I have been fortunate to receive a pair of the new Huawei FreeBuds Pro earbuds. My normal travel, sitting at a computer, or just not wanting to hear what's going on in the house headphones have been Bose QC35II, for some time so it was good to have a new device for comparison.
The charging case supports either wired (USB-C) or wireless charging with compatible wireless charging devices. I tested charging via the Samsung Duo charger, and after a while the charge light on the Duo changed to red and started flashing. Perhaps the Fast Charging ability of the charger doesn't like the system in the charging case, or vice-versa, since the FreeBuds Pro charging case only supports 2W charging? Testing with Qi chargers that do not support fast charging seems okay though, including the wireless PowerShare feature of the Samsung Galaxy S10+.
To get the most out of these earbuds, you'll need to install the Huawei AI Life app. You can download the app from Huawei via the Huawei AppGallery. Unless there has been an update, the AI Life app that can be obtained via the Google Play store does not yet support these earbuds. Apparently, there is also no supporting app for iOS at the time of writing. This means the earbuds still work but you can't change some of the default options.
After the initial pairing, and upon opening the app, I was offered a firmware update to V1.9.0.140 via the AI Life app, which offers optimised compatibility for simultaneous connection of the FreeBuds Pro to two devices, reduced power consumption when the earbuds are in the charging case and enhances the noise-cancelling effects.
Removing the earbuds from the charging case seemed rather awkward, at least at first. I have now figured out how to get them out easier each time.
The simultaneous connection feature seems to work okay. With the FreeBuds Pro connected to both my Samsung S10+ and HP notebook, there is an issue where, while listening to Spotify streaming from the HP notebook, the Samsung S10+ played some notifications through the earbuds, or if receiving a call, I'm unable to resume Spotify streaming, even though the stream appears to still be playing 'somewhere'. Hitting play on Spotify, either on the phone or the notebook, failed to feed music through the earbuds (they were still showing as connected to both devices), or from the phone or computer speakers, even though the track was apparently playing. By disconnecting the FreeBuds Pro from the notebook, and reconnecting, pressing play on Spotify worked successfully. This did not appear to be an issue if solely connected to the Samsung S10+. I don't know if the problem was with Spotify or the earbuds.
Controls via the FreeBuds Pro are straight forward, although not as simple as with some other brands. Other than for volume control, everything else requires a pinch of the stem to carry out operations. Unlike some other manufacturers who employ touch control for everything, there is a "Force Sensor" built into each stem. Pinch the stem to pause/start/answer/hang-up. Double pinch to skip to the next track, triple pinch to go to the previous track.
A 'pinch and hold' action can be set to switch noise control modes, or activate your voice assistant. I have noise cancellation selection working with the force sensor on the left bud, and Google Assistant on the right. Volume adjustment is via touch control (swipe up or down on the front of either stem), which can be a little finicky, but does work.
Active nise-cancelling (ANC) works quite well, and has various modes, selectable via the app. Modes are "Dynamic", "Cozy", "General", and "Ultra". There’s also an "Awareness" feature, which allows ambient sounds to be heard via the microphones, and via the app you can select 'enhance voices' to assist with conversations. "Awareness" mode seems to work rather well, and far better than the "Ambient" mode on the early SM-R170 Samsung Galaxy Buds I've tested previously.
Switching between ANC, Awareness, and Off is controlled by the stem force sensor (user setting, as above), but the ANC modes can only be selected via the app. Also within the app, you can decide which of the three settings you wish to have access to via the pinch and hold switch, for instance you may only wish to switch between Awareness and Off, and not access ANC at all.
Sound quality is really quite good, with quite a good coverage from deep lows, to mid-range and up to higher frequencies as well. At least as good as some wired in-ear options, and in many case better. During my testing, I’ve been listening to Acid Jazz, Blues, Electronica, EDM, House, and a few others in between. I didn’t notice any issues with any genre.
Call quality is crisp and clear. During a call, a bone sensor "detects and strengthens human voices by interpreting the bone vibration for clear sound delivery". This, in conjunction with the other microphones, certainly seems to make conversation a breeze. Speaking of breezes, microphones at the top and bottom of the stems utilise "an anti-wind noise-cancellation tube to eliminate wind noise". There is also a feature where if you wish (or etiquette/environment requires you) to whisper, you can take off one earbud, pinch the stem twice (within five seconds), and you can then use that earbud as a microphone. I did test this, and it appears to work quite well.
The Freebuds Pro supports Bluetooth 5.2, and the range seems more than acceptable.
Battery life seems absolutely adequate, although you'll probably need to pop the earbuds into the charging case for a top up once or twice, if your use is right throughout the day and includes the commute and ‘in the office’, especially if you’re using ANC or Awareness.
Battery and charging specs from Huawei indicated battery capacity of 55 mAh per earbud and 580 mAh for the charging case. This gives you about four hours of music playback (with ANC enabled) or seven hours with ANC disabled.
Charging is done via USB Type-C (5V / 1.2A / 6W) or wireless (2 W). It takes about 40 minutes for the earbuds to fully charge in the charging case and about one hour for the charging case to recharge via USB-C without earbuds.
