Saturday, April 27, 2024

Earfun Free Pro ANC review

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Earfun might not be a household name, but the company has started to make a buzz with good quality audio accessories for your mobile devices. We’ve had the chance to review several over the last few years and have been more impressed than not. Earfun’s latest offering the Free Pro ANC earbuds are no exception.

Design

I’m really taken with the look and feel of the Earfun Free Pro buds. These headphones are sleek, small, and have a great fit. The overall look isn’t anything new with a silicone tip and an earloop to help stabilize the earbud on the inside of the ear.

Flanking the outside of each earpiece is the Earfun logo, but it’s not just cosmetic. This area is a capacitive touch surface for you to interact with the Free Pro when needed and we’ll dive into that more further next in this review.

Touch controls

As mentioned the Earfun Free Pro has touch controls for you to manipulate the playback of certain things without pulling out your phone each time. Let’s start with play/pause; this can be accomplished by double-tapping either earbud. The same during an incoming call will answer or end the conversation.

Volume can also be controlled by the multifunction button. Touching the right earpiece will increase the volume a level while the left side will decrease. This is a setback that I wish wasn’t there on wireless earbuds but is a symptom of the small form factor that to properly control both volumes you have to be using both earbuds.

Voice assistants are also onboard with the Earfun Free Pro. Holding the right earbuds for 2 seconds will activate your favorite mobile AI buddy. This worked well in my testing with consistently prompting Google Assistant on my Pixel 5.

Other notable options are surrounding the active noise cancellation and a low latency mode. ANC can be turned on or off with a triple tap of the left earpiece. Low latency increases the overall audio quality from 200ms to 100ms but the manual notes that this will decrease the connection range over Bluetooth. This can be activated with a 2-second tap and hold of the left earbud.

Audio

The playback of the Earfun Free Pro is really good, especially considering how compact the earbuds are. The highs and mids come through crisp and clear. This gives you great feedback on vocals and instruments whether it be podcasts or music.

The balance with the bass is the big winner for me here. Most active noise-canceling earbuds simply overpunch with bass when listening to music. It’s amped up to the point where it drowns out all the other audio output.

Thankfully, Earfun has found a great medium with the Free Pro earbuds. The bass is still impactful without being the dominant element. Earfun nailed it here.

Battery life and charging

Battery life in this small form factor is superb as well. The company rates the Free Pro at seven hours without ANC turned on and six hours with ANC activated. I’m happy to report this is spot on.

I am consistently seeing at least these ratings and maybe a tad more when the volume isn’t too high. A normal workday minus my lunch hour has been achievable with no issues.

When you do have to charge up, the included case can recharge the Earfun Free Pro buds another three times with roughly 32 total hours of charge. Charging takes just under an hour with the case.

The battery case also has both my modern must-haves for refueling its cells: USB-C and wireless Qi-charging. Both are on board and work as intended when you need to charge the carrying case. Added note… the case is really slim and fits well in your pocket.

Final thoughts

I’ve really enjoyed my time with the Earfun Free Pro earbuds. With the small form factor, travel-ready case, and great audio with active noise cancellation, the company has a real winner in my eyes.

Wrap that up in a bow of a $60 price tag and it’s a dream combination. Need even more motivation? There’s a 10% discount on the Amazon page already, but our readers can snag another 10% with the code FREEPRO20.

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