- Samsung Galaxy Buds On cost $229, on sale November
- European price unconfirmed, will hit shelves some time in 2027
- That asking fee makes them some of the priciest new open earbuds
One of the biggest draws of the best open earbuds is that they’re pretty inexpensive. The lack of ANC, fancy ear tips and oodles of in-ear-exclusive features means that the go-to picks generally cost no more than the best cheap earbuds.
Samsung disagrees. It unveiled its first open earbuds, called the Galaxy Buds On, at the start of the month, but only for the Korean market. However, the company has now revealed worldwide availability (while telling us about how its engineers made them), and there are some pieces of disappointing news.
Firstly, if you’re in Europe, put your excitement on the backburner. The buds will only launch there (including, presumably, the UK) in 2027, so you can’t arrange to try these any time soon. No world on an Australian release either.
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If you live in the US, you can buy the earbuds from early November, so you won’t have long to wait. But you might want to think about them for now, until the price drops (possibly during a key sales event?), because they cost a princely $229, which is about £170 or AU$340, but I imagine they’ll cost a little more in those regions upon launch.
The price of open earbuds
The Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro launched for $249 / £219 / AU$399 at the beginning of the year, which might make these open earbuds look like a budget alternative. But given how cheap and cheerful these buds tend to be, $229 is a significant sum.
To my knowledge, there are only two pairs of current open earbuds which cost more: the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen), released in September for $299 / £299 / $449 and the Shokz Openfit Pro, which arrived in January toting ANC-like noise reduction, for $249.95 / £219 / AU$399. Bose clearly knows they’re expensive, which is why it launched them alongside a cheaper alternative — and the Shokz set boast a feature very rarely seen in such designs.
Other than the Sony LinkBuds Clip, which sell for $229 / £180 / AU$329 (and which we weren’t impressed with in our initial tests), I can’t think of any open earbuds I’ve tested recently that come close to this in price.
Anything over $200 or thereabouts is a premium price for open earbuds, and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking twice before buying them. Even Shokz, another segment leader, only charges $199 / £179 / AU$339 for its also-premium Shokz OpenDots 2.
And there are some fantastic options for less. The Soundcore AeroClip 2 , from a reliable brand, go for $169 / £159 (about AU$240). I’ve been using the Baseus Bowie MC2 for a few months, ever since publishing my review in August, and they cost just $79 / £89 (about AU$180). And other brands have loads of options too, like Soundpeats and Earfun, which also cost little.
As I said when I covered in influx of open-ears earlier this week, there isn’t a huge difference in design, feature set or sound quality in any of these earbuds, which makes it really hard to justify splurging for a premium pair. You can get basically the same earbuds as the Galaxy Buds On for half the price, and I’d personally never spend more than about $120 on this kind of earbud.
Because of this, I was expecting the Galaxy Buds On to sell for less than the Galaxy Buds 4 ($179 / £159 / AU$299), and I’m really surprised that’s not the case. If you’re interested in this form factor, I’d recommend picking up a cheaper pair from a competitor, or waiting to see if they get discounts further down the line.
The best open earbuds for all budgets
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tom.bedford@hotmail.co.uk (Tom Bedford)
