Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro review: comfortable with good sound quality and ANC, but they lack multipoint bluetooth and 24-bit audio is limited to Samsung phones
More comfortable, much better sound, and improved ANC — We're entering new territory in the walled garden earbud wars …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Buds 2 Pro verdict lands on a pattern The Verge has documented since the original 2019 Galaxy Buds review flagged them as finicky outside the Samsung ecosystem: each generation improves the hardware while keeping the best features behind Samsung's wall. The 2021 Galaxy Buds Pro review already noted some features only work with Samsung devices, so the 2 Pro's restriction of 24-bit audio to Samsung phones is a continuation, not a surprise.
What makes this review a turning point is that the hardware case is now strong enough — comfort, sound quality, improved ANC — that the missing multipoint Bluetooth and phone-gated audio become the deciding factors for non-Samsung buyers, sharpening the walled-garden trade-off the coverage keeps circling.
First-order effects
- Non-Samsung phone owners get a worse product at the same price: no 24-bit audio and no multipoint Bluetooth means iPhone or Pixel buyers must choose between Samsung's best-sounding buds and basic connectivity conveniences.
- Samsung's own installed base benefits most — the review effectively prices the full experience as an incentive to stay on Galaxy phones.
Second-order effects
- Rivals offering multipoint Bluetooth gain a concrete talking point against the Buds 2 Pro in cross-platform reviews and comparison shopping, forcing Samsung's ecosystem lock-in to compete on specs it deliberately omits.
- The later Galaxy Buds FE review shows even Samsung's $100 tier ships without multipoint, suggesting the omission is strategic positioning rather than a cost constraint at any price point.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds through the stemmed, AirPods-like Buds3 redesign, Samsung is converging on Apple's playbook: earbuds as ecosystem glue, where hardware excellence is the lure and cross-platform compromise is the tax.
- Reviewers increasingly function as the check on this strategy — with each generation scored on what breaks off-Galaxy, the walled garden becomes a visible, priced decision rather than a default.
The trend: Premium Android earbuds are splitting into two strategies — open cross-platform compatibility versus Apple-style ecosystem lock-in — with Samsung firmly choosing the latter.