Samsung Galaxy Buds FE
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds FE are the smartphone maker’s first budget earbuds, delivering impressive sound and active noise cancellation at a wallet-friendly price. Although Samsung has cut wireless charging, they offer respectable battery life, so you’ll need to plug into the USB-C port to juice them back up.
Google Pixel Buds A-Series
The Pixel Buds A-Series are Google’s midrange true wireless earbuds. They don’t have high-end features like ANC or multipoint connectivity, but for $99, they offer good audio quality and a comfortable, lightweight fit. They also have a unique vented design that mitigates in-ear pressure and lets in some environmental sound for better situational awareness.
Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds FE are an exciting addition to the smartphone maker’slineup of wireless earbuds. They’re remarkably inexpensive — the first time we’ve seen a set of earbuds from the company at the $100 mark — and they skimp on surprisingly few things to get there.
What’s more, that price tag puts them in the same league as Google’s popularPixel Buds A-Series, leaving the two leading Android smartphone makers competing head-to-head on entirely new turf. Still, despite their similar prices, the two sets of earbuds are unique in their own way and will serve different needs. Let’s dive in and see how they compare.
Price, availability, and specs
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds FE launched in October at a retail price of $100. They’re now available from Samsung and most other major retailers in basic graphite and white colors. A fewsmall early deals have appeared, but they’re brand new and unlikely to see regular discounts.
Meanwhile, Google’s Pixel Buds A-Series have been on the market for over two years. They still officially sell for $99 on the Google Store, butyou can often pick them up for much less. They’re available in Charcoal, Clearly White, Dark Olive, and Sea.
Design and fit
If you’re familiar with Samsung’s original Galaxy Buds, you’ll find the design of the new Galaxy Buds FE to be a bit of a throwback. This is understandable since the FE stands for “Fan Edition.” The affordable new earbuds sport a slightly oblong flat-edged design that has the practical upshot of offering easy access to the controls as you can find them purely by feel — and avoid triggering them by accident.
The Galaxy Buds FE also include wingtips that hook into your ears for a more secure fit, helping them stay in place during workouts and other rigorous activities. In the box, you’ll find the usual three sets of eartips plus two sizes of wingtips to fit different sizes of ears.
The Pixel Buds A-Series feature a more minimalist, rounded design that should fit more snugly in your ears, with an included inner ear hook for a secure fit. They’re light and comfortable and also feature pressure vents that can leave you almost feeling like you’re not wearing earbuds at all. You also get three sizes of eartips to get the right fit.
While the Galaxy Buds FE come only in graphite and white, the Pixel Buds A-Series offer a more fun palette of colors. While they first launched in White and Dark Olive, Google has since added Charcoal and Sea to the mix. Both Google’s and Samsung’s earbuds come in a case with a white exterior and an interior that matches the earbuds' color.
The Pixel Buds A-Series promises IPX4 water resistance for the earbuds, which is enough to handle splashes and low-pressure water spraying from any direction. However, theGalaxy Buds FE only get an IPX2 rating, which Samsung says will protect them from dripping water at a 15-degree angle for at least 10 minutes. They’ll be fine for workouts or a light drizzle, but we’d recommend against wearing them in heavy rain. Neither case offers any water or dust resistance ratings.
Sound and call quality
One of the corners that Samsung cut with its Galaxy Buds FE is moving down to a single-driver configuration for each earbud, but despite this, they punch above their weight class for a set of budget earbuds. The drivers are well-tuned with a solidly present low-end that’s remarkably balanced and not overdone the way many earbuds in this price range end up. Samsung has built a reputation for making great-sounding earbuds, and the Buds FE show that the company can carry this expertise even to the entry-level.
Google’s Pixel Buds A-Series also deliver great audio for their price but lack some of the audio refinement that Samsung has brought to the Galaxy Buds FE. To be fair, they’re a two-year-old set of earbuds, and Google has already made a few significant firmware-level improvements since they were first released, so it’s best to take any early reviews you read with a grain of salt. While the default audio curve continues to lean a bit more toward vocals, engaging the bass boost delivers plenty of low-end without muddling up the mids and highs. While the Galaxy Buds FE have an edge here, we don’t think anyone will be disappointed with what the Pixel Buds A-Series delivers at this price point.
Samsung’s ANC and Ambient Sound mode vs. Google’s Adaptive Sound mode
Where the two sets of earbuds diverge most significantly is in active noise cancellation (ANC). The Samsung Galaxy Buds FE have it; the Google Pixel Buds A-Series don’t. Instead, Google played with something it calls “Adaptive Sound” to attempt to compensate for external noise by automatically adjusting the volume. It’s no replacement for ANC and can even be distracting when listening to certain genres of music. Meanwhile, with the vents on the A-series, you don’t even get much in the way of passive noise isolation.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy Buds FE offer impressive ANC for a $100 set of earbuds. While it’s obviously nowhere close to what you’ll get in premium earbuds like the class-leadingSony WF-1000XM5, it’s enough to take the edge off most of the usual background noise when you’re out and about. This is powered by three mics — two on the outside and one inside the earbud — that pick up the sound around you to cancel it out.
There’s also an adjustable Ambient Sound mode, Samsung’s version of transparency that lets you hear what’s going on around you, and while it’s not the best transparency mode out there, it gets the job done. However, if you want a set of earbuds that truly feel transparent, the Pixel Buds A-Series win out since they’re open to the outside world through their vents.
Making calls is one area where Google’s Adaptive Sound is helpful since it can automatically raise the volume to help you hear the person on the other end when a bus drives by. But, like most ANC headphones, Samsung’s Galaxy Buds FE accomplish much the same through intelligent filtering in Ambient Sound mode, and there’s even a setting in the Wearable app to automatically toggle this on during calls. As for the person on the other end hearing your voice, both earbuds offer quality mics for clear sound, but the Pixel Buds A-Series do slightly better at filtering out background noise.
The Pixel Buds A-Series limits Bluetooth audio support to the basic AAC and SBC codecs, which means you won’t be able to enjoy high-resolution lossless audio from services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal Premium, but they’ll be fine for listening to Spotify and YouTube Music. The Galaxy Buds FE add support for Samsung’s Scalable Codec (SSC), which will give you higher-quality audio when paired with a Samsung smartphone, but you’re limited to the AAC and SBC codecs on other Android devices.
The Galaxy Buds FE are controlled through Samsung’s Wearable app, which comes standard on Samsung phones and can be downloaded from the Play Store for other Android phones. Unsurprisingly, you get hands-free access to Samsung’s Bixby assistant on a Samsung device; to call up others like Google Assistant, you’ll need to press and hold the button on one of the earbuds. This can also be customized for Spotify Tap if you prefer to jump into your favorite tunes instead of chatting with a voice assistant.
The Galaxy Buds FE don’t support Bluetooth multipoint, but Samsung’s Auto Switch feature will let you easily move between Samsung devices, including phones, TVs, smartphones, and tablets. There’s also a Galaxy Buds app for Windows 10 PCs and laptops.
Otherwise, the Galaxy Buds FE are fully compatible with non-Samsung Android devices. However, since the Wearables app isn’t available for iOS, iPhone and iPad users will have a much more limited experience — they’ll pair over Bluetooth like any other set of earbuds, but you’ll only get basic listening without any advanced features. Oddly, Samsung also put an ear sensor in the Galaxy Buds FE, but for now, at least, it’s only used for calls and won’t automatically pause your music when you remove an earbud.
Google’s Pixel Buds A-Series are powered by the Pixel Buds app, which is available for any Android device on the Play Store but unavailable on Apple’s platform. You’ll naturally get voice-activated access to Google Assistant, and the app also lets you configure features like in-ear detection (which works the way you’d expect it to), customize the touch controls, adjust the bass, apply firmware updates, and tweak other settings. There’s also no multipoint Bluetooth connectivity here, but you can pair the Pixel Buds A-Series up with multiple devices and switch between them manually.
Battery life and charging
The Galaxy Buds FE do very well on the battery side, delivering up to six hours on a single charge from the earbuds alone, with up to 21 hours from the case. With ANC off, you can push that to nine hours and 30 hours.
That’s significantly longer than what the Pixel Buds A-Series offer, considering that they only provide five hours of listening time. You’ll get three more full charges in the case to bring that up to 20 hours. Those numbers may sound comparable, but that’s without ANC since the Pixel Buds A-Series don’t support it.
Both cases charge back up via USB-C, but neither supports wireless charging.
Which are right for you?
With very effective active noise cancellation, impressive sound, and a comfortable fit, Samsung’s Galaxy Buds FE could be the best budget earbuds on the market — and that’s doubly true if you’re a Samsung Galaxy phone user. While the design won’t appeal to everyone, they check almost all the right boxes and then some for a set of $100 earbuds.
Affordable ANC
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds FE prove that the smartphone maker knows how to make a great-sounding set of earbuds at any price point, delivering rich bass and very good ANC at a very affordable price. They also fit comfortably and securely in your ears, thanks to the return of the wingtips.
Nevertheless, folks who don’t care about active noise cancellation and want an even more comfortable set of earbuds that won’t block out the world around them will appreciate what Google’s Pixel Buds A-Series has to offer. The sound remains great, they’re light and audibly transparent enough that you may forget you’re wearing them, and they’re also available in fun colors. Plus, you can usually find them on sale well below their normal retail price.
Fun and lightweight
Google’s Pixel Buds A-Series are a set of earbuds for those who want to enjoy their music without blocking out the world around them. They lack ANC, but that’s kind of the point, and the lightweight and colorful design make them some of the most fun and comfortable earbuds available.
