Samsung Galaxy Buds3 FE

I bought these to replace a pair of 5 year old Jabra earbuds which are near the end of their life. Jabra have gone out of the audio business altogether. Pairing with a Samsung S22 running Android 16 was easy. You open the Bluetooth settings then open the earbud case. The phone will ask if you want to pair and then download the appropriate management software.

Once installed the buds will appear in the phone’s Settings, near the top. You will also be able to access the settings by swiping down with two fingers for the Quick Settings and then long pressing the Buds Volume slider. From here you can control all aspects of usage and it is pretty comprehensive. If pairing with a non-Samsung phone, you may not get exactly the same controls.

On first use the tips did not seal well and the sound was very tinny. Samsung only provide three pairs of tips and I fitted the largest ones. This gave much better sound quality but still does not seal my left ear, so sound cancellation will not work. Luckily this is not important to me, but these are obviously designed for people with smaller ears than me. The tips are oval and have two square keyways and are awkward to fit. This means that my old sets of tips are not usable which is a pity. Samsung want us to buy genuine tips and they are not cheap and would probably not seal any better than the ones I have.

The physical controls are badly designed and difficult or impossible to use. You are supposed to “pinch” the stems once, twice, or three times to control the functions. However after many attempts I was able to make it work only once and then not again, so multiple pinches are not possible. To adjust volume you stroke the stem up or down and this does work about half of the time. The 5 year old Jabras were so much easier to use by simply pushing a button. It is perplexing that Samsung would design something that makes it impossible to even answer a call. Luckily I can control the buds from my watch. Audio quality is clear in both directions, but because of the bad design and usability, I cannot recommend this product.

So far EXCELLENT reason for purchase was to use for wfh they work so well with ms teams and genesys purecloud applications. Voice is very clear on the other end and I get all day battery life though I do put them in the case on my breaks. They connect directly to laptops bluetooth no dongle required and range is about 20m. Music when paired with S25 is amazing very rich deep base sometimes too punchy if base boost is on. the anc is top notch as is the hear through. They fit nice and snug for all day use and do not fall out. No wireless charging though but for the price I paid $162 rrp $248 on sale. I highly recommend this product