Samsung Galaxy Buds2 True Wireless ANC Earbuds (Open Box)

My experience with Samsung's Galaxy Buds 2 was decidedly negative for a couple of small reasons and one big reason. To begin with the positives, the noise cancellation worked decently well. I don't have much of a baseline because I had never owned a noise cancelling product before, but they did what they advertised - made noisy spaces quieter such that I could get work done in an office where people were talking and the bus wasn't so loud as to give me a headache. Sound quality was okay. The battery life wasn't great (again, very little for me to compare to) but the fact that they could recharge in the case was neat and made limitations on the buds' battery life manageable. Because having them in for many hours is uncomfortable anyway, they always got a break to recharge in the case and they always seated well in their little charging spots. That does bring up a point about comfort - namely, they weren't uncomfortable at first but became so after about an hour. Not surprising, especially given how they aspire to be low profile and, thus, are primarily hard shell that sits entirely inside one's ear, but it still must be said. Also they didn't stay in my ears particularly well with any of the cups they included. This became very irritating because pushing them back into my ears as they fell out would pause my music or skip tracks because as it triggered touch commands. The way to avoid this for me was to turn off touch commands with the app, but then I could only control the ear buds (pause, play, change noise cancellation setting) through my phone - which I couldn't do if I had the buds connected to another device (like my laptop, which was typical). More to the point - after a few (3-4) weeks of owning my Galaxy Buds, they broke. The sound in the left ear became very scratchy and got worse over time, sometimes cutting out almost entirely. I sought help on Samsung's site, since my product was very new and this is where the problems really began. Samsung's customer service is abysmal - probably the worst I've ever dealt with, and that puts them in competition with Cox Communications. There is no e-mail address for me to contact. The phone number on their website isn't helpful. The online chat forces you to go through an extremely unintelligent bot, which is frustrating. The interface when using the chat is occasionally opaque. The people I've been connected to are unhelpful and frequently difficult to communicate with, with less English competency on average than I would expect for such a customer-facing position. Eventually I was able to return the ear buds to be repaired. This took a week or two and they came back fixed. The fix lasted for about one week and the left ear bud stopped working again. I was disappointed with the quality of the product I had bought and decided I would just return it. This is not possible through Samsung - you can only return things (within the warranty) to have them repaired! I tried to reason with the poor customer service tech who was obviously not authorized to do anything for me except initiate the repair process. Eventually I caved and accepted another repair. They did not initiate the process but *did* close the chat, forcing me to spend another 45 minutes going through the process again with someone else. And so I sent them off again. After getting an e-mail informing me that my product would not be returned to me, then receiving another e-mail informing me that it would, I eventually got a NEW set of ear buds in the mail after about three weeks. These, too, failed in the same manner as the first after a month. I never did anything with the buds except put them in and take them out, I have no idea why they're so poorly made. I then spent the next several months, on and off, trying to return them. Every time I interacted with their customer service I had to walk away for a couple weeks so I didn't say something really mean to the poor useless idiot that was 'assisting' me this time. I had one guy tell me to "hold on" while he got some information, then kick me for inactivity. I had somebody tell me that they were going to transfer me to someone who could help and then close the chat - nothing ever popped up. I did manage to get one guy to set up a phone call with someone higher up on a Tuesday at 6PM. I waited for them to call but they never did - until noon the next day, when I picked up to a robocall telling me that I had reached Samsung customer service and that nobody was available to take my call. It then hung up. Which was rude. The most recent interaction I had was with a guy who was adamant that *he* couldn't do anything for me (including giving me the phone number or e-mail address of someone more useful), but that a local licensed Samsung service center could. Samsung's website has a map of authorized service centers near you! I went there while he stayed on the line and they told me that, in fact, they don't service ear buds and that the customer service tech was lying to me. I came back and duly informed Khaja K. of that development and he told me "Let me transfer to order team to get it replacement", followed by the familiar message telling me "We are transferring your case to the appropriate team, a new chat window will open up in few seconds to message that team." Invariably, the chat closes and nothing else ever pops up. It does not even allow you to type anymore at that point. The moral of this story is that the Galaxy Buds 2 are probably overpriced, but if you get a pair that isn't as flawed as mine were, they might be an okay product. However, if anything ever goes wrong, you've done your money. Godspeed. If I could give this product zero stars I would, because they haven't worked for more than a month at a time in the eight months or so I've owned them. I've returned them twice and, after probably five or six *more* interactions with customer service, neither I nor my ear buds have been served. It's actually miserable interacting with them. This concludes my review of both the product and the company that manufactures it.