The Chinese manufacturer Huawei has designed an alternative to Apple’s popular AirPods with the wireless Free Buds 3. The headphones are similar to those of the Californian manufacturer in several ways.
Visually, they look very similar: If you look at the Free Buds 3, you won’t notice a difference to Apple’s AirPods. Huaweis wireless headphones, which were presented at this year’s IFA, are visually very similar to the top model of the competition. If you test the Free Buds 3, you’ll notice that they might even be a little more technically convincing. This can be traced back to the fact that Huawei offers its wireless headphones the painfully missing noise suppression of Apple. If you like listening to music on the train or bus, you’ll be pleased with Adaptive Noise Cancelling technology, as it’s capable of suppressing ambient noise to a certain extent.
Unlike large headsets, the use of this technology is not common for small in-ear headphones. Apple is planning to introduce this technology into its AirPods. Now, the Chinese competitor has outdone the technology giant and is presenting in-ear headphones of this size with the popular noise suppression for the first time. According to Huawei, the new Free Buds 3 are capable of reducing ambient noise to a noise level of fifteen decibels. Noise suppression of this magnitude should be able to easily suppress common background noise without making important acoustic signals such as sirens or car horns inaudible.
Huawei also spoke of an improvement in sound quality and now promises studio quality. The extent to which this can actually be achieved in practice remains to be seen. It is also known that the battery life of the new headphones should be up to four hours. They can be recharged in the charge case, which is supposed to provide energy for another twenty hours of operation. In this way, a total operating time of 24 hours can be achieved before the charge case and headphones have to be reconnected to the mains. Particularly practical is the fact that the charging case can also be supplied with new energy wirelessly – this is particularly interesting if the headphones are used together with a smartphone, which enables reverse wireless charging. This is the case with Huawei’s P30 Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy S10.
The wireless headphones use the Huaweis A1 chip, which, according to the manufacturer, will also be used in the company’s own smartphones in the future. This chip makes it possible to establish a Bluetooth connection.
The new headphones will be available in Germany from November 2019 for 199 euros in white and black.
