Hands-on review: Huawei Sound
When I think about buying a speaker for my space, Huawei does not usually come to mind. I would think about them when talking about mobile phones with good cameras, but not necessarily speakers or sound systems. The Huawei Sound managed to change that!
Design
The Huawei Sound looks like the HomePod's parent. It has the same sleek, elegant cylindrical design. It comes in full black colour with the speaker part covered in mesh towards the bottom, while the top is more shiny and polished. It looks great on any surface and would make a great addition to any room. The speaker doesn't only look good, it feels well-built too.
The Huawei Sound does not have any physical buttons, however, the top surface is touch-sensitive. It allows users to turn it off and on, mute it, control the sound, and control Bluetooth pairing. It is very simple and straight forward. The top is also equipped with light rings that change between blue, red and colours based on the action. The colours also help users to know the volume level and identify when the speaker is on mute.
Sound quality
I did not really have any expectations for the Huawei Sound before I tried it out. I assumed it would be "just good" or "just another speaker" but I was pleasantly surprised to learn it is actually a great one.
Huawei teamed up with Devialet to produce a speaker that competes with the top players in the game. The entire device is actually made out of a four-speaker design. That, mixed with the four-inch 40W woofer and the three full-range 5W loudspeakers, results in an outstanding listening experience.
The speaker packs a punch when it comes to bass notes. You would not expect it to, but this small thing has the power to shake a table. IT also does a great job of playing the higher notes and lyrics. With some speakers that have good bass, that is done by sacrificing the higher notes. Luckily the Devialet Technology made sure the speaker performed great on both ends and provided and well-rounded audio.
The Huawei Sound performed great when I placed it in the middle of a room. It manages to fill the entire space and provide the illusion of a more immersive experience. Devialet achieved this by using their space technology that works by placing three full-range tweeters at a 120-degree angle from each other. This allows the speaker to provide a 360 surround sound type experience where the sound fills the room around you.
Connectivity
Huawei did a great job on this front providing different options including Bluetooth (LDAC), UPnP, and 3.5 mm AUX-in connections.
The most impressive connectivity feature is the tap-transfer one. This allows users to immediately direct playback from phones to the speaker by simply tapping the phone on the speaker. Unfortunately, this only works with Android phones that run 5.1.1 or later. This means that as an iPhone user, I had to dust up an older Android phone from the drawer just to test this out, which is disappointing.
The one bad
In all of the promotional material for this speaker, it is shown in the middle of tables that are placed in the middle of the room looking all stylish. At first glance, this led me to believe that the speaker is a rechargeable one. This, however, is not the case! The speaker needs to be plugged in at all times. While the provided cord is long so the speaker can still be placed in the middle of the room, it detracts from the sleek design a bit.
Verdict
I was pleasantly surprised with the Huawei Sound and it has now become the main speaker in my household. It is connected to our TV, projector, laptops and all of our phones, and it is used for at least a couple of hours every single day.
