Samsung's Galaxy Buds 3 Pro earbuds changed 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 respect: they're "extremely easy" to take apart and potentially repair, according to a repair specialist.
As iFixit put it, AirPods Pro 2 repairs are firmly in "don't try this at home" territory, largely due to "incredible amounts of glue"; Apple's earbuds are "among the most unfixable" and if you remove the battery "the driver is toast". But Samsung doesn't appear to have copied that part of Apple's design, mercifully.
The news comes via Canadian vlogger Phone Repair Guru on YouTube, who tears down the new Samsung earbuds to see how their repairability compares to Apple's. As he says, "most of these end up in landfills when the battery eventually dies". But these buds appear to be better and potentially could last a lot longer.
Can you easily repair the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro?
The first item Phone Repair Guru attempted to replace was the battery, which has proven difficult with the AirPods Pro case. Samsung's case doesn't have the same "insane" glueing and you can see in the video that it's relatively simple to open it up and swap out the case battery – although that does raise questions about how effective the claimed water resistance may be.
As for the buds themselves, the video shows that the internals of the buds are similar to those of AirPods Pro. Swapping the battery out requires de-soldering and the battery is similarly sized to the one in Apple's earbuds. "This is nowhere near as difficult to remove the battery as with the AirPods," he says. "These are so much more repairable than AirPods Pro: they might look like them, but they definitely don't repair like them."
It's important to note that repairing these buds still requires specialist equipment, albeit equipment that's easily available, and you need to be fairly skilled to do it. But it does look like Samsung for one is paying attention to growing calls for more right to repair legislation in countries around the world, and is building its earbuds with third party repairs in mind, so perhaps you could get the batteries swapped out just at a local repair place.
One of the largest territories where legislation around improving repair options is incoming is in the European Union, where Apple will be making its iPhone batteries more removable from 2025 onwards. Presumably the next generation of AirPods Pro will take a leaf from Samsung's book this time rather than the other way around. As iFixit says, "Repairable is within reach, and it can make the future sound all the sweeter."
In our Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro review, we noted that the new buds also have an issue with the ear tips being easily damaged when you remove them… but that's much easier to repair, at least, since you can just get some new ones (and Samsung has promised to improve quality following a delay to Buds 3 Pro shipping dates).
