’s
are my favorite sounding earbuds and the Galaxy Buds pro are close second. Both of these earbuds
sound much more open than the AirPods and Jarba’s… they’re also both going to
be able to either please people who like a bass heavy EQ cause they both have rich hard
hitting bass, and they’re both going to be able to please people who like a more vocals
focused EQ cuase they both have crystal clear highs. However the Momentum 2’s do manage
to inch out ahead here cuase they do sound just a little more open, their bass does hit
a little harder, and they also don’t put as much of an emphasis on the mids and highs
as the Galaxy Buds Pro. Theres also the fact that you have a fully customizable EQ with
the Sennheiser’s where as with the Galaxy Buds you just have a list of preset EQ’s.
Now when it comes to media controls both the Jabra’s and Sennheiser’s allow you to
play or pause your music, skip a track, go back a track, cycle between active noise cancellation
and your ambient mode or even raise or lower your volume all straight from the earbuds
themselves. And personally I really like when you have all of this control straight from
the earbuds themselves. The only difference here is that the Jabra’s are using psychical
buttons where as the Sennheiser are using touch pads. So whether you prefer either or
one of these have you covered.
But then there are the AirPods and Galaxy Buds who controls are a little more limited.
With the Galaxy Buds you can map pressing and holding to either cycle between your active
noise cancellation, adjusting the volume, or activating your voice assistant. But you
can’t have it all like with both the Jabra’s and Sennheiser. And then there are the AirPods
who’s controls are even more limited cause you can only have pressing and holding to
either cycle between your active noise cancellation or activating Siri. And if you want to adjust
your volume then you’re going to have to ask Siri to do it. Which does take forever
versus just taking out your phone.
However one key thing to keep in mind is that both the AirPods Pro and Galaxy buds pro have
always listening voice assistants with their respective device. So if you’re using AirPods
with and iPhone you can be like Hey Siri call so and so or if you’re using the Galaxy
Buds with a Galaxy device you can be like hey Bixby send so and so a text and boom its
done with just your voice.
But now lets move on to the active noise cancelation on these earbuds. Now first I do want to taper
expectations here the active noise cancelation on the these earbuds mostly focuses on constant
low frequency sounds and they aren’t going to block out as much noise as a proper pair
of over ear headphones like lets say either the AirPods Max, Sony 1000XM4 or the Bose
NC 700’s.
Now with that being said, the Jabra Elite 85T’s block out the most amount of noise
here. They used to be neck and neck with both the Momentum 2’s and AirPods Pro, but after
a firmware update their ANC did get better. And the Galaxy Buds Pro do block out the least
amount of noise here. But they do block out more noise than the Sony WF-1000XM3’s which
are still a pair of popular earbuds.
Now I know some people are going to say that the Bose QC earbuds block out more noise than
the Jabra Elite 85T’s and I one hundred percent agree with that. But personally the
Bose QC earbuds do consistently give me headaches. So for that reason I do prefer the ANC on
the Jabra’s they block out a lot of noise but without a lot of cabin pressure. So if
ANC is very important to you then you’ll might want to hop with the Jabra’s.
But like I’ve mentioned in the past, I only use the Active noise cancelation on my earbuds
when I have to and what’s really important to me is the quality of their ambient mode.
Now all of these earbuds have decent sounding ambient modes and they all do a decent job
of blocking out wind noise when walking out doors.
However the AirPods Pro do have the best sounding ambient mode. Its sounds the most natural
and their microphone array does the best job of rejecting wind noise when walking out doors.
Cause in situations where you’ll might be walking out doors and you get hit by a gust
of wind these other earbuds might pick up some wind noise… the AirPods Pro will still
manage to reject that wind noise. So for me, someone who basically uses their ambient mode
all the time when they’re outside thats a pretty big deal.
But finally here’s the microphone test. Now all of these earbuds have decent sounding
microphones for phone calls but the Sennheiser’s do have the most amplification here.
Where as the Jabra’s don’t have as much amplification but personally I wish they focused
a little more on my voice.
However you do want to try to take phone calls with either the Jabra’s or Sennheiser’s
in a quite room cuase they both let in a decent amount of ambient noise. Right now the Sennheiser’s
are letting in a decent amount of road noise.
And the Jabra’s are also letting in a decent amount of chatter.
Where as with both the Galaxy Buds pro and AirPods Pro, both of these earbuds do
a better job of focusing on your voice and they also do a better job of blocking out
ambient noise. Cuase if we were to switch over to my lapel microphone you’re going
to clearly hear all of this chatter. But if we switch back over to the Galaxy Buds Pro
it is severely reduced but more importantly my voice is front and center.
And again when it comes to road, if we were to switch over to my lapel microphone you’re
going to clearly hear all of this road noise but if we were to switch over to the AirPods
Pro it is severely reduced.
So defeneitly if you plan on taking lots and lots of phone calls with your earbuds then
you’ll either want to go with the AirPods Pro or the Galaxy buds Pro.
Cuase right now with the amount of remote work people are doing having a good sounding
microphone for phone calls is very important.
So with all that being said, I like all four of these earbuds and its very easy for me
to recommend any of these earbuds. But I do feel each of these earbuds have their own
area where they excel. If you’re and iPhone user the AirPods Pro are still one of the
most convenient truly wireless earbuds out there. They have the smallest case here so
they aren’t super noticeable when you’ve got them in your pocket, they have the best
ambient mode here, always listening Siri allows you to do complex tasks all with just your
voice, and if you’re heavily invested into apple’s eco system you can easily hot swap
from one device to another. But the AirPods Pro don’t sound the greatest and these earbuds
do like to wiggle out quite a bit. Personally I love using my AirPods Pro when im out doing
errands and I mostly use them to consume videos, podcasts, and take phone calls with. Then
there are the Jabra Elite 85T’s which I feel are better suited for power users that
are using multiple operating systems. With the Jabra’s you can be connected to any
two bluetooth device at a time and easily hot swap between them. They also have the
longest battery life here and they also block out the most amount of noise here. They also
sound noticeably better than the AirPods Pro, but they don’t sound as good as the Sennheiser
Momentum 2’s or the Galaxy Buds pro. Now if sound quality is your main priority then
you still can’t go wrong with the Momentum 2’s. However you are going to have to make
some compromises like a fairly bulky case and no wireless charging. And these earbuds
aren’t as comfy for long use sessions as these other earbuds. But if you’re someone
that still wants great sound quality but still wants maximum convenience then you’ll want
to go with the Galaxy Buds pro. The Galaxy Buds pro are a strong number 2 when it comes
to sound, they have a fairly small case, they also fit a little more comfortably than the
Sennheiser’s and they’re also a little more budget friendly.