People waiting for Samsung’s newly announced $250 Galaxy Buds 3 Pro earbuds to hit store shelves will have to wait a while longer, as the tech giant said it’s delaying shipments after detecting quality control issues.
The Korean tech giant didn’t describe the issue when it confirmed the delay on Friday.
“We are taking this matter very seriously and remain committed to meeting the highest quality standards of our products,” Samsung representatives said in a statement. Samsung expects the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro to launch in late August.
According to Android Authority, the issues include that the device’s ear tips could tear.
Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro troubles are not the first time the company’s faced quality control issues shortly before or after a product launch. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphones famously went through two rounds of recalls over faulty battery issues in 2016. Three years later, prelaunch issues with Samsung’s first foldable tablet-like smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, forced the company to institute an “embarrassing” delay.
Samsung isn’t the only company that has struggled with quality control. Manufacturing and assembling millions of units of nearly any product is very hard. In the tech world and with mobile devices in particular, the process has often required multiple iterations of hardware design and testing, along with software design and testing. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have spent billions of dollars on research and development over the years, including to build labs and torture test chambers for everything from picture quality to radio interference to head shape and even button mashing. Typically, these efforts detect problems before a product goes out to the public, but not always.
Samsung’s $180 Galaxy Buds 3 still appear to be on track for their July 24 launch, according to the company’s online store, which corresponds with Samsung’s plans to release its $1,900 Galaxy Z Fold 6 tablet foldable, $1,100 Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone foldable, $400 Galaxy Ring sensor and smartwatches. It says the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, meanwhile, will arrive by Aug. 28.
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