The Price Of Comfort
HUAWEI FREEBUDS 4
Huawei’s FreeBuds 4 features what the company calls an “open-fit” for greater wearing comfort. Like any other “open-fit” type earbuds, it’s almost impossible to complain about comfort. They are quite snug and they stay put even when I’m trying my best to shake them off. I find Apple’s AirPods to fit a little better but since everyone’s ears are different, your mileage may vary.
The FreeBuds 4 earbuds have prominent stems, and, there’s no getting around this, look like another pair of earbuds from a certain company based in Cupertino. They come in silver frost and ceramic white. The silver frost unit that I have looks almost as if it has been chromeplated. It’s also highly reflective.
There are, however, trade-offs. Noise isolation without ANC is almost nonexistent. You can hear everything around you. The upside is that you are constantly aware of your surroundings. The downside is that you are constantly aware of your surroundings. To make up, I found myself turning up the volume, which can’t be a good thing for anyone’s hearing in the long run.
It’s also hard to pinpoint exactly
how effective the FreeBuds 4’s active noise cancellation is. Outside, when you are walking on the street, this feature is almost superfluous. Indoors, however, where things are less noisy, yes, they can help, but it’s nowhere close to what you get with earbuds like the Sony WF-1000XM4 or even Huawei’s own FreeBuds Pro which have added passive noise isolation because of their inear designs.
The three-mic array was better than I expected. Voices sounded clear and natural, and the earbuds do quite a good job of suppressing ambient noise. The AirPods Pro still reign supreme but I felt the FreeBuds 4 were noticeably better than Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM4 where voice pickup is concerned.
You can control the earbuds using touch controls on the stems. The default controls are logical enough and you can customise them using the Huawei AI Life app. Like most touch controls, they are a bit hit-and-miss at first and require some time and practice.
The FreeBuds 4 supports Bluetooth 5.2 and the AAC and SBC wireless codecs. Automatic pop-up pairing is supported only with Huawei phones running EMUI10 and above. I tested the earbuds with an iPhone and I found that connectivity was generally quite good, I only noticed the odd dropout here and there when I’m outside and running my TraceTogether app concurrently in the background. Otherwise, it held a steady connection. It also connects very quickly when you take it out of its charging case.
DECENT SOUND QUALITY WITH A COMFORTABLE FIT, BUT AN OPENDESIGN NEGATES ANC PERFORMANCE.
Huawei says the FreeBuds 4 can stay connected with up to two devices simultaneously but I never got this to work properly. It would stay connected to my phone but it would have trouble maintaining a connection with my computer. If you have multiple Huawei devices like a MateBook or MatePad, Huawei says the FreeBuds 4 will switch seamlessly between them like how AirPods do for Apple devices.
Battery life is not a strong suit of these earbuds. On a single charge, they will last up to 4 hours without ANC. If you turn on ANC, that drops down
to just 2.5 hours.
Huawei’s charging case provides another 4.5 times of charge so you can get up to 22 hours without ANC and 14 hours with ANC. The case supports wireless charging and wired charging over USB-C.
The drivers in the FreeBuds 4 are possibly the largest in any earbuds right now. There are 14.3mm beasts with liquid-crystal polymer diaphragms that Huawei says have a frequency response of up to 40kHz. Additionally, Huawei also says that each earbud has “its own bass-enhancing power engine” which I suppose is a fancy way of saying the housing is tuned to emphasise bass frequencies.
In the words of Meghan Trainor, these earbuds are all about that bass. Despite the open-fit design, bass is quite hard-hitting. It’s also relatively clean and doesn’t bleed excessively into the midrange. The rest of the frequency response, however, is unremarkable. The mids are severely recessed and the mid-to-upper treble region sounds emphasised giving the earbuds a rather severe V-shaped response. How much of this is due to its fit in my ears or because of its inherent tuning is hard to say. The other quality I noticed is that the earbuds sound very smooth. Overall, considering the compromised fit, I think the FreeBuds 4 acquainted itself quite well.
If you absolutely cannot stand the feeling of something poking into your ears, the FreeBuds 4, at $198, are a decent option as long as you temper your expectations. But one thing is for sure, at least they are really comfortable to wear.