Prakhar Khanna/ZDNET
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ZDNET's key takeaways
Premium earbuds already sound great and cancel noise well. It's time for something new.
Integrated cameras are the next step for innovation in this product category.
Navigation, live translation, and fitness are the top applications.
Earbuds are becoming boring. The technology has matured enough to the point that essentially all premium earbuds have fantastic audio quality and noise cancellation. Those two features on their own are not selling points.
Samsung's new Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro reinforce this idea. This generation's "novel" feature is the option to use eartips or not, while including incremental updates to the microphone, noise cancellation, and audio performance. In short, they're all things we've seen before.
Also: Samsung Unpacked 2026 recap: Galaxy S26 Ultra specs, Buds 4 Pro, preorder deals, more
Apple's AirPods Pro 3 were a small taste at what could be, as the company successfully incorporated heart rate sensors (which we've also seen before) in a way that seamlessly bridged the gap between you, your earbuds, phone, and smartwatch.
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