Huawei has impressed the headphones category recently, producing a series of options with advanced features and reasonable price tags.
With the Huawei Freebuds Pro 2, the company is building on what it has already done. With its latest flagship earbuds, there is support for LDAC Hi-Res audio, the promise of better ANC, and a unique dual-driver system to help improve sound performance. These buds were also made with the help of Devialet, a French audio company.
Even though it looks like a good upgrade at first glance, this is a very competitive market. People with Android and Huawei phones have many options to choose from. Should the Freebuds Pro 2 be one of them?
We’ve been testing to find out.
Design
- Silver Blue, Silver Frost, and Ceramic White colors
- 5.9g (per earbud)
- S/M/L silicone tips included
With the first-generation Huawei Freebuds Pro, the company took a familiar TWS bud shape and gave the stem a “cubic” shape to make it their own.
Part of the idea was to make a different shape from the Apple AirPods, which have round stems, and many copies. So it’s not surprising that the second generation has a slightly more refined version of that squared-off shape.
But there is a small difference: these new buds are a little bit smaller and lighter, and so is the case, which is in the shape of a pill. That makes them a little easier to carry and put on.
We tested them and found that they fit well and were made well in terms of safety as well. Of course, everyone’s ears are different, but with the rounded earbud casing and soft silicone tip, we didn’t feel any pressure when we put it in our ears, and we didn’t have to force it in to make a good seal.
If you’re unsure if your headphones fit well, you can use a handy ear fit test that plays music and then uses the microphone array on the buds to find out if too much outside noise is getting in.
Also, unlike some silicone-tipped buds we’ve tested, they didn’t seem to move around or come loose. Both buds seemed to stay in place well and didn’t need to be moved very often. In this way, they are well balanced.
The only thing we don’t like about the silicone tips is how easy it is to take them off the earphones. If you plan to change them often, this might not be a problem, but when we tried to clean them after listening to music, they would often come off easily. Or, if the tips hit anything by accident or brushed against our fingers or hands while we were holding them, they would just fall off.
They come in a white finish and a “Silver Frost” finish, but our unit is the new “Silver Blue” color for 2022. It’s a good way to describe the light blue, iridescent earbuds, which match the soft blue sheen of the case.
We also like how the case looks. It is very comfortable to hold because it is very round and small, and its small size and shape make it easy to fit into any pocket.
Also, the buds fit in the cradles in a way that makes sense. The right bud goes on the right, and the left bud goes on the left. Both buds face inward. You don’t have to turn them or change their position before putting them in your ears or taking them out to put them away. When the magnets grab them and pull them into place to charge, there’s a satisfying snap.
Features and performance
- Auto ear-detection
- Gesture control
- 4 hours of playback (with ANC on)
Like most Huawei products, these buds have a lot of smart features that are mostly meant to make you do as little as possible.
Part of this process is turning on the feature that stops the music when you take out an earbud. It works with either bud, and when you put them back in, the music starts up again by itself.
Part of this process is turning on the feature that stops the music when you take out an earbud. It works with either bud, and when you put them back in, the music starts up again by itself.
During testing, it has worked every time and never failed. Even more impressive is that it hasn’t gone off by accident. It’s a standard feature in headphones these days, but this kind of reliability ensures that using the buds is a good experience. Read Also; OnePlus Buds Pro review: Good Buds
On each side of the buds is a touch-sensitive area, so you can “squeeze” the stems to do things like play, pause, or skip tracks. You can squeeze and hold to switch between the noise-canceling and ambient modes. You can also change the volume by swiping up and down. You can even go into the app and change what these presses and squeezes do if you really want to.
This part of the experience could definitely use some work. The stems are short and thin, so there isn’t much room for error. It can be hard to press or swipe in just the right place. Also, the buds are so light that even a light touch is enough to change how they fit in your ear, so you’ll have to adjust them again after using whichever feature you want.
In the same way, it would be great to see some improvements in how well Bluetooth works. We found that the range wasn’t very far, and it often stopped working when we were more than 10m away from the source, and there were walls in the way.
Then there is the life of the battery. Even on paper, the Freebuds Pro 2’s 4 hours of battery life with ANC turned on didn’t give us much hope. In normal use, with the ANC set to “General,” we could listen for about 2.5 hours before the earbuds gave us their 10% warning.
We should also note that this was done with SmartHD turned on, which uses a Hi-Res codec to make your content look better. In this mode, it makes sense that the battery drains faster than usual.
When SmartHD was turned off, performance was much better. And if you want to make it through a week of trips to and from work, this is a great thing to do.
If it wasn’t turned on, the battery life was much more like what was promised. In fact, you should be able to do it in 4 hours. This is about the same as the AirPods Pro, but the Freebuds Pro 2 is still a long way behind a pair of buds like the Sony WF-100XM4, which can last for about 6-7 hours with ANC and other features turned on.
Sound and noise canceling
- LDAC and HWA Hi-Res audio support
- Dual driver system – 11mm dynamic + planar
- Four-microphone noise canceling (each bud)
- Default EQ tuned by Devialet
We don’t hear many complaints about how things sound. Huawei has a large, powerful 11mm dynamic driver and a planar membrane, which makes for a wide frequency response range. In fact, it can play bass as low as 14Hz, which is much lower than what most people can hear.
When you add in the super-responsive planar membrane, you get strong, low bass notes with a lot of power, but the higher frequencies are still clear and have a lot of detail. Most of the time, it works very well.
You can still hear the deep and powerful bass when you listen to Shivers by Ed Sheeran, which has a surprising number of instruments and layers. Then, as it builds up to the chorus, you can hear expertly clear hand clapping, soft acoustic strumming, rising brass notes, and a synth.
All of these things are picked out by the Freebuds Pro 2 and made better. Strings and high notes are clear, and the bass is loud and pounding without getting too loud. Read More; Apple Watch 8 — Everything We Know So Far
The sound is also different. Stravinsky’s “A Night on the Bare Mountain” is a good example. With the Freebuds Pro 2, you can almost feel the deep, low rumble of the timpani more than hear it. In the same way, the low cello and bass strings can be heard and are clear. The qualities of the buds give them a feeling and presence that you might not be able to get from many other buds that cost about the same. It’s really pretty cool.
The only thing we don’t like is that the clarity and detail in the high-frequency parts can sometimes make the sound too sharp. When some singers hit the letter “S” or “T,” it can sometimes break a little and lose its tone, making it sound like someone is whistling between their teeth. It didn’t happen with every song, so it didn’t ruin the experience, but sometimes this is the price you pay for more treble and clarity.
Elsewhere, you can listen to music up to 24-bit, 96kHz, and 990kb/s if your source device supports Hi-Res audio (either HWA or LDAC codecs). So, you can use this feature if you have Hi-Res music that works with LDAC and a device that can play LDAC. Android users are out of luck because there is no Qualcomm-powered aptX of any kind.
Noise cancellation is also pretty good, and it does a good job of cutting out a lot of the noise around us while we test. Single voices that are amplified and high-impact, high-frequency sounds like children shouting will still be heard, but the buds do a good job of blocking out most background noise.
You can change the level of noise cancellation, which is a nice touch. Or, even better, choose “Dynamic” in the app and let it adjust the level of noise cancellation based on the noise level around you in real-time. It uses a combination of four different mics on each earbud to measure, and then it can adjust automatically. Read Also; What is Apple Spatial Audio, How Does it Work, and How to Get It?
There is also an ambient mode for when you want to hear what’s going on around you. But we never thought this was clear enough that you could really talk while music was playing. It was much better to take out a bud, let the auto-pause feature work, and then put it back in when done.
You can change the level of noise cancellation, which is a nice touch. Or, even better, choose "Dynamic" in the app and let it adjust the level of noise cancellation based on the noise level around you in real-time. It uses a combination of four different mics on each earbud to measure, and then it can adjust automatically.
There is also an ambient mode for when you want to hear what's going on around you. But we never thought this was clear enough that you could really talk while music was playing. It was much better to take out a bud, let the auto-pause feature work, and then put it back in when done.
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Design
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Features and performance
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Sound and noise canceling
