Huawei Freebuds 7i

I'm a daily user of earphones for gaming, meetings, and listening to music, but with so much cool tech to choose from, I've never been prepared to pay a premium price for them. Most of the time, I switch between the earphones most suited to what I'm doing: I have wired USB-C earphones for doing meetings, some older OnePlus Buds Pro for listening to music, and for many years I've used a pair of Huawei Freebuds 4i for travelling, allowing me to filter out noise with its noise cancellation. I was therefore happy to try out the Huawei Freebuds 7i, to see how Huawei's entry-level earphones have evolved.

At first glance, the Huawei Freebuds 7i look very similar to most competing devices. The earphones are housed in a circular case in either fully black, white, or pink colours. I received the white colour for this review, and like the look of the glossy plastic. The design is well-balanced, with the earphones fitting neatly into the case. The entire product is in the same colour on the outside, with only minimal silver elements, such as the Huawei logo on the case and some sensors on the buds themselves. Design-wise the Freebuds 7i look on par with other more expensive earphones from Samsung and Apple, for example.

With a total weight under 50 grams, these are some of the more lightweight earphones I've held. Opening and closing the case is easily done, as the circular case provides enough surface and grip to hold with one hand, while inserting the earphones into your ear one-by-one. The stick end of each earphone is long enough to hold comfortably, and there's a good weight balance that prevents it from dropping from your fingers too easily. The earphones themselves have a fairly standard dust and water resistance at IP54, meaning you could use them outside on a rainy day as well.

In my experience, the Freebuds 7i are very comfortable to wear, even for several hours at a time. There's four different sizes of silicone tips included, which helps with finding a fit that's right. The Freebuds 7i fit me perfectly, with almost no chance of them falling out, even when I'm jumping up and down. This in part has to do with the silicone material, I think. I happened to have ordered some budget Bluetooth earphones from QCY to use for online calls, and had the exact opposite experience with these, as they continuously give me the feeling they're about to fall out, which reminded me of the importance of a good fit.

Coming to one of the most important aspects, the audio quality on the Freebuds 7i is very well-rounded. Focusing on music first, I find the Freebuds 7i to provide clear audio across the spectrum. I've compared them to some other earphones, and despite some other ones offering clearly stronger bass, I actually appreciate the clarity in the Freebuds. When listening to some metal songs for example, there's a good balance between deep sounds from guitar riffs, voices and things like cymbals in the drums. In some cheaper earphones I compared it to, the sounds were a lot more conjoined. I also used the earphones for gaming on my laptop, and shooting sounds are similarly balanced, with both clarity in higher tones and enough bass to get a feeling of heaviness from the sound.

Unfortunately, on the default equalizer setting, the audio seems to lag behind its potential a bit. The audio quality is a lot more flat compared to when you're using any of the equalizer presets in the AI Life app. I therefore would really recommend using the app, as it offers the customisation needed to boost the sound into different directions, with custom equalizers also possible. Getting the AI Life app does require some effort by getting it through Huawei's AppGallery, but this is a one-time time investment of just a couple of minutes.

A novelty on the Freebuds 7i is Huawei's new version of active noise cancellation, called Intelligent Dynamic Active Noise Cancellation 4.0. I've tried the noise cancellation on many different occasions, and it's capable of filtering out a lot of noise, though not all of it. In my experience, it's great at filtering out low noises, but some of the higher sounds will still get through. For example, the Freebuds 7i are amazing to wear during a flight, as it will filter out almost all of the loud but low humming sound you get in an airplane. It's a great experience to watch a series on your phone using the Freebuds 7i, as you can leave the volume relatively low to hear everything, and feel completely sealed off from the noise around you.

When listening to music at home, only the higher tones manage to penetrate the noise cancellation, such as the highest notes in someone's voice, or keys dropping on a table. The same goes when wearing the earphones outside: you will hear sharp sounds like a tram passing by in the background of your music, or a voice of someone calling out to you. On the whole though, even though it will not completely cancel out all background noise, the noise cancellation is great. I also tried using the earphones for meetings, and I think there's even some noise cancellation in the microphones going on. Call quality is clear, though nothing special, with some background noise such as louder voices being picked up during a call.

Other aspects I like about the earphones are the great battery life and tweaks you can do through the AI Life app. According to Huawei, the Freebuds 7i have between 5 to 8 hours of battery life in the buds themselves, and between 20 to 35 hours with the case for recharging in between. In my experience, that's about right, as I've only charged the earphones a couple of times now, even though I've been wearing them hours on end on a near-daily basis. The AI Life app adds some interesting features that are unavailable otherwise. There are the equalizer presets that add noticeable difference to the audio, and there's also a setting for spatial audio simulation. This allows you to simulate sound coming from the front or all around you, allowing you to look away from a laptop and hearing audio mostly in one ear, for example. Audio quality does seem to suffer a bit, as it removes some of the depth in the audio. I don't get the real-life use cases entirely, and therefore I haven't really used it outside of trying it a few times.

Lastly, the gestures on the Huawei Freebuds 7i are very handy and reliable to use. Gestures can be changed through the AI Life app, but by default several controls are available. Swiping the left earphone up or down controls the volume consistently, while holding either earphone switches between noise cancellation, awareness mode, or ANC off mode. These aren't unique features of course, but I like that it's predictable that it will work. The gestures work both on a smartphone and on a laptop by default.

Concluding, I think the Huawei Freebuds 7i offer good value for money at around 99 Euros. The noise cancellation is great for travelling, as it cancels out most of the noise around you, though not all of it. Audio quality is well-balanced, with equal clarity across the spectrum when listening to music, though I was expecting a bit more power in the bass and other low tones. Installing the AI Life app is a must to bring out the best in the audio. Beyond audio quality, the gestures are probably as good as they get in the Huawei Freebuds 7i, with very responsive touch controls for things like volume up and down or toggling noise cancellation. On the other hand, the new spatial audio feature is nice in theory, but fails to really impress as it reduces the audio clarity. Battery life is enough to last for a couple of days though, and with a great and comfortable fit for me personally, I think overall these are still a great pair of earphones.