Samsung's Galaxy Buds 3 Pro earbuds changed up their design this year in a way that strongly mimics Apple's AirPods Pro 2. But they differ from Apple's Pro earbuds in one crucial way: They're “extremely easy” to take apart and potentially repair, according to one repair specialist.
As iFixit put it, AirPods Pro 2 repairs are clearly in “don’t try this at home” territory, largely due to the “incredible amounts of glue”; Apple’s earbuds are “among the hardest to repair” and if you remove the battery “the controller goes haywire.” But Samsung doesn’t appear to have copied that part of Apple’s design, thankfully.
The news comes via Canadian vlogger Phone Repair Guru on YouTube, who takes apart the new Samsung earbuds to compare their repairability to Apple's. As he puts it, “most of these end up in landfills when the battery eventually dies.” But these earbuds appear to be better and could potentially last a lot longer.
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Can the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro be easily repaired?
The first item Phone Repair Guru attempted to replace was the battery, which proved difficult with the AirPods Pro case. Samsung's case doesn't have the same “amazing” glue, and you can see in the video that it's relatively simple to open it up and swap out the battery in the case, though that does raise questions about how effective the purported water resistance might be.
As for the earbuds themselves, the video shows that their internals are similar to those of the AirPods Pro. To change the battery, it needs to be desoldered, and they are similar in size to Apple's earbuds. “It's not as difficult to remove the battery as with the AirPods,” he says. “They're much easier to repair than the AirPods Pro – they may look that way, but they're definitely not repairable like them.”
It's important to note that repairing these headphones requires specialist equipment, though it's readily available equipment, and you need to be fairly skilled to do it. But it seems that Samsung, for example, is heeding growing calls for more right-to-repair legislation in countries around the world, and is making its headphones with third-party repairs in mind, so you may be able to get the batteries changed at a local repair shop.
One of the biggest territories where legislation to improve repair options is in the works is the European Union, where Apple will make its iPhone batteries more removable starting in 2025. Presumably the next-generation AirPods Pro will follow Samsung’s lead this time around, rather than the other way around. As iFixit puts it, “Repair is within reach, and it may make the future sound even sweeter.”
In our review of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, we noted that the new earbuds also have an issue with the ear tips getting easily damaged when you take them out… but that's a lot easier to repair, at least, since you can get new ones (and Samsung has promised to improve quality following a delay in Buds 3 Pro shipping dates).
