The best thing about the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro is also the worst
The best matter about the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro is also the worst
I was relieved when our Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro review landed in my inbox and described, more often than not, a fine pair of wireless earbuds. Still, i thing notwithstanding troubled me: besides costing $200 itself, the set up of buds also needs an expensive Samsung Milky way smartphone to fully part.
Yes, several major features in the Galaxy Buds Pro'due south repertoire are only compatible with Samsung handsets running its latest Android skin, OneUI 3.1. At current count that means 1 of the new Samsung Galaxy S21 models, the ii Galaxy Tab S7 variants…and that's it.
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Following Apple's lead (merely worse)
As with so many things in tech, Apple did this first. The AirPods Pro, the Galaxy Buds Pro'southward chief rival, has an impressive digital environment audio mode called Spatial Sound. While the AirPods Pro can pair with just virtually whatsoever Bluetooth-enabled source device, actually using Spatial Audio demands an iPhone 7 or newer, running iOS xiv.
That stings plenty equally it is, but the Galaxy Buds Pro take manufacturer exclusivity to a new level. Not just does 360 Audio, Samsung'due south Spatial Audio equivalent, need OneUI 3.one but and so do the headphones' neat power to auto-switch between multiple sources. And it'due south the same for the ability to sync audio captured through the earbuds' microphones to a simultaneously recorded video, something that might take been game-changing for amateur videographers.
If yous buy the AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro but don't own the right phone, you're getting less than the complete pair of headphones.
Usually this would be considered an outstanding clutch of features. Android would finally be getting a proper Spatial Audio rival, and automated source-switching would solve one of the lingering annoyances with trying to use multiple devices across a single pair of headphones. Instead, these bonuses are sources of frustration for the roughly four-fifths of smartphone owners without a Samsung device.
Let's be fair here: both Apple and Samsung will have written original software to get their corresponding features working, and both are under no obligation to share their work with competitors. Simply when you can purchase earbuds from Bose or Sennheiser and have them work in full with pretty much anything, tying a seemingly standalone product like headphones to certain high-end smartphones is taking us down an unwelcoming new path.
The ecosystem trap
For one, it's unfair. If you lot purchase the AirPods Pro or Galaxy Buds Pro but don't own the correct phone, you're getting less than the consummate pair of headphones. Simply you're still paying the aforementioned every bit someone with admission to everything, and the simply way to remedy that is to pump more than coin into the corresponding ecosystem.
No modest amount, either. Right now the absolute cheapest OneUI 3.1 device is a base Galaxy Tab S7, at $699. If y'all want something that fits in your pocket, that's $799 for the Galaxy S21.
In fact, information technology wasn't until this past week that yous could go 360 Audio and motorcar-switching enabled at all. The Milky way Tab S7 was even so running a previous version of OneUI, and the Galaxy S21 range only started aircraft on January 29. So it's non simply those who ain non-Samsung Android phones: anyone who bought the Galaxy Buds Pro between now and its Jan xv release engagement has been walking around with only a partially functional pair of earbuds.
Keeping it quiet
Manufacturer-exclusive features as well have a whiff of cynical marketing about them. Apple and Samsung definitely want their headphones to bulldoze phone sales, but as well seem aware that gatekeeping fundamental features tin can put off consumers equally much as attract them. And then they rarely make information technology clear that some tricks may exist locked backside a same-brand phone; Samsung only clarified the hardware requirements for 360 Audio in the footnote of a press release.
This smacks of a willingness to permit consumers purchase the products start and discover the (intentional, imposed) limitations later. Ta-da: now they're in a sunk cost dilemma where the simply way to get the most out of their new purchase is to driblet even more cash on a smartphone.
That'south not to say there's a diabolical, moustache-twirling scheme to fool folk into wasting their money. Leaving technical details to footnotes and back up sites is not the same as actively misleading people. But in that location is a clear reticence to be fully upfront with the costs of letting sure products reach their potential.
I don't recall at that place's a diabolical, moustache-twirling scheme to fool folk into wasting their money. But there is a clear reticence to be fully upfront with Galaxy Buds Pro shoppers.
Missing pieces
I also worry, as a music fan and techy person, whether these companies are truly building headphones to succeed on their own. It increasingly looks similar they're instead designed every bit an elaborate, commoditised marketing scheme for the real favourite child: smartphones.
An optimistic mode of looking at this would be that the headphones all the same need to exist good products to attract buyers and ensure the arrangement works. Indeed, the Galaxy Buds Pro and AirPods Pro both take enough of other claim to make them worth the purchase.
Simply even if time to come models like the AirPods Pro 2 get meliorate and better, that will nevertheless exit the states with an exaggerated version of the situation we're in now. We'd still be offered high-quality products that you lot couldn't fully enjoy without splurging a few hundred more than on something completely dissimilar.
There'south zilch wrong with wanting to craft headphones with new and unique features, and headphones is an surface area with enough of room for innovation. But if manufacturers are going to charge the large bucks, the transaction should really end when that money changes easily. As exciting as these new features are, putting up more than barriers in an attempt to militarist phones only means that fewer and fewer people will get to ever enjoy such inventions.
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