Cost Effective TWS Earphone - Honor FlyPods 3 true wireless Bluetooth headset review

The Honor FlyPods 3 wireless headphones inherit the characteristics of the previous differentiated positioning of FlyPods, and further bring out new technical capabilities in the two directions of active noise reduction and clear calls, successfully defeating many true wireless headphones.


What exactly is a noise-cancelling headset, and how can it be considered to actually achieve noise reduction? Noise reduction is to reduce the interference of ambient noise, make the listening effect closer to a quiet environment, and also help users get rid of the additional effects of noise disturbance. Stimulated by this demand, the function of the headset has produced two concepts: passive noise reduction and active noise reduction.


The implement method of passive noise reduction is to close the ear canal as much as possible to reduce the chance of environmental noise entering the ear. This design method can isolate high-frequency noise to a certain extent, but the suppression effect is not good for low frequencies or large noise. Active noise reduction is achieved through technology, which uses the reverse cancellation effect of sound waves to hedge against noise.


How about the noise reduction effect of the Honor FlyPods 3?
We chose a Honor phone based on the new EMUI 10 system for the pairing experience with the Honor FlyPods 3.Just at this step, the characteristics of this headset were demonstrated. In fact, the Honor FlyPods 3 is more like a wearable IoT product, which can be controlled through the "Smart Life" APP. It not only supports the ability to independently check the power of the left and right headphones and storage boxes, but also supports customize the function of the touch area of ​​the headphones. In addition, Honor FlyPods 3 also supports OTA upgrades. Therefore, the Honor FlyPods 3 is no longer a simple Bluetooth headset, but a smart wearable device.



In order to better understand the noise reduction effect of the Honor FlyPods 3 in the normal environment, we chose a bus as the testing location. After the bus arrived at the platform, most of the metal knocking roar brought by the short-range gas engine and the high-frequency whistle caused by the air brake and exhaust are filtered by the active noise reduction of this Honor FlyPods 3, which achieves 70% of noise filtering under non-music playback state. If you turn on low-volume music playback, this noise will not be perceived, and this test result is very satisfactory. We also thought of a more convenient and direct way to discover the active noise reduction performance of Honor FlyPods 3.


We also thought of a more convenient and direct way to discover the active noise reduction performance of this headset. We turned on the sound of a TV to a volume that felt noisy, and then continued the above steps. The sound from the TV can be compressed by more than half. Because FlyPods3 uses dual active noise reduction technology, the out-of-ear microphone can detect ambient noise and let the headphones emit noise reduction waves to eliminate noise; The in-ear microphone can capture the extra noise in the ear and send out a noise reduction wave again for secondary elimination. We also tested the noise reduction effect during the call. When disturbed by high-decibel TV noise, both parties on the call can listen normally. With the blessing of three microphones, the Honor FlyPods 3 can be said to be the killer of noise. In fact, in addition to the technical advantages, the unique “tapered” full-in-ear design of Honor FlyPods 3 also has the function of synchronous passive noise reduction, which can filter a large amount of mid-to-high frequency noise in advance and better close the ear canal.

Through the mobile APP or Bluetooth setting area, we can choose to enable or disable the noise reduction function of the Honor FlyPods 3. It should be noted that the user's perception of the surrounding environment will be disturbed by the noise reduction headset, so in order to avoid danger, it is best not to turn on the noise reduction mode when walking, cycling or running  on the road.


Sound quality
Honor FlyPods 3 uses Bluetooth 5.0 chip with low power consumption, which can achieve stronger anti-interference and lower delay at lower power consumption, while further extending the transmission distance. What's more, Honor FlyPods 3 uses a 10mm large-size custom dynamic coil unit and has a high-sensitivity polymer composite diaphragm. The biggest advantage of this large-sized moving coil unit is that it has better low-frequency dynamic effects than other types of units.


Honor has always been well-known in audio tuning. Many previous headsets and smart audio products have won praise from users, especially some products with low-key hardware parameters, which can still show excellent sound quality, so we have great expectations for this large unit of 10mm. For the audition of Honor FlyPods 3, we used Honor and other Android phones as the sound source. The test content includes popular, classical, electric and other multi-style tracks, involving multiple voices and multiple instruments. At the same time, we also did Dolby Ultra HD movie playback test.


The audition results show that the glory FlyPods 3's basic tri-band equalization, the high frequency and low frequency are very sufficient, making the intermediate frequency slightly suppressed. But compared with all other headset products, the advantages of the Honor FlyPods 3 are also very obvious. Both the vocals and soundtracks are very bright, and the expressiveness of the details is also very rich. Therefore, when you listen to any type of track, you will feel tireless.

What's more worth to mention is that with the active noise reduction function of the Honor FlyPods 3, clear listening can be achieved in more noisy places. If you cooperate with Huawei Histen or other models of Dolby sound effects, whether it is music or video, the listening effect will be better.

Appearance Design
The Honor FlyPods 3 uses a horizontal storage design. The storage box not only has the function of magnetic storage, but also a large-capacity fast-charge charging case. The size of the storage box is very light, and the cover is separated by a magnetic design. The same color design of the headphones and storage box also adds a lot of simplicity and affordable luxury style to the smooth and round appearance. The Honor FlyPods 3 is currently available in two colors: white and blue.


What impresses us more is the extremely lightweight size of the Honor FlyPods 3,which single weight is only 5 grams. This weight does not put any burden on the ears, but the fitted in-ear design makes it more reliable to wear. In order to be able to match users with different ear canal shapes, Honor provides L / M / S / XS four different sizes of earplugs and this soft non-sensitive silicone earplugs make Honor FlyPods 3 more comfortable to wear.



Touch operation
Honor FlyPods 3 has a built-in capacitive touch sensor, and the outer sides of both ears are gesture touch areas. We can double-click to pause / resume playback, or long-press to enable / disable the active noise reduction function, and both left and right ears can perform. Of course, these gestures can be customized by the mobile phone app, and can set different actions for the left and right ears, , such as changing the double-click pause to switch to the next song, or changing the long press to wake up the voice assistant, which further demonstrates the human side of Honor FlyPods 3.

We also found that the touch sensitivity of the Honor FlyPods 3 is very sensitive, and its requirements for gestures are not strict. Compared with similar types of headsets, the Honor FlyPods 3 will not cause control failure because we blindly tap the headset with our fingers, the pause interval when double-clicking, or the accidental touch of the headset. In addition, the Honor FlyPods 3 gives us a more comfortable control experience through the built-in algorithm. When we use it, we always have a feeling that Honor FlyPods 3 understands our needs intelligently.


In terms of operations such as pairing and connection, Honor FlyPods 3 is extremely simplified. It can be connected immediately when the charging box is opened, and there is no need to remove the headset from the charging box. This connection method can greatly reduce the waiting time, and the connection efficiency is even better especially for Huawei and Honor devices using the new version of EMUI.


Battery life and charging

The storage box of the Honor FlyPods 3 with built-in 410mAh battery, and the internal battery capacity of the single headset is 37mAh. Honor FlyPods 3 is not only equipped with low-power transmission and advanced Bluetooth chip, but also has built-in wearing sensors with intelligent energy-saving functions.

The actual test results show that when the noise reduction mode is turned off and the phone‘s system volume is set to about 50%, the single continuous playback time of the Honor FlyPods 3 can exceed three and a half hours, and the talk time can reach two and a half hours; If the noise reduction is turned on, the battery life is slightly shortened, but the performance is also very well.