Huawei’s FreeBuds Professional 2 are looking for premium recreation and the competitors has formally been placed on discover.
With a premium design that does look barely like a sure pair of Apple earbuds, the FreeBuds Professional 2 stand out with its distinctive driver construction that delivers sound crafted in partnership with Devialet. Throw within the machine learning-driven noise cancellation, and it’s clear the corporate has gone all out.
So, the query is clear: does all of this translate right into a supreme pair of buds? Let’s discover out.
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 value and availability
The Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 earbuds are set to launch throughout Europe at €199/£169 (roughly $205), and can be found in three finishes: silver blue, silver frost and silver white.
No phrase on a U.S. launch (chances are high it received’t occur exterior of the odd Amazon itemizing), however taking its U.Ok. value under consideration, that is far lower than the AirPods Professional (£249), Grasp & Dynamic MW08 (£279), and the Sony WF-1000XM4s (£299).
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 design
As I mentioned within the preliminary announcement, the FreeBuds Professional 2 have the same design language to the AirPods Professional. However look past the sometimes glossy pill-shaped case and there are some aesthetic variations.
The stems of the buds are blockier, displaying off delicate chrome edging that matches its shiny metallic hinge that shows the partnership between Huawei and Devialet. By the best way, given the {hardware} design selections made for the Devialet Gemini, I’m glad to see the sound smarts of this audio firm mixed with the refined product design of Huawei.
Quite than the big Gemini earbuds, the FreeBuds Professional 2 match comfortable within the ear with an important long-use consolation, because of the FreeBuds dimensions (1.1 x 0.9 x 0.9 inches) and weight (0.2 ounces). They match the AirPods Professional in all dimensions, so this can be a acquainted match for anybody who’s tried Apple’s top-tier earbuds. Whereas the Momentum True Wi-fi 3 are barely shorter (0.9 inches) and weigh the identical, they’re a little bit bulkier within the ear with a 1-inch thickness.
As for the case, at 2.7 x 1.8 x 1.0 inches and weighing 1.8 ounces, the entire package deal is barely bulkier than the AirPods Professional (2.4 x 1.7 x 0.9 inches), however much more pocket-friendly than the gorgeous beasty container of the second-generation Momentums (1.3 x 2.7 x 1.0 inches).
Put merely, in case you’ve grow to be acquainted with Apple’s earbuds, these will really feel acquainted and that’s no unhealthy factor. What meaning is a light-weight pair of buds which have large endurance whether or not you’re strolling or exercising (these have IP54-rated water resistance), whereas persevering with to be snug over lengthy intervals of time.
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 controls and digital assistant
Contact management choices are expansive and customizable on the FreeBuds Professional 2, with single, double, and triple faucet features, together with a press and maintain for huge ranges of interplay and even a swipe to extend/scale back the amount.
Much like the AirPods Professional, delicate faucet sounds may be heard to verify when touches are acquired, which is a pleasant addition over hoping your buds register your instructions.
I’m at all times a fan of buttons, as you may’t get unintended touches. However Huawei’s workaround reduces the possibilities of unintentional touches, as you have to pinch them to work together.
The sensible assistant may be programmed to launch with a straightforward pinch and maintain, and the microphones do an excellent job of selecting up your requests.
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 lively noise cancellation and ambient listening
The FreeBuds Professional 2 excel in terms of lively noise cancellation (ANC): packing three mics on every bud and using the second model of Huawei’s clever dynamic ANC algorithm to ship as much as 47dB of cancellation energy.
The mics do an superior job of neutralizing the background noise and isolating your listening expertise. Mixed with the comfortable match, these can deal with their very own towards even the loudest of eventualities like rush hour site visitors with extraordinarily minimal hiss.
Flip over to transparency mode and the mics make equally good work of your environment, highlighting dialog over any form of background drones. I may hear low-level chatter from my associate at as much as roughly 20 toes away.
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 audio high quality
The FreeBuds Professional 2 pack a singular dual-speaker setup, which options an 11-millimeter quad magnet dynamic driver and a UHF planar diaphragm driver. You don’t discover tech like this in earbuds at a lower cost. To translate the guff, this aids in higher separation of sound: the massive magnetic-driven driver dealing with the lows and the smaller outlet of the planar capturing the highs into your ears.
This ends in a frequency response vary of 14 Hz to 48 kHz (the decrease finish of which matches far deeper than the AirPods Professional and even the Sony WF-1000xM4), which pairs with LDAC codec assist for as much as 990 kbps audio, and an up to date digital crossover processor for higher technical separation of the highs and lows, to ship a powerful platform for robust sound high quality.
There’s an entire different aspect to this: the tuning. Huawei has bought some assist because of the corporate’s partnership with Devialet, who went via a scrutinous vary of machine and human-based testing to tune these earbuds.
I may ramble on in regards to the technical aspect and go into the small print of the on-board sensors that measure the scale of your ear canal and adjusts the EQ to optimize sound supply, however let’s simply lower to the chase.
The top result’s a sound high quality that challenges earbuds at double the worth of the FreeBuds Professional 2. For easier songs with extra compressed compositions, just like the Beartooth’s riotous romp of breakdowns in “Devastation,” the FreeBuds present heat to the thudding decrease tones and loads of life within the mids, whereas letting the highs actually shine.
This continues into tracks with a better variety of intricate particulars like “2009” by Mac Miller: probably the greatest songs to essentially benefit from this signature sound (and a stunning tune, too). The reverb of the piano and the small breaks in Mac’s voice are emphasised and given loads of life, however the sharp stings of 808 bass are felt with out impacting on any of the opposite ranges.
Even right down to spoken phrase, like listening to “Not One other D&D Podcast” (my favourite of many Dungeons & Dragons podcasts), these excel in bringing character to every utterance from each presenter, with out struggling a single bit on any elongated “s” sounds or punchy “p” pronunciations.
All in all, you’ll discover that Huawei has excelled in sound high quality. The truth that these comparatively beat out the AirPods Professional, present a cleaner, hotter composition than the MW08s and are available near matching the WF-1000xM4s simply exhibits how a lot of a marvel these are.
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 app
It’s a story of two halves for the FreeBuds Professional 2 on the app entrance.
For iOS, the free-to-download AI Life app gives you a complete suite of choices to tweak the audio (together with a customizable EQ) and easy accessibility to altering your gesture controls, taking an ear tip match check and discovering your earphones by enjoying a sound.
As for Android customers (and extra particularly, any Huawei machine customers on the market), you’re going to get a much more seamless expertise because of quick pair and the AI Life app. Take into consideration how straightforward it’s to flip your AirPods between your iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Huawei has managed to do the identical throughout its telephones and the laptops just like the MateBook D 16.
It’s a formidable feat that you just not often discover in any earbuds exterior of the Apple ecosystem.
Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 battery life
Huawei is promising as much as 4 hours of listening time with ANC on, prolonged to 18 with the charging case, and this largely matches as much as the truth of my time utilizing these.
Flip ANC off and you’ll lengthen the FreeBuds Professional 2’s battery life to six.5, however you’ll have this important function activated more often than not. Plus, taking calls whereas listening has diminished my time utilizing these to a few hours on one cost, at 60% quantity with ANC turned on.
Merely put, this isn’t very best. You’d hope for a little bit extra gasoline within the tank, however the wi-fi charging on the case and the sheer velocity of juicing the buds again as much as full throughout the case does soften the blow a little bit.
Huawei FreeBuds 2 name high quality and connectivity
Connectivity is dealt with with Bluetooth 5.2 with multipoint, which helped me type a safe connection throughout two of both the iPhone 13 Professional, OnePlus 10 Professional, Huawei MateBook D 16 and M1 MacBook Professional.
Your voice is obvious indoors and open air, and the on-board mics do an excellent job of isolating the background noise round you throughout even my extra intense exams equivalent to strolling alongside rush hour site visitors.
Don’t get me fallacious, underneath intense stress just like the gail power winds generally felt when strolling by the river, you do sound such as you’re underwater. However phrases are understood and due to ANC, you may hear the individual speaking to you with ease.
That’s all because of Huawei’s personal deep neural community noise-cancelling algorithm, which has discovered from 100 million voice samples to auto-adjust ANC ranges on the background and spotlight your voice.
Backside line
The Huawei FreeBuds Professional 2 rewrite the rulebook on what it is best to count on from earbuds at this value — competing with far costlier choices and leaving a few of them within the mud.
Whereas the battery life is barely underwhelming on the buds themselves, they sound wonderful, pack highly effective ANC, take calls properly, provide impressively responsive controls and cram all of it right into a glossy design.
What’s extra, the excellent app and software program (together with the Apple-rivaling seamless integration throughout Android/Huawei units) makes these a number of the finest wi-fi earbuds you should purchase proper now.
