PSA: Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro have some very delicate ear tips

Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 3 Pro underwent a major redesign, making them look much more like AirPods and any number of other stemmed earbuds. So far, my impressions have been quite positive — full review coming soon — but even before the earbuds are widely released on July 24th, early buyers have been running into a frustrating issue.

Apparently, the ear tips are quite fragile and can be prone to breaking if you’re not careful. Reddit is already starting to light up with examples:

With the switch to an AirPods-like design, Samsung also adopted a similar mechanism for attaching the tips: they latch onto the earbud housing with a proprietary hard plastic ring that melds into the soft silicone you put in your ears. But some people are finding that the silicone can rip away when they attempt to remove the tips, leaving the plastic bit attached to the buds.

Except for occasional cleaning, most people don’t remove ear tips often after deciding on the right size. But if you tear them while testing the fit of Samsung’s three included sets, that would certainly be annoying. I haven’t had any trouble with my review pair so far, but there are ample reports from people who haven’t been as lucky.

This page on Samsung’s Korean help site warns that the ear tips could tear if handled forcefully, and there’s a recommended way of removing them. You’re supposed to flip out the ear tip and then gently tug it off. The company cautions against involving any fingernails in the process.

I’ve reached out to Samsung for comment on the situation. Hopefully, we’re just looking at some unfortunate early accidents that come with the learning curve of this new design — and not a case where the company has cheapened out on materials. It should only be a matter of time before Comply and other third-party ear tip manufacturers offer their own alternatives for Samsung’s stock tips. But for now, you’ll want to be careful since it’s not so easy to replace these proprietary tips.