Huawei FreeBuds 4i impressive for their price

A 10-minute trick of these $159 earbuds solves the very annoying problem everyone’s had with Bluetooth headphones.

REVIEW

Huawei has just released its new wireless earbuds – the Huawei FreeBuds 4i.

Initially, I’ve only known Huawei to be a mobile phone company but you may know it has been expanding into creating all kinds of smart tech for years now. The new buds have competitive pricing so I was keen to check them out.

First impressions

The Huawei FreeBuds 4i come in two colours – ceramic white and carbon crystal black. I got my hands on the white edition.

The case is round, smooth and glossy which is reminiscent of a polished pebble. The back of the case does have a flat surface so it can sit steadily on a flat surface, though. It’s also very small, lightweight and pocketable, which I like, because sometimes brands create great earbuds but they come in bulky cases.

The style of the earbuds themselves is also quite sleek, the stem of the earbud isn’t very long so they’re discreet, and the fit is fairly comfortable and lightweight.

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Huawei’s FreeBuds 4i performed best while working on the computer all day.

Functionality

These are Bluetooth wireless earbuds and I think one of their most impressive features would have to be their active noise cancellation, which means that the tech inside allows the buds to actively dim ambient sound around you.

I was incredibly impressed with this feature and felt totally immersed in my music when it was on.

This also works incredibly well for phone calls.

Not only does it make it easy to hear other people’s voices in a loud environment but on the phone your voice sounds clear and isolated for the person on the other side. To toggle it on or off you could simply long press on the left or right earbud.

Additionally, there’s an awareness mode, so if you’d like to hear more of what’s going on around you while you use these you can.

Because of these functionalities and their lightweight design (5.5g) you don’t really feel the need to take them out of your ears. They’re pretty comfortable and they come with three different size ear tips.

Battery life

The battery was pretty impressive with 10 hours of playback on a full charge.

Though my favourite feature was that if you charge these buds in their case for just 10 minutes you can get four hours of audio playback.

It’s such a welcome feature as I often forget to charge my earbuds – great for when you’re about to race out the door for work or to the gym.

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Tech writer Elly Awesome reviewed the Huawei FreeBuds 4i and was impressed.

Sound quality

When it comes to listening to music, the sound quality was extremely impressive.

There’s depth and layers to music and the bass is heavy. I really enjoyed the experience, especially with noise cancellation on.

There are also touch controls where by default you can double-tap to play or pause your music or to answer or end a phone call.

And if you get Huawei’s AI Life app you can instead change these settings to become a ‘next song’ or ‘previous’ song function.

The touch controls worked well but I must admit I really miss having a volume control feature on the buds themselves.

I’ve had this on even cheaper earbuds and I seem to use it a lot. But I think it’s a matter of opinion on how important this feature is.

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The price of the Huawei FreeBuds 4i is one of their biggest drawcards.

Are they worth the price?

I found I enjoyed using these earbuds the most when working on the computer all day.

They’re great for taking calls or video conferencing and the in-built microphone works well. However, at the gym I still wished I could change my music’s volume on them. I also occasionally felt slight pressure points from the buds in my ears when working out and sometimes they’d become loose.

Though I have to be honest – this is probably because I must clench my jaw when I’m (impressively) lifting heavy weights and doing hectic floor exercises. I guess it’s pretty unavoidable, and possibly unique to me especially because they seemed to stay in my ears comfortably while running.

At $159 I have to commend Huawei on the sound performance.

For this price point the buds are extremely impressive, especially when you consider that similar premium wireless earbuds on the market can retail for upwards of $200.

If you’re interested, they are available to order from the Huawei Experience Store online.

Elly Awesome is an Aussie tech and lifestyle vlogger | @ellyawwesome | YouTube