Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 – the best AirPods Pro alternative for me

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There are two areas that matter most to me when it comes to earbuds. The first is, of course, audio quality. You buy earbuds to enjoy glorious sound hitting your eardrums. The second is fit. What’s the point of angelic sound if your ears start hurting after 15 minutes?The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 nail both. Huawei has always paid close attention to sound and comfort, and with the FreeBuds Pro 5, the company has taken that approach to new heights.

These earbuds are extremely comfortable — and that’s coming from someone who usually finds in-ear headphones either painful or constantly slipping out. Huawei reportedly analyzed more than 10,000 ear profiles to sculpt these buds for optimal fit, anchoring them at data points where ear canal overlap is most common.

The sound? Very, very good. The buds use a third-generation audio chip with dual DSPs that independently process bass and high frequencies, reducing crossover distortion and noise. You also get active noise cancellation (ANC), touch controls, gesture navigation, strong battery life, and a competitive price.

I’ve always wanted a true AirPods alternative — and these might just be it. Let’s dig in.

FreeBuds Pro 5 Design

The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 look and feel premium. My review unit came in the Sand color — a stylish light gold hue. The case is slightly smaller than the previous generation, compact and comfortable thanks to its rounded shape.A front-facing LED ring shows charging status. A discreet side button handles pairing and resetting. The lid uses a concealed hinge mechanism for a clean aesthetic. Charging happens via USB-C, and wireless charging is supported as well.

The buds themselves have a sculpted, ergonomic design. You can clearly see the effort Huawei put into maximizing comfort. Each bud weighs around 5.5 grams and sits securely in the ear. The FreeBuds Pro 5 comes with a great selection of tips in different sizes and even materials. 

Medium silicone tips worked best for me, but it’s great to have options. You can swap to smaller tips for a tighter fit during workouts. I completed multiple 5K runs at a solid 4:30/km pace without issues. For badminton sessions, smaller tips improved stability — and they held up well, although it’s a bit of a fringe scenario as I prefer to listen to the feather hitting my racket.The IP57 rating means sweat and dust aren’t a concern too. Now, let’s talk about sound — where these earbuds really shine.

Listening experience and ANC

The FreeBuds Pro 5 are quite sophisticated when it comes to audio tech. The buds come with some really clever hardware and software audio features. The automatic wear detection is nothing new, but the buds can also detect the surrounding soundscape and adjust the volume and/or the EQ to compensate and give the best audio quality.

There’s also head gestures – you nod to take a call and shake your head to decline one. The gesture controls are pretty intuitive and I found them quite precise. You swipe on the stem to adjust the volume, double and triple-tap to play/pause and skip songs, press and hold to wake your preferred voice assistant, etc.

You can also customize all of these on each bud if you’re used to a different control scheme, so there’s great flexibility on the gesture control front. Time to talk about the noise cancellation, as this tech can be tricky on earbuds.

Just like with any other in-ear headphones, the level of ANC will be greatly affected by the tightness of the fit. Huawei advertises 35 dB noise reduction, and I can’t comment on exact numbers, but you can really hear the ANC. Especially if you ensured proper contact between the tip of the bud and your ear canal. 

The ANC has four different modes, including smart dual-core, which is based on your surroundings and dynamically adjusts the level of noise cancelation. Then there are the usual ones — Cozy, General, and Ultra, which are pretty self-explanatory.

You can manually turn off the ANC and also switch on the Awareness mode. What this does is use the noise-cancelling microphones to pass external sounds to your ear, giving you extra awareness (pun intended) in situations where you might need it.

FreeBuds Pro 5 sound quality

The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 sound really great. Huawei has implemented some clever hardware tech to further enhance the sound quality, and these buds are absolutely a competitor to any AirPods Pro out there.There’s a dual DAC mode where the signals from the low frequency and the mids and highs are processed separately to limit noise and crossover. This results in a 200% improvement in digital cross-over precision and a 50% reduction in DAC noise.

On the software and codec side of things, the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 support Huawei’s own high-resolution L2HC 4.0 codec. If you have a Huawei phone that supports it, you can achieve a 2.3 Mbps transmission speed and 48 kHz/24-bit lossless sound quality. You can also enjoy Spatial Audio (similar to Apple’s Spatial Audio) and some neat features such as real-time voice translation.

Pairing the FreeBuds Pro 5 with other brands of phones will get you 990 Kbps and LDAC, which is pretty decent as well. In terms of EQ presets, there are plenty to choose from, and you can also create your own using the 10-band custom EQ mode.

I found the best results in terms of sound quality using the Huawei Sound Classical preset and ANC on, but there are presets that emphasize the bass frequencies, voices, etc. There’s also a movie mode and a gaming mode, so you can game with these buds (they also have a low-latency mode specifically designed for gaming).

My favorite jazz-folk band, The Amazing Devil, sounds amazing (another pun, not intended this time) through the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5. The soundscape is quite wide and rich; I was able to hear all the orchestration with great separation and quality. 

I tried some DnB tracks (the Sound Bass mode is great for those) and also my high-school heavy metal love – Judas Priest. No matter what I threw at the FreeBuds Pro 5, they managed to produce clear and detailed sound, and it required minimal tweaking from my side.

You can also use them to listen to podcasts, YouTube videos, cooking instructions, or just voice calls. The quality is great in all of those scenarios, which takes us to the next part of the review. How long do these buds last on a single charge?

FreeBuds Pro 5 battery life

Huawei says the FreeBuds Pro 5 can last up to 9 hours on a single charge with ANC off, and using the charging case you can get 38 hours more. But realistically, using all the bells and whistles, ANC on, sound quality priority and high-resolution audio, you can get a good 6-7 hours from the buds, which is pretty decent.

I’m sure if you turn all the enhancements off, don’t use ANC, and listen with 50% volume, you can get to those advertised 9 hours, but I advise against it. You need to experience all the features and get the best sound possible. 

The buds charge quite quickly too; you can get them back to 100% in about half an hour, and the case offers 4 to 5 charges before needing a charge itself. Which can be done via a USB-C cable or wirelessly, so a lot of flaxibility here as well. So, turn everything on and enjoy!

Should you buy the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5?

The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 are available in the UK and globally starting at €199/£180 (around $229 after direct conversion), which is a good price for what they have to offer, in my opinion. The buds sound great; they are comfortable, and they last a decent chunk of time on a single charge.As an added bonus, the ANC is pretty decent for in-ear headphones, the design is stylish, and you have great software features and customization. The only downside for our US-based readers is that Huawei devices are hard to get in the States. The FreeBuds Pro 5 can be found on Amazon and other big international online stores, so you can still get a pair.

Read the latest from Mariyan Slavov


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