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
Chris Welch / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Verge's verdict lands on a familiar fault line: ever since the original 2019 Galaxy Buds were called finicky outside the Samsung ecosystem, every generation has dangled its best features behind Samsung ownership. The 2021 Buds Pro review flagged the same split — some features only work with Samsung devices — so the Buds 2 Pro's missing multipoint and phone-locked 24-bit audio read less like oversights than deliberate ecosystem gating.
First-order effects
- Buyers pairing the Buds 2 Pro with any non-Samsung phone get solid sound and ANC but lose 24-bit playback entirely and cannot hold two Bluetooth connections at once — a direct constraint on who should pay flagship earbud prices.
Second-order effects
- Rival earbuds that ship multipoint as standard gain a concrete spec-sheet argument against Samsung, while Samsung banks on the lock-in pushing upgrades toward Galaxy phones rather than conceding features.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the line — the later budget Buds FE also shipped without multipoint — premium earbud features stay gated to each maker's own handsets, hardening the phone-plus-buds bundle into the industry's default structure.
The trend: Samsung keeps treating its earbuds as a Galaxy-phone retention tool, reserving top-tier audio features for its own ecosystem generation after generation.