Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro leak reveals killer sound and design features

Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro leaks continue to come with a report by 91mobiles, citing regular leaker Ishan Agarwal, claiming that the true wireless earbuds will feature dual drivers, an IPX7 waterproof rating and up to 28 hours of battery life.

Agarwal’s info also backs up the Galaxy Buds Pro specs and features revealed in previous leaks, like active noise cancelling (ANC) and the AirPods Pro-style 3D spatial audio feature.

Perhaps the most interesting detail in this leak is the Galaxy Buds Pro’s potential dual-speaker design, combining an 11mm bass driver with a 6.5mm tweeter in each earbud. That could spell good news for audio quality, as most in-ear headphones only use single dynamic drivers to save space and weight. But separate drivers might do a better job of reproducing their respective ends of the frequency spectrum.

IPX7-rated waterproofing would be another big advantage to the Samsung buds. None of their predecessors, including the recent Galaxy Buds Live, had an IP rating for water resistance, let alone full waterproofing. So the Galaxy Buds Pro could be much safer to use while exercising or out in the rain. The AirPods Pro are water- and sweat-resistant, but not fully waterproof, potentially giving the Galaxy Buds Pro an edge. 

The report also details the Galaxy Buds Pro battery life at a total of 28 hours, inclusive of fully draining the charging case over multiple recharges. That’s 6 hours more than what the Galaxy Buds Live are rated for with ANC, and would take the Galaxy Buds Pro past the 24-hour stamina of the AirPods Pro as well.

The 91mobiles report ends by suggesting a Galaxy Buds Pro price of €229 (about $279, not accounting for regional tax differences), though its source for this particular detail is a Netherlands-based unofficial Samsung news site that doesn’t state its own source. As such we’d take this with a lot more salt than the specs detailed above. 

That said, with all this credible talk of a vastly upgraded feature set, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Galaxy Buds Pro really did turn out much more expensive than previous models. Somewhere in the $250-$300 range wouldn’t be entirely unrealistic for a pair of high-end true wireless earbuds, either – the Bose QuietComfort EarBuds, which currently sit in the number 4 spot on our best wireless earbuds list, are $279.

We’ll know for sure in what could be just a few weeks, as the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro are expected to be revealed alongside the Samsung Galaxy S21 at a Samsung Unpacked event on January 14.

James Archer

James is currently Hardware Editor at Rock Paper Shotgun, but before that was Audio Editor at Tom’s Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and anything else that intentionally makes noise. A PC enthusiast, he also wrote computing and gaming news for TG, usually relating to how hard it is to find graphics card stock.