Samsung - Galaxy Buds3 Pro (SM-R630)

I personally use Samsung's Buds 3 Pro, and quite honestly, it has good noise suppression, and the other person hears you clearly, although it might be a little over budget.

Can't comment on the airpods, but the Buds 3 Pro have a better mic than xm5. Sound quality is good too. For reference, I have a Pixel 8 Pro.

This^ I just went down this rabbit hole and everyone's opinions online varied wildly from my own in person experiences. I ended up keeping Galaxy Buds 3 Pro (pixel phone). I tried Pixel Buds Pro 2, JBL Tour Pro 3, OnePlus Buds Pro 3, and Nothing Pro (2024).

Buds Pro 3 are elite

I sent the air pods back. I had the opposite experience. Could not control them with my Samsung. I love my Buds Pro 3. I have 4 pairs. I am a Farmer and use them for hearing protection.

Tractors, skid loaders, PTOs. I also wear my worktunes over my buds when on a tractor or skid loader. But in general I wear my buds daily to filter out the noise. They work very well. This is coming from someone who is obsessed with hearing protection because her mother went deaf from not using it while running a brush hog...

Yep the integration is superior. I have 4 pairs and as soon as I open the lid on any of them while I am watching TV they connect. But it also knows when not to connect! Like I wear my buds all the time. So when I get in my car they know I want to use the car speaker for the audio. It is literally INSANE to me that the integration is so seamless

Yep I can't live without that now. I wear my buds all the time because I can't be bothered to have to look at my phone when a message comes in.

For me the fact that the noise cancelling is elite and that they read my notifications to me make them priceless. I wear mine all day.

Because everyone else cant do it, Airpods Pro. 2 or 3. Only comfortable, properly sized case, proper buttons and well tuned form factor. AZ80's case is awful and tap buttons are insufferable for the tapping noise and inability to be comfortable laying down with them and they'll pause music randomly Galaxy Buds 3 pro have awful tuning and ANC is cheeks compared to airpods. I have both. If you're going to pay money to inconvenience yourself, At least get a moondrop space travel cause their anc beats these for me.  Also make.sure to never attsch the airpods to an apple phone cause they'll update and degrade as planned

I use the Buds 3 Pro but really miss my FEs. I wont switch back, just miss em.

My wife has the Airpods 3 Pro. I 100% prefer my buds 3 pro over her's. Call sound, microphone, music, anc, all sound better

H3 are on the big side, but we'll worth it. Head and shoulders above my galaxybud 3 pro. And ANC is surprisingly good

Hello! I'm currently using the wired headphones from samsung (bought in an official store) at work and I'm pretty happy with them. I was considering getting the Pro 3 for the sound only. That's it. I don't care about anc or any other gimmick that isn't strictly related to music listening. Wireless automatically loses to wired in terms of audio quality on identical hardware (for example, the wired Audio Technica M50x has better sound than the BT version), hence why I'm wondering if the drivers/planar tweeter etc. give the Pro 3 an advantage, over being wireless. I do use a Samsung phone. Thank you very much! Edit: Ended up getting the Buds Pro 3. Tested them alongside the USB C ones for over an hour, using the same exact FLAC tracks. I can confidently say that I prefer the wired ones. The sound is just better in my opinion. It's not a huge difference, I'd say it sounds about 20-30% better. Test settings : The USB C ones were plugged on a S21 FE, and the Buds Pro 3 on my daily driver A35. USB C EQ : 0 everywhere but -1 on the 63 band as it somehows make the bass way richier and the overall sound brighter. Adaptive sound on because this too somehow makes the sound fuller. Buds Pro 3 EQ : 2 1 0 0 1 1 2 3 3 as suggested by a gentleman on another post. This sounds so much better than the out of the box EQ. Adaptive sound on as well. Here I find the sound better as well but the improvement isn't as noticable than the wired ones, idk why. ANC and everything else was off. Yes I know no UHQ codec whatever on the A35 but I honestly doubt it'd make a difference, as I can just about make the difference between a 320 kbps mp3 and a flac on an AKG K371. Now that being said, the buds pro 3 don't sound bad. Far from it in fact. Still had a pleasant listening experience, but at 10x the price of the wired ones, if it's just for music, do yourself a favor and save your money.

Ok. Ended up getting the Buds Pro 3. Tested them alongside the USB C ones for over an hour, using the same exact FLAC tracks. I can confidently say that I prefer the wired ones. The sound is just better in my opinion. It's not a huge difference, I'd say it sounds about 20-30% better. Test settings : The USB C ones were plugged on a S21 FE, and the Buds Pro 3 on my daily driver A35. USB C EQ : 0 everywhere but -1 on the 63 band as it somehows make the bass way richier and the overall sound brighter. Adaptive sound on because this too somehow makes the sound fuller. Buds Pro 3 EQ : 2 1 0 0 1 1 2 3 3 as suggested by a gentleman on another post. This sounds so much better than the out of the box EQ. Adaptive sound on as well. Here I find the sound better as well but the improvement isn't as noticable than the wired ones, idk why. ANC and everything else was off. Yes I know no UHQ codec whatever on the A35 but I honestly doubt it'd make a difference, as I can just about make the difference between a 320 kbps mp3 and a flac on an AKG K371. Now that being said, the buds pro 3 don't sound bad. Far from it in fact. Still had a pleasant listening experience, but at 10x the price of the wired ones, if it's just for music, do yourself a favor and save your money.

I just went FROM the XM5s to the Buds 3 Pro and honestly, I should've done it before. The Sony never sat well and had to really really push them hard in to the ear canal to get proper ANC. For me as a user who mainly wear during flights/trains and on the go work calls - the Samsung so far is breeze and I like the pinch and swipe functions. Your mileage will vary but totally find the XM5 in ears to be too hyped.