At first glance, it is hard to tell the difference between the first and second generation earphones, but if you take a closer look at them, you can already see the various fine tunings, thanks to which the product fits better in the hand and it is easier to take it out of the cradle. Another tell-tale sign can be the back of the cradle, because under the Huawei inscription there is also the French Devialet branding, which of course indicates that the FreeBuds Pro 2 is actually the product of a collaboration – but we will talk about what this entails later.
Upon opening the box, the charger and the pair of earphones inside are immediately revealed – under them we can find the usual paperwork and accessories, i.e. a USB-A to USB-C charging cable (without charging head), and two pairs of “S” and an “L” size silicone bell so that the earpiece fits perfectly into the ear canal of most sizes and shapes. Changing the bells is quite simple, and can be done in seconds, but the M silicone bell that comes with the earphones by default will probably be fine for most people.
To be able to use the device, all you have to do is long press the button on the right side of the cradle, then simply connect to the headset in the Bluetooth settings of your phone. We could stop here, but for the sake of a more customized sound, it will definitely be worth downloading the Huawei Ai Life application from your mobile’s app store.
In Ai Life, you can choose from a huge amount of customization options, including customizing the amount of noise filtering, choosing from different equalizers and changing the gestures if you like. By the way, the control of the headphones is quite intuitive, by long pressing the stem we can switch between noise filtering and transparent mode on and off, with a single pinch we can start or stop the playback, with a double pinch we skip to the next song, while with a triple pinch we go to the previous one. During a call, the gestures change a bit, but this is also not difficult to remember: you can answer an incoming call with a single pinch, and you can cancel the call with a double pinch. In contrast to an AirPods, we can also adjust the volume on the FreeBuds Pro 2, which we can do by stroking the stems of the earphones down or up.
Devialet gyorstalpalo
But what is Devialet and why did Huawei team up with them? the question may arise. Well, the Chinese company has never been a stranger to collaborating with other companies that have already achieved prominent positions in other industries. It is enough to think only of Leica, who have already given their name to the cameras of Huawei devices since the Huawei P9 debuted in 2016 – but this collaboration broke up this spring. A similar case now exists with Devialet, a Parisian company founded in 2007, renowned for their high-quality loudspeakers and amplifiers. In the case of the FreeBuds Pro 2, the cooperation boils down to the design of the default equalizer mode, which contributes to the fact that the earphones can reproduce the original quality of the recording as best as possible – surprisingly well, I might add.
Sound and stuff
As earphones, the FreeBuds Pro 2 operates with a two-driver design, one of which is responsible for the bass and the other for the treble – the former can go down to 14 Hz, while the latter can reach the 48 kHz range. Among other things, it is also thanks to this that we get a fairly balanced sound, the bass is strong and dominant when it needs to be, but the mid and high ranges also sound nice and well separated. The headset is also the first TWS (True Wireless Stereo) device that supports the LDAC codec and Hi-Res audio.
According to Huawei’s promise, the FreeBuds Pro 2 has improved noise filtering by about 15 percent compared to its predecessor (47 dB), which is a noticeable change.
During the trip, public transport in Budapest was not a problem for him either, while listening to music, outside noises were not noticeable at all.
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In addition to noise filtering, the earphones also have a transparent mode, which could not impress me so much. The FreeBuds Pro 2 was not able to reproduce the feeling as if the earphones were not even in my ears – while Apple’s 2019 AirPods Pro still manage to do this.
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Don’t get me wrong, transparent mode is perfectly usable, but external sounds seem to come back to the user’s ears slightly distorted, which can be quite disturbing for some, but others might not even notice it. In addition, Huawei’s earphones can dynamically switch between noise filtering levels, which looks great on paper and sounds good in theory, but something went wrong in the implementation and execution. A great example to illustrate this is my trip the other day, which I made between the editorial office and my apartment.
When I left the editorial office, I immediately switched on the dynamic noise filtering mode, which in the relatively quieter lobby only activated itself at the lowest level, but when I went out into the street, it switched to medium strength almost immediately. So far everything was fine with this, but when I was walking down the street, as soon as a louder bus or car passed by me, the headphones automatically set themselves to the highest level of noise reduction – however, since these were only momentary sources of noise, a few seconds later we were back at the medium level of noise reduction -, and this constant alternation is not one of the most pleasant experiences, it feels like our ears are being plugged in and out non-stop.
AirPods Pro in Huawei guise
Apart from all this, Huawei’s new earphones can still be a great choice, because, just like in the case of an AirPods Pro, the sound is at the forefront here, the noise filtering works great, and the dynamic mode can be bypassed infinitely easily, it is not mandatory to use it at all. The only other negative could be the battery life, as the Chinese company, in addition to using active noise filtering, promises a working time of about four hours – which is not a market-leading performance in the first place – in comparison, we managed to squeeze only about 3 hours out of the FreeBuds Pro 2, which for example while listening to lossless music, it can decrease even further. However, as an atonement, there is IP54 protection (which can be especially useful for athletes, since they don’t have to worry about sweat drops), multi-device pairing and automatic switching between devices, and thanks to the sensors, we can count on immediate ear detection.
All in all, due to the particularly high starting price of HUF 79,990, iPhone users should still opt for the AirPods Pro, which are just ten thousand HUF more expensive, as it pampers you with goodies within the ecosystem, such as Spatial Audio, FreeBuds Pro 2, but the it can be one, if not the best, choice for the Android or HarmonyOS camp. Huawei’s earphones can already be pre-ordered at domestic resellers in three different colors – ceramic white, silver blue and frosty silver – we had the latter model.
(Cover photo: Tamás Kaszás / Index)
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