Is it possible to release budget headphones that will be more comfortable than some of our own flagship models?
Table of contents
- Appearance
- Sound
- Control
- Competitors
- Honor Choice Earbuds X
- JBL TUNE 225TWS
- Total
How scary it is to live, and all that…
While domestic retailers sell equipment withsome very unhealthy prices, a week ago, on Aliexpress, you could easily save a lot of money on buying literally everything. The usual situation: the dollar exchange rate on the trading floor was like that of the Central Bank, the conditional Realme GT Neo 2 was sold for 16.5 thousand rubles. At the same time, this smartphone can still be found in DNS for 40 thousand rubles.
Today, the situation with the exchange rate on Aliexpress is a little worse, but Chinese sellers still cannot catch up with Russian sellers. Will Chinese prices rise again? Yes, you just have to wait.
Now, after all these horrors with jumpingprices for digital technology, imagine that you suddenly find yourself in need of inexpensive fully wireless headphones. And here, among the electronics with cosmic prices, strange headphones from Huawei appear. With a fairly attractive cost at the start and the ability to buy them here and now. They just look weird. But first things first.
Appearance
The Freebuds SE case is very similar to that ofother headphones - Honor Magic Earbuds. Outside, there are almost no differences, but inside - please. The function button for pairing has moved from the outer surface straight into the case. The location is convenient, now dirt should not remain in the space between the button itself and the case. Who cares, but I don’t really like external buttons for one simple reason - the manufacturer always tries to make them literally invisible. Immediately, it is neatly highlighted, a finger gropes without much effort.
The shape of the headphones “well, we have it here quite by accidentAirPods turned out” is familiar from many other Huawei models: Freebuds 4i, Freebuds Lipstick and wired bundled headphones for smartphones. But only this form with a catch. Even with two!
First, these are not exactly in-ear headphones.The sound channel here ends not only with a mesh, but also with tiny silicone ear pads. Was this addition a solution to the problem of low passive noise isolation? Probably not. The headphones have become more pleasant in terms of fit, yes, but they still do not protect against the external environment, alas.
Often this form of headphones involvesthe presence of a second hole in the case, designed to output sound additionally into the auricle, and not just into the ear canal. At first, it may even seem that there is still a second hole in the headphone case. However, this is never it, although it looks very similar. Instead, there is the very second catch, the position sensor, which allows you to automatically stop playing when you remove the headphones from your ears.
Huawei Freebuds SE
What about ease of use?During cycling, there was not a single case when the heart sank into the heels, and the brain actively drew situations of headphones flying under the wheels. The weight of each earbud is only 4.7g, so it takes a lot of effort to intentionally shake them out.
Huawei Freebuds SE are devoid of strict forms, which is whyheadphones from Apple, they seem to be much less so than the same related Freebuds 4i. The leg looks a little plump, so I personally have funny associations with a pair of Lego and Lego Duplo: the details in the first version of the designer are straight and very strict, in the second set there is an intentional toy. And, you know, the use of such a style in headphones today looks fresher than another homage to the Cupertinos.
Sound
Hifi? Or maybe Crystal Clear Sound Quality?Because in Huawei Freebuds SE, the sound quality was designated in this way. But what do they really sound like? From objective indicators, for example, the diameter of the emitters. It is much smaller here than in the Freebuds 4 (10 mm versus 14.3 mm), but the same as in the Freebuds 4i. In general, nothing new, a normal average result for headphones from this price category.
Huawei Freebuds SE
By the way, they did not lie about the wide sound picture.Well, as far as it is possible in the context of budget wireless headphones. By the nature of the sound, they reminded me of the Galaxy Buds +: the lack of low frequencies was filled with very good mids and highs. Heavy genres may well make you shake your head without disgust and shouting “why so bad?”. The bass will not respond in the chest, of course, but it will be possible to make out most of the instruments in the compositions. As for me, quite a good indicator for cheap audio equipment.
Huawei Freebuds SE
There is no active noise canceling system in the headphones,but for such a form factor, this is rather a plus. Freebuds 4 with exactly the same design of the part of the case in which the emitter is located, received both active “noise reduction” and the price, respectively, twice as high. Useful for the buyer in this decisively little.
Promotional materials on the site even at firstThey hint at the presence of some kind of “noise cancellation”, but if you read a little more carefully, it will become clear that noise reduction only works to cut off the input noise that enters the microphone during a conversation.
Approximately the same promotional materials also promiselower latency in games, but in practice it is difficult to find differences from other headphones without special equipment. The delay in TWS headphones was defeated a few years ago with the massive transition to new Bluetooth standards.
Control
Customize all ways to interact with your headphonesYou can use the AI Life companion app, which acts as a unifying link for all Huawei equipment. Another thing is that there are not so many of these methods.
You can stop playback singletouch, but I did not succeed the first time. Either I'm choosing the wrong place to click, or it's a local protection against false positives. In any case, start / pause can be assigned to a double tap on one of the headphones, and you still have one double tap on the other headphone, which you can “hang”, for example, the transition to the next track.
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Huawei AI Life app
And now there is no place left for the call buttonvoice assistant. Either you leave the playback control (start/stop) and the ability to call an assistant and get headphones only for “streaming”, or you change one button in this set to skip to the next track in order to have at least some influence on what you listen to.
All this already limits the conditions quite strongly.headphones, despite their IPX4 water and dust resistance rating. Sports activities? This is not about Huawei Freebuds SE. Still, to use them, it is desirable to have a smartphone nearby so that you can turn up the volume level if the track in the playlist is too furious. In the gym, it will be hard to keep constant contact with the phone. But for calls and leisurely walks with a phone in your pocket - that's it.
Competitors
Huawei Freebuds SEHonor Choice Earbuds XJBL TUNE 225TWSBluetooth5.2, SBC5.2, SBC, AAC5.0, SBCFrequency20 – 20,000 Hz20 – 20,000 Hz20 – 22,000 HzActive noise reductionnoDegree of protectionIPX4IPX4noImpedance–32 OhmHeadphone sensitivity–105 dBEmitter diameter10 mm12 mm12 mmAutonomy37 + 410 mAh (6 + 24 h) 40 + 500 mAh (6 + 30 h) 22 + 410 mAh (5 + 20 h)Weight37.5 g37.5 g57 gPrice3300 rubles3000 rubles3500-5000 rubles (depending on color)
Honor Choice Earbuds X
Honor Choice Earbuds X
Headphones identical in form factor from Honor -classic earbuds with a noticeable AirPods influence. At a similar price, those same “high technologies” there's more here. Honor engineers were able to add an active noise reduction system here, which is not to say that it is too necessary in headphones without passive noise isolation. But here the emitters themselves are larger - 12 mm versus 10 mm for the hero of the review.
JBL TUNE 225TWS
JBL TUNE 225TWS
The model is old, straight from 2020.In the nearly two years since its release, the price of these earbuds hasn't dropped much, matching the price of the Freebuds SE. True, not all versions are now like this, but only the simplest ones (TUNE 225TWS even exist in a version with a transparent case!). Inside, everything is ascetic: there is no noise reduction, but the emitters are again larger than those of the earbuds from the review.
Total
It cannot be said that inexpensive and balancedTWS-sounding headphones are a rarity these days. Everything is exactly the opposite, and Huawei Freebuds SE is a good confirmation of this. For relatively little money, you get good sound quality along with stable, lag-free performance (thanks to Bluetooth version 5.2), a rather funny blue color scheme, and almost six hours of autonomy on a single charge of the Freebuds SE itself.
Huawei Freebuds SE
Experiment with small ear padswent to the headphones in favor - the landing became more pleasant than that of ordinary plastic earbuds. But I would not dare to call them “plugs”, although the renderers ask to do this. Other pluses: almost six hours of continuous playback (add four more charge cycles from the case here) and, it feels like a pretty fast charging of the case itself.
Yes, at least some protection from water looks morewhich is great in headphones for 3 thousand rubles, but it’s most likely that it won’t work out to fully engage in active sports in them - there are too few controls to feel “autonomous” with a smartphone in a backpack.