Here I have the brand new Huawei free AAC Open Fit earbuds, and there are three colours of these. There's the black, the grey and the green. I have the black version here and these Huawei earbuds are going up against some solid competition in the form of the Nothing open ear, The Xiaomi Open, the JBL sound gear, and the Bose Ultra open. But straight away Even on day one, they do have an advantage because these are released at a launch price of £99, whereas most of the competition I just mentioned, are £120 or more.

now I realize that some people, when they hear the name Huawei, immediately think of that US ban and think maybe it's a little risky going with a pair of earbuds from this brand.

Well, listen, if you're quite happy to use TikTok, then I can promise you, that you got nothing to worry about when it comes to Huawei Earbuds. If you need a bit more reassurance, just know this, the iPhone App Store does have the official Huawei AI Life app, and that is the official software for these earbuds and other earbuds from Huawei like the FreeBuds 4 Pro, are some of the best earbuds out right now, in my opinion.

Something that is quite interesting though is on Android, you do have to download the AI Life app from the Huawei website, or you can download the Huawei App gallery. You can download the app from there. So the point I'm trying to make is these earbuds will work perfectly with Android and iOS.

So now let's get these out of the box. The number one question that most people will have when they see earbuds like this, is who are these types of earbuds really for? I do have some thoughts on this. So I think the number one selling point and the reason why these types of earbuds are so popular these days is because they're ideal for the gym.

They do have some significant advantages, which I'll come back to towards the end of the video. Another very good customer for these earbuds is anyone who just struggles to keep earbuds in their ears because these have a kind of universal fit. So regardless of your ear size or the shape of your ear canal, this type of earbud can literally just hook on and hold on, even if you're riding a mountain bike down a rocky road.

Another very ideal customer is anyone who needs to be aware of their surroundings at all times. For example, if you're someone who cycles to work every day, but also wants to listen to music or even answer phone calls while riding a bike. It's never been more important to be aware of your surroundings than it is today, with all the electric cars, as they don't make quite as much noise as the traditional petrol and diesel cars.

Anyway, now let's get into the specs. As you can see the case itself is not that flashy, it's got this nice matted finish to it. When you open the lid, you do have the pairing button just here at the bottom around the back. You do have the charging port and around the front you do have a little LED indicator that will change colors depending on how much battery is left in the case. Just for context, this is kind of the regular size for ANC earbuds. This is probably double the size, and this kind of case is pocketable. I do believe it's been designed to take a few knocks if it's thrown in a gym bag or a handbag Or anything like that and you'll notice the earbuds themselves do carry over that kind of subtle, low-key design.

They have that similar matted finish on the back to the AirPod with a little bit of branding here, and then you've got this kind of silver trim around these capacitive touch areas. Both AirPods do have these touch controls built into them and these can be remapped within the app and we'll come back to that. Something that was where they put a lot of effort into is the ear hooks, they call this The optimal triangle and are designed to create that secure fit, which is one of the selling points for this type of earbud. Now inside these ear hooks is a nickel-titanium alloy and this is been stress-tested and flexed hundreds of thousands of times to test whether it loses its shape and it is very, very resilient.

Built into this, are the batteries and these earbuds can run for seven hours on a single charge with an additional 21 hours in the case. So you get a total of 28 hours when these earbuds and the case are fully charged. It would be nice if there was Qi wireless charging. There is some good news. If you do run out of juice on the earbuds, a quick ten-minute charge can give you up to three hours of playback.

Because these earbuds have been designed more for people with very active lifestyles, Of course, they are sweat and splash-resistant. They do have an official Ip57 water resistance rating. So this means rain and sweat is not a problem. However, you wouldn't want to go swimming with these on.

There are two mics on board. The three of these are voice pick-up mics, but there is also some AI in play here. These mics are backed up with a deep neural network which can reduce background noise and isolate your voice a bit more clearly if you are in a busy area.

Now let's talk about the sound quality side of things. First of all, these earbuds do have a very interesting shape. The driver is 17 by 12 millimeters. Any earbuds will have around 10 to 11mm, sometimes even six millimetres, so the fact that these are that big is kind of a big deal. When it comes to connectivity between the earbuds and your devices, it uses Bluetooth 5.2 which does mean multipoint pairing is possible. So you can connect to your phone and to your laptop for example, and then swap between them. When it comes to the audio codecs there are two supported here, and it's the regular ones SBC and AAC. AAC will get you a higher-quality sound. It is in fact, still the best codec that iPhones have at the moment.

Something worth knowing about the drivers in these earbuds not only are they large, but they also use neodymium iron boron magnets with a titanium-plated diaphragm and it does sound like a lot of buzzwords, these components are in fact what are used in much more expensive earbuds and headphones and the upside to using these kinds of materials and magnets in the drivers is that normally it results in better bass.

So here's my personal opinion on the sound quality of the Huawei three arc. When it comes to open earbuds, of course, you have to deal with the ambient noise around you so I'll give you my opinion in a quiet room versus a noisy environment. So in a quiet room, you do get a really good soundstage, a decent amount of bass, very good clarity and good detail.

But then when you're in a more noisy environment, They kind of sound more like a speaker is playing in the environment near you, and not necessarily right into your ears, which is good and really, that's probably what you're looking for if you are going to be using these for jogging or cycling. So for me, clarity is really where they shine. Bass is Okay, definitely not what you would get from the FreeBuds 4 Pro, which is just insane.

As far as open-fit earbuds go, they do sound really nice and they're definitely worth the asking price in my opinion.

Huawei does give you a little bit of flexibility with the IQ. You can't dial in your own, but you can use the elevate, the treble boost and the voice boost for podcasts and things like that. And then in here, you can actually remap the left and right bud single taps and triple taps on either side. There's also a fine feature, so if you do lose one of the earbuds or both of them, you can get them to chime pretty loudly so you can find them.

Overall, the app is very stripped back compared to what you would get with some of the Pro earbuds. You get some settings for low latency, so if you're going to use the earbuds for gaming, you can toggle that mode on, and then there's the option to turn up the volume for media calls if you are going to be using these in an office environment and maybe they just need to be a little bit louder, can enable that.

Here's my opinion on these earbuds, £99 is not bad. Here are the things you get for the money: a very very secure fit. These are not going to fall off your head when you're lifting weights or cycling or running, or pretty much any sport, aside from maybe trampolining.

As far as open-fit earbuds go, these ones look pretty good. The ear hooks are very well-designed, and they're super comfortable. You could wear these for a long time, and you never have to worry about them falling out or causing discomfort inside your ears because the earbuds don't go inside your ears. If you are shopping around for gym headphones, you might be looking at some sort of overhead, over-ear headphones, the problem with those is they are quite heavy and can fall off your head.

Just to give you an example of the weight difference, these earbuds weigh just 8.9g and typical overhead headphones even light ones around 250g. Going back to the main reason why I said these are probably the best style gym headphones right now is because of the hygiene side of things.

The fact that they don't go in your ears means that they're not going to get covered in sweat and earwax and be placed back into the case to incubate, Which is something that really does happen with earbuds. It's pretty nasty. And because of the design and the fact that these are Ip57, they're actually very easy to clean.

Again, when it comes to using these for sports hygiene, I think is definitely one of the upsides to this style of earbud. Now, I guess one of the negatives that might spring to mind with these types of earbuds is, if I'm wearing these on a train or a plane or a bus or something, will the people around me be able to hear what I'm listening to, well the answer is kind of yes and no.

It does depend on how close they're sitting to you, but there is some good news. These earbuds do use a reverse phase technology, so this is designed to reduce the amount of sound leakage coming from the earbuds, and it does work pretty well. They're about as good as all the other open-fit earbuds that I've tried in the past.

So yeah, unfortunately, sound leakage does come with the territory. I think more importantly, the sound quality here for the money is well worth it, and if you are looking for this style of earbud, The Huawei Free Arc is definitely a good option!