Huawei is again pushing the envelope in the personal sound market with its new Huawei FreeBuds 4.
With a design that is closer to the open fit Dolphin Bionic Design Huawei created for its FreeBuds 3 than the most traditional silicone buds design most recently used on its FreeBuds 4i, the Huawei FreeBuds 4 fits comfortably inside the ear but without completely sealing it, giving you quality sound and premium noise cancellation.
The open fit design gives you high-quality sound while still giving you awareness of the environment, which give you a safer wearing than those closed fit air buds that completely isolate you from the external world.
When you turn on the noise cancellation mode, an ear-matching technology automatically detects any sound leak and adapts the active noise cancellation mode, giving you a better sound experience, isolating those low-frequency sounds from the music and calls.
The small round-shaped charging case is, again, reminiscent of the original FreeBuds 3 design. It is small and fits nicely on your hand. It can be charged from a USB-C cable and it will charge the FreeBuds 4 while those are stored. The case I received is the silver-coloured one, with silver-coloured earbuds.
The FreeBuds 4 themselves are only 4.1 g each, which is negligible and really comfortable to wear, practically feeling like nothing after a few moments of use. There are very few earbuds I can use for long periods and the FreeBuds 4 definitely is in this category.
The user interface is split in two. You can control the FreeBuds 4 with a tap, press and swipe gestures that control answer/reject/end call, play/pause music, previous/next song, control volume, enable voice assistant and enable/disable noise cancellation. By default, you can swipe up and down on the stalk part of the earbuds to increase/reduce volume, which is quite intuitive.
The other part of the user interface is managed from the Huawei Life app, which allows you to configure the gestures, as well as switch sound enhancements on and off and even use a new function called “Find My Earphones” which basically will play a high-pitched sound so you can locate any missing earbuds.
The app is also used to apply updates, which are generally small but take a few minutes to transfer to the earbuds. It is an easy process – you just need to be sure the earbuds are in the case and have a minimum charge level to ensure it goes ok.
The FreeBuds 4 can pair with multiple devices but only connect to two at a time. You can manage connections through the app as well, including the option to manage device pairings from the screen.
I have used the FreeBuds 4 with Windows laptops and desktops as well as with smartphones. I used the FreeBuds 4 for online meetings via Microsoft Teams and Zoom calls and for video streaming on Netflix and Prime Video. I have used it for phone calls as well.
In all these situations it performed really well, with crispy sound and clear audio. Phone calls benefit from its smart processing to clear out background noise and concentrate on your voice.
The small buds pack a punch with up to four hours of music playing, although I’ve noticed a reduced run time if you have active noise cancellation switched on – I got about two hours battery life of mixed video playback, music streaming and 90 minutes Teams meeting in the mix. This is all from a battery that holds 30 mAh (the case holds another 410 mAh).
In the end, this is one pair of earbuds I can come back and reliably get a great experience.
