There are no earbuds that look like the Huawei FreeClip. They have a metal earring design, which clips onto your ear no matter what: left and right are interchangeable. Furthermore, instead of focusing on noise cancellation, they let in sounds from the world around you: traffic to be safe, the voices of colleagues calling you while you work. But without sacrificing audio quality. They are not headphones for everyone: indeed, the design and technology choices make them suitable only for those looking for a particular mix of features. In this review, therefore, we help you understand if the Huawei FreeClip is for you.
Huawei FreeClip, earring earphones review
Huawei’s new earphones arrive in the simplest of packages: white with the brand logo and product name in silver. Even what’s inside seems, at first, ordinary. Find the paper manuals and the USB-C cable. And then a case for the earphones with an oval but flat profile, dark gray in color and with the Huawei writing in the centre. An LED, the fast pairing button, the USB-C input. Just by opening the case you will find unique earphones in front of you.
A new way to wear headphones
You will immediately notice the “earring rings”, the structure that Huawei calls C-Bridge, which is convenient for removing the earphones. Putting them on your ear is just as simple, although it felt a little strange the first few times. But after the first few listening sessions, the gesture becomes automatic: instead of aiming straight towards the center of your ear like other earbuds, you will go straight towards the edge of your ear, just above the lobe, where they will attach easily.
Behind the ear you will find the Comfort Bean, where there are the two magnetic pins for charging. A “bean” structure that balances the earphones well on the ear. We used them both walking and running and they never moved from their firm grip. In the lower part of the ear, however, enters the Acoustic Balla sphere cut in the lower part by the speaker output.
Looking at it from the outside it seems uncomfortable, but we instead found that sits comfortably in our ear. Huawei says it has studied different earcup shapes to achieve this result. We limited ourselves to having a few friends try them and everyone found the FreeClips quite comfortable.
Il weight 5.6 grams it doesn’t break any records, but they are still very light. And since the bulkiest part of the design ends behind the ear, they are very discreet to wear. But they stand out, and we think the purple color does it even more: at first they look like simple ears, then curious people will start asking you what earphones you’re wearing.
These earphones manage to be both “fashion statements” and comfortable headphones for sports activities: the look is elegant, but the grip on the ear is excellent.
Audio quality and convenience
After having looked at them carefully, we put the Huawei FreeClip on our ears for the first tests of this review. It doesn’t matter which earphone you put in which ear: the shape is identical and FreeClip will recognize left and right. We listened to the stereo version of Bohemian Rhapsody to test whether Queen’s backing vocals came from the right side to envelop us.
Immediately, the audio quality impressed us. We are usually not big fans of open-ear headphones: we find that the audio, not ending up channeled towards our eardrum like in in-ear headphones, loses definition and becomes flat. However, with Huawei FreeClip it seems to us that the Chinese company has done an excellent job in making the most of our auricle.
In standard mode, the 10.8mm dual magnet driver It can play well too complicated tracks like Free by Florence + The Machine, which has strong bass that vibrates along with the artist’s vocal highs. The bass doesn’t pack as much as in in-ear or over-ear headphones, but it feels good. We were surprised by how well he managed the bass of Loyalty by Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna: also in this case the deep bass does not shake the ears, but is heard in a distinct and melodic way. And then we appreciated how she knew manage spatiality complex of the track. There aren’t many earphones that do this as well, none with open-ear designs.
The standard mode handles rock and pop tracks very well, from While My Guitar Gently Weeps by the Beatles to Cenere di Lazza. The mode Treble Boost the high notes are better, but it seems recommended only for certain tracks full of strings and little else. The Bass Boost However, it cannot overcome the physical limitations of the open-ear design, but it makes the bass heard more decisively. However, we preferred to use the standard mode in most situations.
L’AI Life App Huawei also has a Voices mode to highlight the singer’s voice, but which also helps in listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Which for some reason seems to be the only flaw: the voices in speech sound less natural than we expected. But we are looking at the detail: they are more than usable for this purpose too.
Call management and touch controls
The microphone is handling calls very well: our voice was heard very well even in noisy environments. The background noise cancellation it works really well: we had a conversation on the train next to a group of people talking relatively loudly, and our interlocutor couldn’t hear him. The voice, however, sounds a little more mechanical than it should, probably due to the aggressive noise cancellation. But it is an acceptable compromise for phone calls, we are satisfied.
The touch controls work well, and although we were initially skeptical of the positioning on the C-Bridge, we used them with relative ease. You can edit them from the app, without you will have the possibility to play/pause and answer the phone with a double tap and forward the track with a triple tap. Those are few controls for a premium pair of earbuds, but they’re the most useful ones.
Also comfortable Smart Wear Detection, which pauses if you remove your musical earrings from your ears. Even if given the open-ear design you can talk while still listening to your playlist.
Autonomy
Huawei ensures that the battery lasts up to 8 hours, with 36 hours in the charging case. Realistically, you won’t need more. We wore them to listen to music during a morning at work, then didn’t charge them and resumed them after lunch: it seems to us that Huawei’s estimates are not far from the truth.
Charging the case takes just over half an hour and there is also the ricarica wireless.
Huawei FreeClip review: is it worth it?
After the tests in our review we can say that the Huawei FreeClip do what they promise to do very well. The design is aesthetically beautiful and very comfortable to wear, even for long periods. The audio quality is very high for open-ear headphones, which allow you to hear the world around you without problems. Call management, battery life and sports use are also good: they are complete earphones.
Il price of 199.90 euros on the official website (which until 12/31 also includes the excellent Huawei Band 8 that we reviewed here) reflects this quality. They’re unique, and that means they’re not headphones for everyone.
We continue to prefer the “rubbers” of the in-ears, and at this price there are solutions that sound better than the excellent FreeClips. However, if you like the design, prefer to listen to the world around you and are willing to pay a premium price, they are a quality product.
