The FreeBuds series has always been one of HUAWEI’s most popular product lines. The FreeBuds i Series even is more affordable and has features that will fit well with most people’s daily use. The FreeBuds i Series have also recently been updated to the sixth generation. Let’s take a quick look at what the FreeBuds 6i has to offer and what has been upgraded.
Design & Wearing Comfort
This time around, the FreeBuds 6i still comes in three colorways: black, white, and purple. whereas the FreeBuds 5i’s purple would be more like blue, the 6i’s purple is the real deal. But unfortunately we only get our hands on the white version. The surface is free of speckles and resembles a pebble – Never go wrong with a glossy design.
The changes to the earbuds themselves are much smaller than the changes to the earbud case. the FreeBuds 6i is almost indistinguishable from the 5i. It still has the HUAWEI logo printed in the most noticeable place. The weight will be 0.5g heavier than the 5i, but it’s hard to notice when wearing it. After many iterations, the comfort of the FreeBuds doesn’t need to be wondered about anymore. I don’t have any problems wearing them for long periods of time anyway.
Sound Quality
The driver of the Huawei FreeBuds 6i has gotten a bit bigger than its predecessor. It comes with an 11mm Quad-magnet Dynamic Driver, which makes the low-frequency performance more surging and powerful, and the mid- and high-frequency more crispy and detailed. According to the website, the 11 mm quad-magnet dynamic drivers are 50% more powerful and Hi-Res certified, producing as low as 14 Hz of punchy bass.
This design is not only suitable for bass lovers but also satisfies users with high demands for vocal and instrumental details. In addition, FreeBuds 6i has Hi-Res AUDIO WIRELESS certification, which is able to restore more details of the music so that every note can be reproduced realistically. For actual listening, it handles well with various music types and reproduces them with good sound stage, which obviously far exceeds my expectation for a pair of budget wireless earbuds.
Noise Cancellation
Noise cancellation is one of the highlights of the FreeBuds 6i. The earphones are equipped with Huawei’s latest active noise cancellation technology, which is designed to effectively cancel out external noises through a dual-microphone feed-forward and feedback design. They call it Intelligent Dynamic ANC 3.0. Average full-range noise cancellation is 27 dB, with ultra-wide ANC frequency up to 5kHz. At least now based on my wearing experience, I would say the gap between the i series and the Pro series has been narrowed quite well.
After using it for a while, this mid-size eartips meet my needs very well. It’s worth noting that the FreeBuds 6i also features a well-done transparent mode for noting ambient sounds. Simply long press on the earbuds to switch to the Transparent Mode. Ambient sound can be heard clearly in this mode, which is much better than a similar budget earbuds, the Redmi Buds 5 Pro.
Operation & Connections
The FreeBuds 6i operates with the most common touch controls. A long press to switch the noise canceling mode, a double-tap to play or pause the music, and a swipe up or down to control the volume. This is a common way to operate wireless earbuds. Although it’s also pretty easy to maneuver, the squeeze control would be something we’d prefer to see. After all, tapping earbuds is not the most comfortable way for listening, and it’s easy to cause misoperations.
The FreeBuds 6i uses BlueTooth V5.3, which supports Pop-up Pair and dual-device connectivity. Other than the Bluetooth version upgrade, the connection is not much different from the 5i. After all, the 5i already has pretty stable connectivity with good latency.
Battery Life
With ANC on it keeps playing music for 5 hours, which will be an hour shorter than the battery life of the 5i. But with ANC OFF, the 6i will last another half hour longer than the 5i, at 8 hours. If you add up with the case of the earbuds, the overall battery life of the 6i is much longer, up to 35 hours of continuous music playback. Indeed, for daily use, the battery life is very impressive.
Charging the FreeBuds 6i is much faster, taking only 40 minutes to fully charge the earbuds and only 1 hour to fully charge the case. So you have the need to use earbuds for a long time, choosing the 6i will be much better than the 5i.
Verdict
The FreeBuds 6i is a competent successor. It improves in almost every aspect. Intelligent Dynamic ANC 3.0, in particular, is the best noise-canceling earbuds of any mid-range earbuds I’ve ever used. Because the Freebuds Pro doesn’t get updated every year, the FreeBuds 6i is supposed to be the newest, and probably the best, In- ear headphone for now.
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