A Galaxy Buds3 Pro without the blade lights in black or gray charging case, that’s one way to simply describe the looks of Samsung’s more budget friendly Galaxy Buds3 FE earbuds, which I have recently used as my daily audio gear for the past two weeks to listen Ed Sheeran’s and Taylor Swift’s latest albums, streaming Bon Appetite, Your Majesty on Netflix, and joining multiple hour long conference calls, and I’m happy to report that it is a decent budget wireless earbuds and a great alternative to the more expensive Galaxy Buds3 Pro.

However, like every recent FE products, the Galaxy Buds3 FE is having a hard time justifying its existence and value, and I will tell you why in a bit.

The Galaxy Buds3 FE has the exact same form factor as the Pro model and naturally, the stems support the same swipe gesture for adjusting volume, pinch gesture for controlling music playback, answering phone calls and using your preferred voice assistant.

The pinch and hold gestures can be customized in the Galaxy Wearable app and I’m glad that it can be configured to launch Spotify.

Compared to the previous model, the Galaxy Buds3 FE has better dust and water resistance with an IP54 rating, the charging case doesn’t get any form of protection so make sure you don’t expose them to rain during your outdoor runs.

There are several audio upgrades to the previous model, such as a larger driver with claims of delivering a fuller bass and balanced detail, support for 360 audio, Google Gemini and Galaxy AI Live Interpreter, which are overall really good upgrades and makes it a serious contender to other similar priced earbuds, it also supports the Samsung Seamless Codec (SSC) when you pair to a Galaxy smartphone for higher streaming bandwidth, though it sadly doesn’t support 24-bit audio streaming.

In terms of sound quality, the Galaxy Buds3 FE delivers what it has advertised, there’s good clarity in vocals and instruments don’t sound muddy when there’s bass happening in a song, but like many budget wireless earbuds, it feels underwhelming when playing lower end frequencies and lacks the excitement when you are watching an action movie or EDM, which unfortunately not even the custom EQ can save it.

The earbuds’ Active Noise Cancellation performance is average as I can still hear the rumbling noise of my aircond in the studio when I’m not playing any music, though to be fair it does cancel a fair bit of low frequencies that can help improve the listening experience when I’m on the train, the Ambient Sound mode works fine in letting sound come in when I need to be aware of my surroundings.

With a full charge, the Galaxy Buds3 FE is able to last up to 8.5 hours on a single charge without ANC and once you have that turned on, it would further reduce it to 6.5 hours, good for a one-way flight from Kuala Lumpur to Osaka, I find that claim to be really close as I would usually get around 50% of battery left with 3 hours of continuous use in a single day, the charging case can fully charge the earbuds for four times making it a 24-hour listening time with ANC On, though sadly you can’t charge it wirelessly which can be inconvenient at times.

Overall, I am satisfied with the features and sound quality that the Galaxy Buds3 FE offers, it is a straightforward RM499 no-frills wireless earbuds that does the essentials well, but considering that the much better sounding Galaxy Buds 3 Pro retails for just RM559 at the brand’s authorized reseller at Lazada, there’s absolutely no reason to consider getting the Galaxy Buds3 FE despite it being reasonably affordable, it is a decent budget earbuds but awkwardly priced.

The Galaxy Buds3 FE can be purchased here.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy Buds3 Pro for RM559 can be purchased here.