Make these your new best buds...
Huawei FreeBuds 4i From €79, huawei.com ★★★★
This week, Huawei’s newest earbuds went on sale here adding to the already extensive range of wireless buds you can now choose from. There are high-end offerings from Sennheiser, Beats and Apple and entry level models from JLab and Anker.
Most of us, will go for something in the middle, and the Huawei FreeBuds 4i fit in to that mid-range category for price, and features.
The buds arrive in their mini puck-shaped charging case, similar to other Huawei models but a little smaller.
They also arrive with three different sized tips for the buds. This is useful, as I found one ear a little tight but I was able to get a perfect fit by swapping it out, which is easy to do.
The case itself is so small, it easily fits in a back pocket. On the side, there’s a discrete button to start the
THE BUDS WILL LAST UP TO 10 HOURS ON A SINGLE CHARGE
Bluetooth pairing process and there’s also a small light on the case to indicate the charging status.
Also, the case is light at about 36g and the buds are delightfully easy to wear, weighing just 5.5g each.
The buds have excellent battery life, and will last up to 10 hours on a single charge. That duration goes down to 7.5 hours if you have the Active Noise Cancellation turned on, and you’re likely to do that.
Phone calls are a little harder on battery life if you do use your phone a lot, with a total talk time of up to 6.5 hours.
It’s important to remember that the case carries its own charge, so if you leave home with a fully charged case and buds, you can get 22 hours of use before you need to charge them.
If you get stuck, and forgot to charge
SMALL BUT MIGHTY:
The compact case easily fits in a back pocket them before going out for a run, a 10-minute charge will top them up for four hours listening, which is a really nice feature.
Pairing them with a Huawei phone is seamless, and you can use the Huawei AI Life app for additional controls.
If you’re not a Huawei user, pairing them with other Android phones is straightforward and takes just a few seconds.
You can customise the controls for using the buds and tapping the appropriate bud lets you play and pause, go to next or previous songs or wake your voice-assistant. Touching and holding a bud will move you through the three noise control options.
These buds are tuned specifically for pop music. This becomes obvious when you start playing back tracks, with vocals leaping to the front. However, guitar and drums also sound good, but with quite a bias towards the middle range.
I listened to a number of pop tracks and while there isn’t the big, wide sound stage you get on €300 hi-fi buds, the detail is really good.
Coupled with the noisecancellation feature, the listening experience is additionally pleasing. There’s also an awareness mode, crucial now if you’re out walking and want to be aware of your surroundings.
They do fall a little short on bass reproduction though, and a couple of nice features available on the more expensive FreeBuds Pro are missing.
However, for the price you can’t help but be surprised, and pleased. Excellent battery-life and good noise-cancellation and a pleasant listen make them a great choice in a competitive price-range.