This is the review of the comparison between the Samsung Galaxy Buds and the Samsung Gear IconX. Both of these earbuds are of the same brand. They may be of the same brand but their prices vary. To know which one has better features than the other, go to the detailed review.

Samsung Galaxy Buds	Samsung Gear IconX
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Light, discreet, comfortable design. Legit six-hour battery life. Tiny case with wireless charging. Better sound isolation than Apple’s AirPods. Strong audio performance. Intuitive companion app.	Useful run tracking features. Five-hour battery triples previous model. Charging case charges via USB-C and has a quick-charge mode.
CONS	CONS
Flaky Bluetooth connectivity. Touchpads are finicky. On-board volume control requires sacrificing other features. Disappointing microphone quality for calls.	You lose some features on other phones. Charging case offers only one charge. Touch controls are a bit hit or miss.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Samsung Galaxy Buds

The Samsung Galaxy Buds are known for its minimalistic looks. These are one of the budget-friendly earbuds available in the market. The Samsung Galaxy  Buds are retailing for a hundred and thirty dollars. These earbuds are pretty good at the comfort level.

Samsung Gear IconX

The Samsung Gear IconX is the truly wireless Fitness earbuds. These are currently retailing for around a hundred and fifty dollars. These are one of the best earbuds in the market for gym purposes and for any physical activity.

DESIGN:

Samsung Galaxy Buds

The case comes in a pill-shaped box made of plastic. There is a Samsung logo on the top of the case and the case also shows sound by AKG. There is a LED light outside the case that indicates the battery level of the case. Behind the case, there is a USB Type-C port for charging. When you open up the case, you can see another LED light there, which indicates the battery life of the earbuds themselves. If it glows green means, it’s fully charged, it glows yellow means partially charged and if it glows red means, it’s time to charge them up. You do have the connectors inside the case, which will help you in charging up the case. The case of these earbuds can also be charged through the Qi wireless charging pad.

The earbuds themselves are really small. There is a touchpad for the functions like play-pause, skip forward or backward track, etc on the side of both earbuds. When we look at the inside part of the earbuds, there is a hole for your microphone and metal pins which would be used to charge them up. There will be replaceable ear tips and ear wings on your earbuds. They literally look small and tiny and have a stylish look.

Samsung Gear IconX

The case here has a small slim shape. There is a Samsung logo on the top of the case. There are also two LED lights outside the case that shows you whether the earbuds inside are charging or not. On the back of the case, you have your USB port for charging. When you open up the case, you have right and left label to place the earbuds in their place.

The earbuds here are really small and it looks like it is specially designed for gym purposes. The earbuds also have the touchpad to control the functions. These also have a “wear detection” feature, so when you put them in your ear, they’ll automatically turn on. So, there’s no on-and-off switch once you put them in your ear, they automatically activate and when you remove them from your ears it will turn off. 

COMFORT:

Samsung Galaxy Buds

As the Samsung Galaxy Buds have a Small and tiny profile they fit perfectly in the ears and they are comfortable too in a good manner. These earbuds give a good seal which would also help in noise isolation. If these earbuds are not giving you the good seal, you can replace the ear tips and ear wings on them. Actually, along with a pair of ear tips and ear wings on the earbuds themselves, you are getting another two pairs so that you can get your actual fit as per the size of your ear and comfort. The medium-sized one will come with earbuds themselves and the large and small-sized are the ones you get along with the box. This way you can get the perfect fit and good comfort as you want.

Samsung Gear IconX

As far as comfort, these might be the best things that hit the gym. I am literally blown away by these and these are the major go for gym purposes. I tested out the fit and comfort, I put them in and I started doing jumping jacks, push-ups and they won’t move. Even I did the shake test by start shaking my head as hard that you would never do in the gym and they fit perfectly and they do not move. For the first time itself, when you put them in your ear, no adjusting, no trying to get the right fit. As soon as you put them in your ear, they give the perfect fit there and they are not moving. Literally, these are incredible.

FEATURES:

Samsung Galaxy Buds

The Samsung Galaxy Buds come in a simple packed box. Inside the box, we have we get the case of the earbuds, we get the earbuds themselves, we get the USB Type-C cable, and we get extra pairs of ear tips and ear wings that’s pretty much. The Samsung Galaxy Buds are available in three different colors white, black, and yellow.

We are getting a touchpad for the control instead of buttons that jam into the ears. In terms of functionality, the touchpad works flawlessly. The touchpad performs the functions like one tap to play-pause, a double-tap to skip forward the track and also answer or end the call, triple tap to skip backward, and on press and hold we have the choice to choose from. We can choose any of the ones from quick ambient mode or volume up/down, and voice assistant on either side of the earbud. 

The Samsung Galaxy Buds are featured for Bluetooth 5.0. The paring process in these is as easy as the Airpods. For paring these to your device, first, you need to turn on the Bluetooth in your device and then open up the case. The earbuds will be shown on your device then you have to tap them and go through the connectivity process. Once you pair them up for the first time, the connecting process will be as easy, so when you open up the case it will automatically get connected. In terms of connectivity, I had not faced any problem at all. I checked out the connectivity by going 50 feet far away from the device, there were not any dropouts and it worked flawlessly.

As far as the call quality, it worked pretty well. On my end, it was super loud and crystal clear at the same time the person on the other end too heard me properly. They said at first I sounded them in a way of little static but when I went a bit away from my phone, they heard me clearly. Also, I checked out the lag latency in these earbuds. What I mean by lag latency is, is there any delay in what we see and what we hear. There was no log at all even while watching youtube videos, Netflix, etc.

You are getting an app called Galaxy Wearable app along with these earbuds. When you open up the app, it will show you the battery percentage on both the right and the left earbuds. Then you have your equalizer presets bass boost, dynamic, soft, clear, and treble boost. You can choose the one you want from these. You do have the notification setting for your applications. You can select the application therefrom on which you want to turn on/off the read-aloud the notification option for your earbuds. After that, you have your touchpad settings in which you can customize the functions of the right and left touchpad, and also you can turn on/off the touchpad therein.

Then you have the ambient sound mode there in the app. You can turn on/off the ambient sound mode either from the app or from the earbuds themselves. Also, when you turn on the ambient sound mode, you get few other options such as to increase or decrease the ambient sound you listen and turning on/off the voice focus which would help you in making your voice stand out. At last, you get the “Find my earbuds” feature, which would help you in finding your earbuds in case if you had lost them inside your home or workplace, by beeping a sound.

Samsung Gear IconX

We get the Gear IconX cord-free fitness earbuds in three different colors, you get white, black, or blue. As the company claims, these are completely wireless, you get a fit in design, you get three different size earbuds large, medium, and small, you also have a standalone fitness tracker, so you can pair this up with your S health app or you can use this standalone status and track your steps, you can activate ambient sound mode to hear your surroundings, and you get 4GB of internal memory that’s a good enough for about a thousand songs so that you can also wirelessly stream your music.

Inside the box you get your usual books, some different sized ear wings, your USB connector like micro USB to USB, you get a micro USB charging cable, earbuds, and your charging case. As you have touch-sensitive controls, it performs the functions such as one tap to play-pause music, double-tap to next track, answer and end calls, triple tap to go to your previous track, if you swipe down that’s volume down, swipe up that’ll be volume up, and if you tap and hold that’s your menu readout for your S health activities and to activate your ambient sound mode. It is also easy to connect, when you put the earbuds it will be shown on the phone to connect. When you tap the connect, it will get connected instantly.

When you open up the app, it shows you your battery life on each side of the earbuds. You can control the volume and actually, you can do that from the actual earbuds itself too. You can start the workout by using your S health app which shows you all your steps, heartbeats, stress level, spo2 sets, you can also play music either directly from the earbuds if you had downloaded any songs or from your phone. The touch-sensitive controls work fine. When you go to settings, you can manage your music, manage tracks, shuffle your music, control your music, and you can play music directly from the phone or from the Gear.

Then you have your notifications settings in the Gear app there, so you can list all your app notifications and you can get notifications to read to you while you’re working out. You get your exercise audio guide, so you get assistance while you’re working out like having a little personal trainer. Then you have the ambient sound mode and for me, the music sounds a little bit more hollow with the ambient sound mode on. You get read aloud menu options, you get your voice guide with 15 different languages, and you can also select which earbud is your main earbud.

BATTERY AND ITS LIFE:

Samsung Galaxy Buds

You are going to get 6 hours of battery life with the earbuds which are pretty good at this price range. The case will give you an additional 7 hours of charging which means adding one full charge you are getting. You do get the quick charge feature also that is 15 minutes of charge will give around 100 minutes of playtime. You can charge the case either with the help of the USB Type-C cable coming with these or by using the Qi wireless charging pad as these supports wireless charging too. If you have a mobile-like Galaxy S10 which supports wireless charging, you can also use them up to charge this case.

Samsung Gear IconX

The Samsung Gear IconX is powerfully small. As far as battery life, if you’re streaming music, you’re only going to get about an hour and a half worth of battery but if you playing music directly from the earbuds, you’re going to get about three and a half hours. You can charge the earbuds up using the charger that comes with it and it only takes about an hour to fully charge. When you want to charge these, you need to keep the earbuds in, just close the case up and then you can see the LED come on, so it will be charging. When you need to charge the case up, plug the USB cable into your battery charger, your computer, or whatever you got and it will start charging.

SOUND:

Samsung Galaxy Buds

I tested out the sound quality of the Samsung Galaxy Buds with the maximum volume. I tried out a bunch of different genres of music. I m really impressed with the quality of sound at this price range. These work well in terms of vocals and mid-tones. Also, the high-tones and trebles were producing a good sound by not being too sharp. But the bass is what somewhat lacking in these. Still, you can boost it up with the help of the equalizer setting “bass boost” in the app. Overall, the sound quality is pretty good at this price range in my opinion.

Samsung Gear IconX

Sound-wise, they sound crystal clear and nice amount of bass but not overpowering bass but they sound perfect. I’m literally blown away from the sound quality. These are the kind of headphones which sounds great, that makes you want to work out. When you get these in your ears, you have nothing to think about your music and it’s gonna sound like it’s right in your head. 

WHICH ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER?

In my opinion, the Samsung Galaxy Buds is better than the Samsung Gear IconX because the Galaxy Buds have better battery life than the Gear IconX, the Galaxy Buds sound better and if you want you can customize the sound setting in the app but you can’t do that for Gear IconX. But if you want a pair of earbuds for only gym purposes than the Gear IconX is better in that terms as it provides S health features, has a great fit for physical activity, and sounds like it encourages us to work out.

Expert Review of Samsung Galaxy Buds:

By vernonchan.com
Good audio quality, stellar battery life, and a slew of useful features all packed into a very stylish design. That is how I would pretty much sum up the Samsung Galaxy Buds, which is actually quite similar to what many would say about Samsung’s…

By hitechcentury.com
The Galaxy Buds are a tempting proposition for Android users, more so for those owning a Samsung phone like the new Galaxy S10 or S10+ with decent audio performance, a modicum of comfort, and good battery life.

By CGM
The Samsung Galaxy Buds are excellent earbuds for Samsung owners, but disappointing for anyone else.

By TheStraitsTimes
Launched alongside the Samsung S10 smartphones and priced in the same ballpark as the Apple AirPods, the Galaxy Buds make a natural comparison with Apple’s popular true wireless in-ear headphones. They are also supposed to work better with Android and…

By Trusted Reviews
The Galaxy Buds offer better sound and fit than the AirPods, but if you’re willing to look elsewhere then there are better performers available for a similar price.

Expert Reviews of Samsung Gear IconX:

By Firstpost
I’m in two minds about the Samsung Gear Icon X. On the one hand, they’re not as refined as the AirPods and lack the audio quality to make them a recommended set. They also don’t seem to play well outside of Samsung’s ecosystem. On the other hand, if…

By Sound Guys
There’s been plenty of talk around the Samsung Gear IconX; though they are definitely a solid pair of truly wireless earbuds, they have one fatal flaw: the battery…

By beebom.com
The Samsung Gear IconX (2018) delivers where it counts and is well recommended for those who are not restricted by budget. It has above-average sound quality, very good battery life, and some interesting smart features, in a compact package that fits…

By Pocket-lint
The Icon X offers a tonne of features and decent dynamic sound, making them among the most versatile wire-free in-ear earphones on the market. Saying that they’re not perfect. The touchpad controls are tricky, while the connection glitched every now and…

By Engadget
With so many flagship phones leaving behind the headphone jack over the past two years, the need for a good pair of Bluetooth earbuds has only intensified. While the first crop of true wireless products had their share of comfort and connection…