Late last year, Huawei Philippines released the Huawei Freebuds 3 mainly with active noise cancelling (ANC) but some might not able to get with it's price tag so they made an affordable option.
Meet the Huawei Freebuds 3i which also has ANC but with a more pocket-friendly SRP at Php 5990
You can check more on our unboxing and first look at the video below:
Even though we already saw it's form factor for a number of times from it's competitiors in the TWS space, we love this implementation from Huawei compared to others which has that pod or bean-inspired shapes. For us, it gave us more grip on our ears. Noise-cancelling activation is easy to activate by press and holding the touch sensor part in any of the left or right ear part. Noise cancellation, it will not gonna give you of course with those enclosed headphones. Just imagine you will not gonna hear a normal conversation inside a jeep but not the strong sound of the jeep's motor.
On battery life, it was on target on their promise. 3.5 hours on one single charge on the pair and 14 hours in total with the charging case. Charging it took us usually for an hour. By the way, it has a USB TypeC port. Pairing at first was kinda difficult due to that small button but thanks to the light indicator inside the case, it was alright. It was better if you pair either with a Huawei smartphone or tablet if you download Huawei AI Life either on Google Play (if you still have GMS) or Huawei AppGallery.
Overall sound quality, it was at best when we used to listen to rock and electronica (especially with the 20th anniversary of Hybrid Theory on Spotify) but it was a bit notch lower compared to our usual go-to wireless audio on the go, Huawei Freelace. Utilizing both the ear and mic for a number of Zoom video conferences that we attended, it was very good.
Speaking of Huawei AI Life app, you can have more customization on controls like pause/play, next track and even that function that if you will gonna remove at least one earpiece, the playback will stop either on Android or Windows PC. It was a-ok on our Windows Laptop as well as a Huawei tablet (soon for review), Huawei Y9s and Huawei Nova 7 5G. The app can also detect the actual battery life in each earpiece.
For the price that Huawei is asking, noise cancellation, on the future side with USB Type-C and battery side and the grip on our ears plus special features, Huawei Freebuds 3i was a-ok for us. It's gonna be 4 out of 5 for Huawei Freebuds 3i which you can buy right now at their offline stores and third-party dealers, Lazada, Shopee and their own official online store inside Huawei Philippines official site
