[Huawei Mate 20 Pro Themes, Apps, and Mods] Lukeff7:
Battery test result and general product review

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Hello,

Final details from me:

Battery life test:

Right earbud reached 1 hours 45 minutes and than ran out of battery completely

Left earbud continued to run until 2 hours 10 minutes and then ran out of battery completely

Can confirm that each one makes its own tone for battery warning. Both were equally fully charged so I am not sure why there is disparency between the length each lasts.

My product conclusion for those who are interested:

Huawei FreeBuds 2 Pro features you might not be aware of:

Inbuilt voice control: you can use your voice only to control the music and this does not use the voice assistant (Google, Siri, etc) so for example you can say next song, previous song, play music, stop music. You don't have to use a gesture or anything - you just say it.

Manual also says you can use: higher the volume, lower the volume; however myself and other users report this is not working.

BoneID: Use your unique voice pattern from inside your ears to unlock your phone and make payments. Neither of these features work outside of China.

The Huawei FreeBuds 2 Pro have some good points:

The sound quality is great. Even without HWA. Good deep bass response (for the design.)

A note on HWA - it is mostly Huawei devices that are supported. Check here for a list of certified devices and you will notice its only Huawei at this point in time: https://www.hwa-lhdc.org/mobile

Black colour is nice

Compaion app is available for non Huawei devices and can update firmware + get an English manual

Charging case shows the earbud charge via a little LED inside the case that changes colour based on charge (Red, amber, green) which is handy

No sync issues between the two earbuds they work pretty much flawlessly together

Bad points:

Battery tests show the earbuds are not reaching the advertised 2.5 hours. As you can tell from my previous posts, for me my right one is only making 1 hour 45 minutes.

This is a big problem for me at this price point. Fake AirPods (i10) are reaching 2 hours without a problem and cost a fraction of the price (around £30.)

Both buds were charged fully so it makes no sense to me that one died before the other, and this has happened in more than 1 test.

Sound quality is great, but:

This might because I do not have HWA, but whilst the quality is great, the fake i10 airpods once again get very close to its quality in terms of mids and hi's with only a fraction of the price.

However bass is definately superior on the FreeBuds 2 Pro.

You will not know this but in order to set the inbuilt voice music control to English, you need to download the companion app. This isn't immedately obvious when you buy the product.

Updating the firmware did nothing immedately obvious to the user. Upgrading may only be to get HWA on the earbuds right now. For Samsung S8 user like me, no HWA.

Another bad point (but is not the fault of the FreeBuds 2 Pro) is that I cannot see the earphone battery. I believe Huawei phone users will be able to see the battery status but something to just consider for other users.

To note - I can't see battery for i10 or any other wireless earphones either, anyway.

The inbuilt voice control is a good feature but actually causes issues. If you are working in a busy-ish office and people are sitting next/near to you and talking to each other, sometimes the Freebuds 2 Pro will think people are saying 'next song' or 'stop music' resulting in your music or video being skipped or stopped. This actually happens more than I would like and I know it is because of this because it does not happen when no one is next to me talking.

People are reporting wireless charging won't charge to 100% percent. I've not tested it with full attention, but I think mine also has this issues.

One reason I bought these is because I like this style of earphone however my fake airpods (i10) are very intermitend and affected by bluetooth interfearence very easily.

They often cut out from each other or just experience audio issues, but hey - they were cheap.

However, whislt the FreeBuds 2 Pro are better, they are not perfect - if I am near my car (which has bluetooth) and switching from car to FreeBud, or if I am near lots of bluetooth devices, I still experience some brief audio stutters. It is a lot better than the i10 fake airpods, however it is not perfect and I am disapointed at this price point considering the offical Apple AirPods probably do not suffer this.

The only reason to buy the PRO model if you are not in China is to get the black earbuds. I got a good price so went for these as I like the black.

However I believe the extra features (that do not work outside of China) such as inbuilt voice control and BoneID are just causing battery drain yet I cannot even use them.

My reccomendation to Huawei would be to add in an option for companion app to disable the inbuilt voice control and the BoneID in order to increase battery life.

Ultimate conclusion

I am returning my FreeBud 2 Pro's.

I think for this price point (not far from Apple AirPod) the battery life is not acceptable.

I love the colour and sound, so it is a shame - but with the skipping/pausing from others talking (see above) and the poor battery life (again see above), along with still some minor audio disconnect/interfearence issues, I think that they are not meeting expectations.

I will instead look forward to Apple's announcement of AirPods 2 later this month/year and hope that they are USB-C (the only reason I did not buy them in the first place.)

I put money towards Huawei this time as they are getting bigger and more premium but I don't think it was the right choise this time.

I hope this helps any prospective / current users. Thanks all.