Now that True Wireless earphones are common place, the natural progression is to fit more tech into these useful devices. Huawei is one of the bigger names in the game, and the Huawei FreeBuds Pro come with Automatic Noise Cancelling among a host of other features. This makes these devices a bit bigger than your usual device, but these pack in quite a punch.
Key features
- Intelligent Dynamic ANC, pure listening experience
- Voice Mode, always stay connected
- 11 mm dynamic driver, astonishing sound
- Dual-channel true wireless stereo, with synchronous data transmission available in both earbuds;
- Ultimate noise cancelation with multi-microphone design plus inverse sound wave
- Dynamic noise reduction
- Simultaneous Bluetooth connection with dual devices
- Hear your surroundings with audio transparency
- Dynamic equalizer (EQ) adjustment
- Dual-antenna structure for maximum stability
- Easy pinch and swipe controls
- Low power consumption, long battery life
- Wired and wireless charging
- Automatic earbuds detection and rapid pairing
- Shortcuts for increased efficiency
Look and feel
The look is rather sleek. You may not notice it, but there is a functional button on the side of the case which lets you reset these (press 10 seconds to perform a hard reset on the headsets).
The case itself is curved and sleek, and happily slides into a pocket.
Opening the case reveals the earphones. They are stuck inside the case with some pretty strong magnets, so it takes a bit of effort and knack to get them out. There is a handy image on them when you first open them (a sticker), but it still takes a bit of practice.
Once in, they are nice and comfy. They are a bit chunkier and bigger than your usual true wireless earphones, but they do not feel bigger or heavier in your ears.
They tend to happily stay in while running or cycling, but I did notice that if I bend down to pick something up, they will either feel very loose or even fall out.
I have been on hour long runs and bike rides, and they work very well.
I have also worn them for hours at work, and they work very well and feel comfy throughout too.
Setup
While the setup is reasonably straight forward, these appear in my Bluetooth menu as ‘M1’ instead of Huawei FreeBuds Pro (or any similar name). This did cause a bit of confusion in the first place, but it was all okay once I paired with them.
Ease of use
The controls on the Huawei FreeBuds Pro are quite different to the traditional devices we have used. In fact, they are so different that I am posting a link to the Quick Start Guide here, just so anybody who has one and can’t find their copy can find it.
You have these metallic bars on the side of these earphones which act as sensors. Slide up and down raises the volume up and down. On the other side is a button, and if you pinch them together, you can play/pause, and perform other functions.
To enable ANC or disable it, you pinch and hold.
It takes a little getting used to, but you get there in the end.
Sound Quality
So the big one, how good do these sound?
The sound itself is true to nature, not bass heavy, and not too shrill, just how I like it. You won’t get blown away by just the sound itself, but it has trueness and warmth to it.
The ANC itself works reasonably well. You won’t get the kind of performance you get with bigger headphones, but it is pretty decent. A lot of my running has been alongside roads, and it has helped to have these in to cut out the noise. Same goes for office environments, it easily cuts out the background noise to help you concentrate on work.
Overall, these are pretty impressive for what they offer in a very small pack.
Sonic Escapes
In order to show how well the Huawei FreeBuds Pro perform, Huawei have also created a bunch of sound based experiences called Sonic Escapes. They take advantage of the active noise cancelling offered by them and provide an amazing immersive experience.
We obviously gave them a go and found the experience quite nice. They are designed to show off how well the ANC works. What excites me even more is that as we go from Stereo to 3D Headphones in the future, such immersive experiences will provide key entertainment. As the world struggles with another lockdown, such technology will provide a key to experiencing travel a new light.
Battery Life
While the device theoretically promises around 4 hours of battery life when fully charged and ANC enabled, I only got about 2 hours with music playing. While this is still decent, it is just something to be vary of.
More information
More information on the Huawei FreeBuds Pro can be found on the Huawei website.
They come in carbon black (the one we reviewed), silver frost or ceramic white.
At the time of writing, they retail for £169.99, and can be bought directly from Huawei, online stores like Amazon, or many retail shops.