The design is going to inescapably draw comparisons to the AirPods Pro, but under that casing, Huawei has a number of unique features on offer. This includes the dual-driver technology that allows for a wide 14Hz-48KHz frequency range, enhanced ANC and a new feature called “Triple Adaptive EQ” that scans your ear canal and tunes your audio to it. Competition in the noise-cancelling earbuds market is fierce, so let’s take a closer look at what Huawei is bringing to the table.
Sounding good on paper
This partnership between Huawei and Devialet has been in action since 2018 and I wasn’t too complimentary about the Devialet Gemini, which were the audio company’s own attempt at earbuds. They sounded incredible, but the design was far too bulky, which Huawei seems to have resolved with a smaller, sleeker frame at less than 6 grams, along with a 14% reduction in thickness over the original FreeBuds Pro. Despite that reduction in size Huawei still claims respectable battery life with up to 4 hours of playback (18 hours with the case) if you are using ANC and that jumps to 6.5 hours (30 hours with the case) if you don’t need ANC. That comes up short of the top-end options like the Sony WF-1000XM4, but it keeps pace with the AirPods Pro. Huawei is making some bold claims about its ANC onboard the FreeBuds Pro 2 (to be fair they all do), but we’ll have to see if the triple mic system and Huawei’s application of its Deep Neural Network to the problem of noise canceling lives up to the hype. For more refined listeners the FreeBuds Pro 2 support the LDAC protocol for high-resolution audio. Not something that most wireless earbud wearers are going to be concerned about, but Huawei wants to make sure it is catering to the audiophile Devialet fans. IPX5 water resistance and wireless charging round out the feature set for the FreeBuds Pro 2.
Outlook
All in all, Huawei seems to have checked all the right boxes with the FreeBuds Pro 2 and at £169.99, they come in under the price of plenty of its premium competition. We’ll leave our opinions for the full review, but based on past experience, it’s hard to see Huawei and Devialet making a bad pair of earbuds. You’ll be able to pick up a pair starting July 6 (opens in new tab).
