Huawei FreeBuds Pro 3 review: sound of every note

In the world of wireless headphones, the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 3 have been quite a standout this year. Combining outstanding sound quality, advanced noise cancelling technology and stylish design, these headphones deserve a detailed review. It’s amazing how the company manages to keep making devices while under the pressure of sanctions. But that doesn’t diminish the Chinese vendor’s ambition, and the new headphones are a perfect example of that.

Exterior of Huawei FreeBuds Pro 3

If you like shiny things, you’ll love these headphones. The Freebuds Pro 3 are available in three finishes — silver frost, white ceramic and green. But regardless of the color, the headphones themselves are as polished as possible and will not only catch the eyes of others, but also dust and fingerprints.

The Freebuds Pro 3 3 3 is available in frosted silver, ceramic white and green.

The little charging case, by the way, is matte and made of nanoglass with mirrored branding on the back, it’s resistant to marks and scratches, and the hidden hinge gives it a cool look and feel.

The headphones look stylish and modern, though their appearance may evoke different opinions. The headphones are controlled using touch gestures, which include pinching and swiping on the barrel of the earpiece. Some users may find that recognizing gestures requires a fairly firm press, which can be uncomfortable.

It comes with, of course, replaceable ear cushions and a charging cable (no adapter).

Huawei Freebuds Pro 3 Specifications

These headphones are quite competitive in terms of specs. The battery life of up to 31 hours (including the charging case) is quite acceptable, and after 31 hours you can choose wired or wireless charging, as with all of this year’s flagship models.

And after 31 hours, you can choose between wired or wireless charging, as with all of this year’s flagship models.

There are three stages of active noise cancellation: «off», «transparent» and «on» and when on, you can choose from four intensity levels. Wireless connectivity is Bluetooth 5.2, and SBC and AAC codecs are supported, as well as high-resolution LDAC and L2HC 2.0 alternatives (although given that the latter is exclusive to Huawei smartphones, its availability is more limited than Huawei would have liked).

Huawei’s latest smartphone is a bit more limited than Huawei would have liked).

Each earpiece has three microphones and a bone conduction speaker for active noise cancellation, telephony and voice control, and the headphones themselves are IP54 dust- and water-resistant (no swimming, but they’ll survive the rain).

Huawei’s FreeBuds Pro 3 is designed to protect against dust and moisture (no swimming, but they’ll survive the rain).

Control is via «pinch» or «swipe» gestures on the earbuds’ stems. However, rather oddly, the corresponding surface is on the front rather than the side of each earbud, making them unnatural and uncomfortable to use.

There’s also a curious AI Life control app. Half a dozen EQ presets and a 10-band EQ are particularly useful for exploring the sonic boundaries of Freebuds Pro 3.

An AI Life control is also a curious app.

Huawei Freebuds Pro 3 Sound

Huawei FreeBuds Pro 3 deliver pretty good sound quality. They utilize Hi-Res Audio Wireless support, which ensures that the sound is clear and detailed. The headphones produce a rich sound. EQ presets let you customize the sound to suit your preferences, and a 10-band equalizer lets you create your own settings for the perfect sound.

When it comes to what you like to listen to, Huawei is pretty agnostic and has a pretty big comfort zone. During the test, music ranged from a Funkadelic song «I Wanna Know if It’s Good to You» in 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC format to a 24-bit/96kHz file «Wish You Were Gay» by Billie Eilish via a 320kbps stream of The Boy With The Arab Strap by Belle and Sebastian. The headphones seem ready to make the most of any situation they find themselves in.

The headphones are ready to make the most of any situation they find themselves in.

If you leave the EQ settings in the control app at «Default (Huawei sound)», the overall balance is very pleasing. Bass frequencies are deep and well textured, acceptably detailed and quite varied in tone and timbre. They’re fairly free-flowing through the midrange, so whether it’s Funkadelic’s massed voices, Belle and Sebastian’s indie stylings or Billie Eilish’s confessionals from a close mic, the voices sound good and without lack of character.

On the top end, the sound is suave, with enough substance to balance out the ringing treble. Here too, the Huawei maintain a high level of detail and have enough harmonic variation to avoid a sense of monotony.

Huawei also maintains a high level of detail and have enough harmonic variation to avoid a sense of monotony.

The soundscape created by the Freebuds Pro 3 is ample and well controlled. There’s also ample dynamic range, which means that the intensity changes evident in each recording are described faithfully. And the balanced and naturalistic overall tonality, combined with an even approach to the frequency range, creates a convincing sense of unity and uniqueness in even the most overexposed recordings.

When it comes to active noise reduction, however, success is far more modest. Despite the relative amount of customization available in the control app, the Freebuds Pro 3 was never able to fully deal with external stimuli. So you can count on noise reduction rather than noise suppression.

Conclusions about the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 3

Premium active noise-canceling headphones

Huawei has come up with some good headphones that may appeal to music lovers, as they sound quite good for different scenes and tracks. But there are some issues with the shiny design that makes the gadget visually cheaper. And some censures were caused by noise modulation, which did not cope with all external stimuli. It seems that for 15,000 rubles, which are asked for headphones, this is not a bad result. Just a little more and it will be straight up good.

Pros

• Sound Quality
• Price
• Completeness

Cons

• Disputed design
• Inadequate noise reduction