Huawei FreeClip 2

When first laying eyes on the Huawei FreeClip 2, it's the small subtle details that hold your gaze. The case is more square, the layout of the interior has been slightly altered, and I honestly prefer the previous way it was styled. While this is vastly more compact it's slightly more complicated to put them away. This is being offset by the fact that there is no left or right. They adjust to whatever ear you have placed them on.

FreeClip uses what is known as a C bridge design, meaning it holds on to your ear via a bent piece of plastic that is attached to a counterweighted housing for the electronics. This design seems a lot more lightweight, airy, and far less intrusive for your ear canal as the speaker unit does not enter your ear canal like a regular in-ear will. Once you have learned to adjust them correctly to fit your exact ear shape they are easy to wear and I actually prefer them over regular in-ears for music and phone calls while using a computer. It's a very different way to wear headphones but I personally don't mind. On the contrary, I find it unfortunate that more brands don't make use of a similar design as it's much more comfortable than conventional units.

The driver units are dual drivers at 10.8 mm connected via Bluetooth 6.0. This is a standard barely supported by any modern devices, so it's nice to see Huawei being quite cutting edge here. However at the moment this mainly means that it can connect to two devices at the same time and supports pop-up pairing. The case houses a 537 mAh battery and the units themselves sit at 60 mAh. It's not a lot but enough for close to 40 hours when used almost exclusively for music listening. The charging time was just under an hour when completely drained but I usually recharge at around 20 percent power left in the case. The case itself has an odd finish which makes it look clean while still being more grippy than the competition. Plus, when using them for calls, it's not that I don't like the call quality, it's simply that music sounds so natural as the sound quality is actually good.

Pricing is close to the previous model at 229 Euro. They're not expensive and not cheap either, however considering how much more costly this must be due to specialised tools and moulds, I have chosen not to complain about the price.

Now besides the sound, which is very light and open you also need to realise that these are just as much an accessory. Due to the sheer comfort I strongly recommend that people at least try these instead of traditional in-ears if you don't mind a mere 5 gram setup in your ear. Traditional in-ears simply cannot compete in that regard, however, because you need to access them for tapping and swiping you also need to get comfortable with applying a small amount of pressure.

While the sound quality, especially in the bass, is really good the main drawback of the design is the lack of noise cancellation as mentioned earlier. They are not suitable for use on trains but work well for biking or walking. They are the superior choice due to much better awareness of your surroundings. At the same time the midrange and treble combined with good dynamics have made these my favourite when using wireless audio at home.