Huawei FreeBuds 4i are the latest wireless earphones from a leading smartphone company; a sub-category we’ve inadvertently come to specialise in. Huawei’s prior effort in the series, FreeBuds 3i, fixed some of its predecessor’s biggest mistakes and offered excellent value at €99.
FreeBuds 4i builds on that design and manages to launch at an incredible €79/£79.
Egg Hunt
Having refined their style and feature-set in a blizzard of FreeBuds in recent years, it’s to be expected that Huawei’s changes this time around are somewhat more iterative. While the ‘polished egg’ design of FreeBuds 4i is quite different from FreeBuds 3i, it’s not far from the premium FreeBuds Pro design seen in between those entries in the ‘i’ series.
Whereas FreeBuds Pro had a slightly oval shape in two dimensions, FreeBuds 4i goes ovoid in all three. The rear of the case is flat and its natural orientation is displaying its ‘Huawei’ logo across its shiny bulge. Our Gloss Black review model is quite slick to look at and has a very faint iridescence to its sheen.
It looks and feels like it could be a scratch magnet though.
Case Study
The redesign has implications beyond FreeBuds 4i’s look. The case feels tiny and we suspect it occupies less volume that both FreeBuds 3i and FreeBuds Pro. While it’s a little deeper than Pro at its bulbous apex, it seems to lose a lot in its circumference.
Huawei FreeBuds 4i is certainly a departure for the better from the ‘robot pirate’s treasure chest’ form of FreeBuds 3i. 4i’s case eases in and out of the tightest spaces and causes the minimum of disturbance to the pocket it sits in.
But it can be a little tricky to open. The glossy finish and the lack of anything to grip properly conspire to leave it fiddly. Similarly, the buds themselves are a little too snug for cold or sweaty fingers to remove from their place.
Budding Investigation
The buds themselves reflect the oval goals of the case. The stalks have an oval cross section while the driver housing takes on an ovoid shape at a few angles, including while looking at them in the ear. That the oval shape has been incorporated into micro and macro detailing gives the package a pleasant and cohesive aesthetic.
Huawei have been trying to minimise the aesthetic imbalances caused by each earbud’s charging plates. FreeBuds 4i goes a long way to shrinking that non-nuisance but in doing so it has created a functionality quirk. It takes longer than it should for the buds to register they were at rest in their little home. I could hear music pour out of FreeBuds 4i for about three seconds after closing the case. This can probably be fixed with a patch though.
Audio
FreeBuds 4i sound very much like FreeBuds Pro – detailed and crisp middle and upper frequency range with some low-end presence. The bass lacks thump but still has a pleasant richness that suits most music. FreeBuds 4i don’t aim for transparency, which is unsurprising; there’s a musical, u-shape to the default EQ.
Fatter or deeper bass tended to be imprecise though and did negatively impact the higher registers. Thoush it must be said – outside of those understandably challenging wobbles and booms, the low-end is more than satisfactory for buds.
The soundstage is intimate as you would expect from well-sealed buds. However, that impressive detail in the mid-to-high range allows for capable instrument imaging – this lends an otherwise closed-in experience some room to breathe.
Breathing Out
Active noise cancellation is a strong point. Like FreeBuds Pro before them FreeBuds 4i has separate profiles to optimise its cancellation.
We felt the switch between profiles was a little too obvious on FreeBuds Pro, leaving the ANC with a ‘breathing effect’ that was hard to ignore once noticed. FreeBuds Studio dialed back on that breathing effect – at the time we weren’t sure if it was a result of less-aggressive ANC born of the over-ear design’s inherently superior sound-proofing or changes to Huawei’s ANC.
We now guess Huawei did the latter; tweaking the profiles or rounding the transitions between them. Transitions were difficult to perceive on FreeBuds 4i despite being primed to the potential of hearing them and knowing what to listen for – for all intents and purposes they are as good as gone.
Function
The silicone tips and slimline oval shape of the buds give them a snug fit with a good seal. The change from a flat, rectangular stalk form to that oval one makes it more difficult to consistently avail of the on-ear commands. It also reduces the depth of control available – volume control is not available with the full playback suite.
The buds stamina and quick-charge facility are very impressive. The stated ten hours on a single charge is possible without active noise cancellation at moderate volume. Listening with ANC at a more bracing volume will see the buds do around seven hours.
When the buds run flat, users can blast four hours worth of playback into the buds with just ten minutes rest in the case. FreeBuds 4i just don’t have need of much downtime.
While FreeBuds 4i isn’t the huge leap we have seen Huawei take in audio over the last few years, the subtle improvements to the experience and function are still appreciable. Those refinements coupled with a reduction in starting price make Huawei FreeBuds 4i easy to recommend.
Huawei FreeBuds 4i launch in Ireland and the UK on 22nd March with an RRP of €79/£79
