Huawei FreeBuds 2 Pro review
With the new set of FreeBuds Pro 2 true wireless headphones, Huawei offers a solid alternative to Apple AirPods Pro in terms of quality, price, and performance, especially if you’re an Android smartphone user.
Elegant appearance
The Huawei FreeBuds 2 Pro earbuds are an upgrade to the original Huawei FreeBuds. They have many improvements but still retain the same design and principles as the first generation.
The earcups, themselves, are made of metal and plastic, with a matte finish on the outside that isn’t too shiny or reflective. There is also a metal plate on each earpiece that has “Huawei” written on it.
The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 Wireless Earbuds come in three color variants: Silver Frost, Silver Blue, and Ceramic White, with the latter being the one I’ve tested in the past two weeks.
As you can see, the construction has been refined over previous versions of the FreeBuds (4i, 3, and even the first Pro) to come up with a smaller model that fits comfortably in the ear; this is where the three variants of silicone support help.
In different sizes, which we find in the package. The standard equipment is medium support, which worked perfectly.
Each earphone weighs only 5.9 grams, and thanks to the rounded design, it adapts very well to the ear since the center of gravity is further inside the canal, thus sudden movements of the head do not destabilize the earphone.
Huawei FreeBuds 2 pro
At the same time, we are talking about a shorter body in which the touch sensors for control are placed: the tap and pinch operation works much better than what you were used to with the FreeBuds 4i series.
Together with the intelligent functions of Huawei’s AI Life app, they enable a variety of control elements for streaming audio through the Bluetooth headset or ongoing calls.
For transport and charging, the Huawei Bluetooth FreeBuds Pro 2 headphones benefit from an oval-shaped case, which also serves as a charging stand and external battery; In principle, the battery in the box allows 5 complete charging cycles of both headphones (in 10 min you can put about 15% of the battery back in the headphones).
We see that in these wireless headphones, Huawei took into account the comments of the users and finally made a box that does not close by itself, and the grip part, like all headphones, is very effective, without needing too much power when you want to put them on or take them off (like was the case on some of the earlier models).
Together, the box and headphone combo become an everyday companion that’s easy to use (you can easily stash the box in the pocket of your pants, even if they’re short, light, and summery).
Performance
They have an autonomy of about 6 hours, True Sound Dual Driver quality, and HWA support.
Until you start using the new Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 Bluetooth headphones from Huawei, you have been a sporadic user of wireless headphones of this type in-ear (Samsung, Huawei, Sony).
These headphones are great in the context of working from home (in fact, we gave up Senheizer’s office gear for these). They are better for several reasons: they connect perfectly in a dual way (phone and laptop), and they have good autonomy and excellent quality for what we need.
They start with the ability to connect to two devices simultaneously. Though Huawei says – they work great with other Huawei products. Testing them with Mac or iPhone instantly connects to both, and streaming from one device to the other works much better than I expected for a non-Apple product.
We can tell you that directly from a Teams call you can answer the phone (if you have your headphones connected there too, and when the connection ends, the connection returns perfectly to the Teams call). The three microphones in the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2’s build do an excellent job isolating voice from the environment very well, so in the work-at-home scenario, without too much ambient noise, you can hear yourself very well.
Also, in this scenario, using the FreeBuds Pro 2 headphones in continuous Teams calls, the autonomy is something like this. Around 2 hours and 45 minutes in a continuous call with the noise cancellation function active and around 5 hours if it is deactivated.
We recommend using the second option and leaving the headphones charged during the lunch break to have them available all day. And compared to the connection on the iPhone (generally on the Smartphone), you need the Huawei AI Life application so that you can activate all the configuration options. The phone sees the earphones instantly (on iPhone, they are called NEMO_MUO0503), and on macOS, they are identified as Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2.
The second scenario, that of listening to music/soundtrack of video materials has some advantages that we will discuss. Huawei FreeBuds Pro 2 is designed to give the user the highest possible quality. And this is where hardware and software elements contribute.
As we said, there are three ambient microphones for active noise cancellation, which together with the 11mm magnet in each earcup’s construction, allow for an advanced audio experience.
The headset supports HWA transmission, and if the phone has LDAC capability, the headset can use it. It is necessary to activate the Smart HD function in the Huawei AI Life application.
Returning to the algorithms, sound effects can be applied: four are defined: Default, Bass boost, Treble boost, and Clear Voice, and whoever wants can define their own equalizer settings in 10 bands. By default, the one made in collaboration with Devialet is configured. The frequency range starts from 14 Hz and can go up to 48 kHz.
