Huawei P30 will launch alongside AirPods-trolling Freelace headphones that are 'different', colourful and 'always stay'

published 26 March 2019

• Update: Huawei Freelace have now officially launched, alongside Huawei FreeBuds Lite true wireless buds.

Alongside the Huawei P30 and Huawei P30 Pro there will be Huawei's usual assortment of accessories and add-ons – possibly a new Huawei smartwatch, for instance – and it's been confirmed these will include some new headphones – probably wireless ones, because new, wired earbuds are something of a rarity these days. These don't seem to be Apple AirPods 2-style true wireless buds, they look like yer classic Bluetooth in-ears, with a narrow wire between the buds that you run behind your neck. You know the sort of thing.

How do we know this? Because Huawei helpfully tweeted it.

Sing a different tune. Colour yourself with #HUAWEIFreelace. 26.03.19. pic.twitter.com/bfJ50mkxzQMarch 24, 2019

The buds are called Freelace – which autocorrect will render totally impossible to text as anything other than 'Freelance' – and will evidently come in a range of colours to match those of the Huawei P30 and P30 Pro, or to match your trousers.

By 'Sing a different tune' and 'colour yourself', Huawei is cussing Apple. You see, it is subtly alluding to the fact that everyone you meet wears AirPods – like sheep! – and that AirPods only come in white (and, soon, black). So Huawei is saying 'sing a different tune to all the colour-less AirPod wearers. Be different.'

'Music, always stay' presumably means they have magnets in the buds, so they can be clipped together, and the headphones then worn around your neck like a kind of audiophile necklace. So they 'always stay' in position there or, obviously, in your ears. Or it could just be a mistranslation from Chinese. Who knows?

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."