Welcome to the party, pals.
You're reading another edition of Tech Corner after a wee break for the last while due to me being on annual leave. It was really nice, thanks for asking. No hint of a farmer's tan.
This week I've been looking at the Huawei Freebuds 4, which continues the trend of wearables that has permeated this column in recent weeks.
Although I should add that my Zoom calls continue to look
top notch these days.
While Huawei is not quite the powerhouse it was in the smartphone world due to the ongoing US ban, it certainly has not stopped them releasing elite tech options over the past number of years.
I received the Huawei Freebuds 4 a few weeks ago to try out and it’s easy for me to admit that they’ve won me over for daily use.
I’ve always been keen on the wireless earbuds options that the likes of Samsung provides with the likes of the Galaxy Buds Pro (and I still am, for reasons I’ll outline later) which fit into your ear and manage to create both a physical barrier to sound as well as noise cancelling features.
But one of the advantages of open ear fits are the comfort, which has been one of the main reasons the Freebuds 4 have become my new daily drivers.
One thing that should be mentioned is they can be a little tricky to get out of the case, but once you're over that particular hurdle, it should be mostly plain sailing.
The noise cancelling is decent and able to block out a good amount of ambient noise from around you, but with an open fit design, noise cancelling is never going to be able to cut out all the noise. So full disclosure, it's not market leader in this sense so if that's an important part to you there are some other options out there.
A real positive in the Freebuds 4 is they have larger 14mm drivers and the sound quality is very good overall, and it also means that if you really want to blare a tune, you can turn them up louder than is advisable.
While they sound their best at medium volume, I had no issues as there's a bass bunch that sounds very good at louder levels.
For exercise, they did stay in my ears throughout but I do prefer a pair of in ear earbuds for piece of mind that I'm not going lose them somewhere along the way.
All in all, they've replaced my old earbuds for daily use but I have held on to my old ones in case I want to go for a heavy run.
The Freebuds 4 are available for €139 and are available
here.
