- The FreeBuds Pro 5 have landed, billed as toting Huawei’s ‘best-ever ANC’
- 10% smaller; 6% lighter; all-new dual-driver acoustic system
- …and after four days with them, I like them a lot for £179 (global pricing TBC)
After a 16-month hiatus — Huawei took the wraps off its FreeBuds Pro 4 back in November 2024 — the brand is back with the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5.
It’s too soon to issue a full verdict, but my early take should come as welcome news to the company, whose Pro-suffixed lineup dates back to September 2020 with the inaugural Huawei FreeBuds Pro (followed up with the FreeBuds Pro 2 in the summer of 2022 and the FreeBuds Pro 3 in late 2024) but which so far haven’t managed to exceed a four-star rating.
My hunch is, that’s about to change.
Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5: what you need to know
Some key pieces of information then. There’s a new “diamond-etched star oval” on the bar (or stem) which has a touch sensor, but you can also squeeze the stems and swipe up or down on the inner edge of said stems, to control volume. The pinch, press, or press-and-hold gesture commands can be tweaked and tailored in the new Huawei Audio Connect app, which I found both slick and intuitive, with easy menu access to quickly find what you want to tweak.
Huawei also tells me the new internal antenna provides a 38% improvement on Bluetooth range, and is twice as good at nixing Bluetooth interference. I’ve yet to test them in a truly challenging or built-up area, but, given what I’ve heard so far, I’m inclined to believe the claim.
Your color options are white, gray, a blue vegan leather finish, and sand (my set), and the slimline case is a real highlight. It snaps shut with strong magnets, and features a halo ring-light on the front which can glow red, green or white to tell you about battery life, pairing status and so on.
One thing on pairing: there’s a small button on the right side of the case when looking at the halo light, which you need to press on initial pairing. However, once I consulted the quick-start guide and app to discover this, the connection to both Bluetooth and the companion app has never faltered.
The earpieces are, says Huawei, 10% smaller, 6% lighter and “comfort evolved” using more than 10,000 ear profiles. I can confirm that they feel smaller over the antitragus, and aren’t a wearying fit, even for my smaller ears.
Despite their smaller, lighter dimensions, the audio output end is allegedly bigger, thanks to an all-new dual-driver acoustic system. It uses a reengineered 6mm planar magnetic tweeter and a circuit woofer that boasts 45% less distortion and promotes independent airflow between the drivers, in the headshell. This, says Huawei, means clearer and more precise audio across the frequencies.
If you use a Huawei phone (I do not), the company tells me you’ll gain access to 24-bit/48kHz audio, which is definitely hi-res, but even without one the brand claims you’ll still get close to 16-bit/44.1 kHz CD audio quality.
Something Huawei’s calling “unlimited head-tracked spatial audio” is also listed as onboard, which essentially means device-agnostic immersive audio that doesn’t require a Huawei source device. At the time of writing (which is ahead of their launch), I can’t find this within the app, but perhaps it’s incoming.
Better noise cancellation, stellar battery life? Yes, and yes
You’re getting three mics per bud in the FreeBuds Pro 5 to aid with what Huawei’s calling the “world’s first earbuds with a Dual-Engine ANC architecture”. Basically, the dual-driver system works in unison but as independent noise-cancellation engines, where the low-frequency driver tackles persistent rumbles while the high-frequency driver gets to nixing those sudden, sharp sounds.
A new MIMO AI Sensing model is at the helm, processing noise data up to 400,000 times per second. And the result? It’s a big claim: Huawei says the FreeBuds Pro 5’s noise cancellation has improved up to 220% compared to the previous generation.
Specifically, because efficacy differs depending on environment (i.e., the specific noise that the algorithm and audio architecture are trying to quash) I’m told that your upgrades are up to 204% at the gym, or 220% in an aircraft cabin. The ANC can also reach higher frequencies than before, at up to 6kHz (from 4kHz in the older model).
I’ve not taken a flight with them yet, but I have to tell you that based on my short time with the FreeBuds Pro 5, the ANC is very good. I deploy it and the low-level thrumming noise of my home (neighors, cars outside, the news headlines we keep on loop because my partner is also a journalist) simply melt away. Is it AirPods Pro 3 level-good? I’ll need more time… but like I said, it’s good!
One last thing on the ANC before I move on to stamina: alongside your usual ‘Noise cancelling’, ‘Awareness’ and ‘Off’ toggles in the app, deploying noise cancelling allows you to choose between ‘Dual-engine’ (the solution described above, which I like a lot), ‘Cozy’ (for places with little noise), ‘General’ (your everyday noise) and ‘Ultra’ (for very noisy places). Within Awareness, you can also select ‘Standard’, ‘Voice awareness’ and ‘Adaptive awareness’. And refreshingly, I found that none of these made my music tinny or filtered far too much ambient noise into my poor shell-likes, but did allow me to hear my surroundings nicely.
Okay, so what about battery life? It’s also good on paper, at nine hours (without ANC deployed) or 38 hours including the case. Although that’s initially comparable to the AirPods Pro 3, which offer eight hours with ANC on or 6.5 hours with extra whistles and bells like the heart rate sensor on, the Apple product only offers 24 hours with the case.
Obviously, I need to test these claims, but as someone who takes long train journeys yet has a very poor gadget-charging game, I do value extra stamina in my listening gear.
Other perks
In no particular order, also on the menu here are multipoint to two devices, eight EQ presets to prioritize certain frequencies such as ‘Voice’, or for specific use cases including ‘Movie mode’ (all developed by experts at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, no less), or the option to create your own using a 10-band EQ tab.
Conversation awareness is also here (albeit somewhat hidden behind the ‘adaptive audio’ tab, next to Adaptive volume) which is similar to Sony‘s Speak to Chat, and while I found it didn’t quite lower the volume level of my music quite as much as the recent Sony WF-1000XM6 rival, I still like it.
You also get the option of answering and rejecting calls by nodding or shaking your head, wear detection to pause playback if you remove one bud and resume it when you put it back in, an ear-tip fit test, and a toggle to optimize the tuning if you’re using memory foam tips (which is interesting as only silicone options are provided, although you get four in total and the pre-fitted medium set fit me just fine).
There’s also a nice ‘Find’ feature that emits a sound from whichever bud you’ve dropped under the couch to help you find it, a low-latency toggle for gaming, an option to get ANC in just one earbud, and finally, the choice to toggle case sounds on or off.
This might seem silly, but the case tones are great! And I stand by that statement. Once toggled on, you can select from a range of tones such as ‘Fountain’, ‘Pixies’ and ‘Dewdrop’, but ‘Whistle’ is my favorite. It’s one to switch off if you’re trying to surreptitiously get some music in your ear to make lectures go that little bit quicker, of course, but it lifted my spirits every time I opened that little case and got a cheerful whistle for my trouble.
And the sound?
There are no hearing tests here to create personalized sound profiles or augment your hearing, but I found the sound punchy and assertive while at the same time clear, neutral, and able to unearth details across the frequencies other buds for this money struggle to reach.
Bad Bunny’s BAILE INoLVIDABLE was expansive, but showcased female backing vocals in my right ear rarely polished up and celebrated by buds at this level. The trumpets sound textured and real and the timing is razor-sharp, with leading edges of notes all given due diligence in a zealous mix. It was a similar story with Perfume Genius’ Glory, with the rhythmic percussion faithfully underpinning Michael Alden Hadreas’ central and emotive vocal, as high-pitched playful glockenspiel notes ping up through the treble.
For £179 (which is around $240 or AU$340, although these are guesstimates, as official pricing for the US and Australia is yet to be announced) the sound-per-pound value is strong, for me.
Check back for a full review soon though…
The best wireless earbuds for all budgets
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becky.scarrott@futurenet.com (Becky Scarrott)
