Huawei officially launches the curvy FreeBuds 5 with certified Hi-Res Audio in UK

Andrew Romero | Apr 11 2023 - 8:49 am PT

Breaking ground with a certainly unique design, Huawei has officially announced the FreeBuds 5. These truly wireless earbuds pack a surprising amount of tech in a very interesting package.

Even on the surface, the FreeBuds 2 don’t really fit the category of “normal.” At its core, the earbuds take on a water droplet shape, with a speaker grill that lacks a silicone tip and reminds us of the original AirPods. Below the grill itself is a whole lot more earbud that is built to fit ear contours, according to Huawei.

The design is meant to create more surface area for skin to make contact with, which lightens the load on the user’s ear canal. The result is an earbud that feels extremely light and seems to disappear after a few moments.

Internally, the components that bring the FreeBuds 5 sound to life are able to spread out, thanks to the large profile. Huawei notes that the speaker, battery module, and circuit board are all separate from each other. This creates a noise feedback barrier that lends itself to a more pure sound. The company also notes that charging speed improves as well – up to 30 hours on a full charge with ANC off.

The driver system is made up of “ultra-magnet” drivers, which are tuned with bass in mind and can hit a very low frequency of 16 Hz. Response time is up, on the other hand, by around 50% when directly compared to the previous generation of FreeBuds. With that, the FreeBuds 5 makes use of custom sound by adapting the music to fit your ear canal shape. These adjustments happen in real-time during a listening session. If properly utilized, the FreeBuds 5 could make for a great listening experience, especially considering the Hi-Res Audio certification that comes along with them. While that doesn’t mean they’ll be incredible, it’s certainly a start.

ANC on the FreeBuds 5 takes three mics to get working and taps into the user’s ear canal shape info once again to create a customized experience. That, combined with Huawei’s deep neural network algorithm make up a complicated ANC mode, at least on the back end.