The Samsung Buds 3 FE surprised me in a few key ways

Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 FE ($150) It looks almost identical to the flagship Galaxy Buds 3 Pro ($250) But it misses the LED lighting element of these speakers, has a single-driver design instead of a dual-driver design and leaves out a few other extras. Now that I’ve fully tested the Buds 3 FE, I’m impressed with their performance. If you don’t mind losing these features, they’re better value than the Buds 3 Pro. That’s why I gave them a CNET Editors’ Choice.

Read more: The best wireless earbuds of 2025

The all black color is a good look

Like the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, the Galaxy Buds 3 FE have a noise-isolating design with silicone eartips, and feature noise cancellation as well as a Transparency mode. Aside from the missing lighting element, the biggest difference cosmetically is the color options for the Buds 3 FE, which are available in gray or black. I personally like the all-black version I received (it’s a matte finish, which is nice), and I preferred its dark look to the silver look of the Buds 3 Pro I tested.

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The “blade” design on the Galaxy Buds 3 FE is a departure from the previous one Galaxy FE headphones ($70), which have a stemless design with wing tips that help lock the buds into your ears. I was still able to get a tight seal using the larger ear pads included with the 3 FE, which is crucial for optimal sound quality and noise cancellation performance. But it was close and I would have preferred if Samsung had included a slightly larger XL tip so I didn’t have to worry about losing the seal. If you can’t get a tight seal from any of the included tips (I suspect a certain small percentage of users will have this problem), you can look to third-party tips.

The buds are lightweight at 5g per bud and fit my ears quite comfortably (the Buds 3 Pro weigh slightly more at 5.4g per bud). The Buds 3 FE have an IP54 rating, which means they’re splash and dust resistant (their case isn’t waterproof and doesn’t offer wireless charging like the Buds 3 Pro case). Meanwhile, the Buds 3 Pro have an IP57 rating, which means they’re dust-resistant and can be fully submerged in water for a short period of time.

Sound and noise cancellation is better than I expected

I suspected there would be a slight drop in sound quality with the Galaxy Buds 3 FE, due to the less detailed drivers. The more expensive Buds 3 Pro have a planar driver and a dynamic driver that help improve treble clarity and performance, while the Buds 3 FE have a single 11mm dynamic driver.

When I had the chance to compare them to each other directly, I was pleasantly surprised. To my ears, the Buds 3 FE sound as good or better than the Buds 3 Pro. They sound smooth and balanced, with nice detail, well-defined bass and good openness with a very wide soundstage. Android users can tweak the sound using the equalizer settings in the companion app (there are some preset equalizers as well as a fully customizable equalizer you can create), but I mainly stuck with the default EQ settings.

Headphones with acoustic drivers usually deliver richer sound with more depth, but the Buds 3 FE seem well-tuned; They seem right. There are competing headphones that offer more energetic bass and clearer, more articulate sound, but they tend to cost more.

I faulted the Buds 3 Pro for not having better active noise cancellation (ANC), but from my tests, the Buds 3 FE seem to offer slightly improved ANC performance than the Buds 3 Pro. Although their noise cancellation isn’t quite up to what you get with AirPods Pro 3 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd generation)It did a good job of masking ambient noise across a wide range of frequencies.

I also thought the voice calling performance and transparency modes were good. The Buds 3 Pro and Buds 3 FE are adept at filtering out background noise while picking up your voice well. As I was walking through the streets of New York, callers said they could hear some ambient sounds, including people’s voices, but it was fairly silent. They said they could hear me “pretty clearly.” I give them an A- for voice calling performance.

Similar features to Galaxy Buds 3 Pro (but missing some)

I used Buds 3 FE with it Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 like that iPhone 16 Pro. It won’t automatically switch audio between the iPhone and Flip 6, but Samsung users get automatic pairing and switching between their Galaxy devices, including laptops. She was able to pair the buds with me Galaxy Tab 11 and Flip 6 and switch audio between them automatically.

These buds have ear detection sensors, but annoyingly they only automatically pause the music when you remove both buds from your ears and don’t resume playback when you put the buds back in (the Buds 3 Pro support the Resume Play feature). Samsung’s standard 360 Audio feature is supported via the Samsung Wearable app, but the Buds 3 FE don’t have head tracking like the Buds 3 Pro, which helps create enhanced spatial audio closer to what you get with the AirPods Pro 3 and Apple’s AirPods Pro 3. AirPods 4 Sprouts. Also missing: no LE audio support with the new one Oracast A feature that allows you to hear Bluetooth broadcasts in public places such as gyms.

Samsung is touting the Buds 3 FE’s AI features, which include “access to Gemini for conversational AI assistance and the Galaxy AI Interpreter app to use an instant translator or live translation to translate phone calls.” Hands-free Google Assistant is available for Android devices, but the Buds 3 FE are missing one of the Buds 3 Pro’s underrated features: built-in voice controls. These features allow you to raise and lower the volume, pause and play music, skip forward and backward tracks, and answer and end calls, without the need for a wake word. For example, you can simply say “play music,” “next song,” or “volume down.”

The Buds 3 FE are also missing the Buds 3 Pro’s voice detection feature (which can be turned on or off in the Galaxy Wear app), which is similar to Apple’s Conversation Awareness mode that lowers the volume of music or whatever sound you’re listening to and activates the buds’ ambient mode when you start talking to someone. Instead of pausing the music, it just turns the volume down to a low level. It’s a useful feature.

The Buds 3 FE are rated for up to 6 hours with ANC on and nearly 8 hours with it off. If you listen to your music at higher volume levels, these numbers will drop, as I ended up getting just under 5 hours with ANC turned on. The Buds 3 FE have similar battery life to the Buds 3 Pro, but overall battery life with the case (up to 30 hours) is slightly better than the Buds 3 Pro’s battery life rating.

Here’s a summary of what the Galaxy Buds 3 FE misses compared to the Buds 3 Pro:

• No wireless charging
• There is no LED lighting element
• There is no head tracking
• No support for LE Audio and Auracast
• The Buds 3 FE have ear detection sensors but they only pause the music when you take both buds out and don’t resume playback when you put them back in like the Buds 3 Pro
• There are no built-in voice controls like the Buds 3 Pro (which don’t require a phone connection), though hands-free Google Assistant and Samsung’s Bixby are available for Android devices.
• There is no sound detection feature
• Rated IP54 (splash-proof) instead of IP57 (water-resistant)

Final thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 FE

Whereas earlier Galaxy FE headphones It felt like a different set of earbuds than the Galaxy Buds Pro 2, and the Galaxy Buds 3 FE is closer to the FE philosophy of other Samsung products (like phones and tablets). It really seems to be a stripped-down version of the flagship Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. When I delved a little deeper into the feature comparisons between the two Galaxy Buds, I realized that the Buds 3 FE were missing more features than I thought. The majority I can live without (the LED lighting elements, wireless charging, and head tracking for spatial audio, for example), but I really like the Buds 3 Pro’s built-in voice commands and voice detection features.

If the Buds 3 FE fit differently and the sound quality, noise cancellation, and voice calling performance were worse than the Buds 3 Pro, it would be difficult to recommend them. But there’s no drop-off in those key departments – the Buds 3 FE’s noise cancellation appears to be improved and some people may actually like the Buds 3 FE sound a little better than the Buds 3 Pro. If you’re looking for a pair of Android-centric earbuds that perfectly fit audio and voice calls and also feature good noise cancellation, they’re an excellent choice.

Main specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 FE

• Weight per bud: 5g
• 1-Dynamic driving method
• Improved active noise cancellation and transparency modes
• 3 microphones (Samsung Crystal Clear Call)
• Bluetooth 5.4
• Battery Life: Up to 6 hours with noise cancellation (single charge) with three additional charges in the box
• IP54 dust-proof and splash-proof
• Pinch and swipe touch controls
• Supported audio codecs: SSC (Samsung Seamless Codec), AAC, and SBC
• Ear detection sensors
• Hands-free Google Assistant with Gemini integration
• Galaxy AI Interpreter app support
• Automatic switching allows seamless connection across Galaxy devices
• FindMy Earbuds feature