The latest wireless earbuds from LG's Tone Free range, the FN7, has been unveiled by the tech company, bringing in its first earbuds with active noise cancellation.
The new true wireless earbuds, which are on sale now in South Korea, come equipped with active noise cancellation (ANC), just like the Apple AirPods Pro and the Sony WF-1000XM3.
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You'll find three microphones in each of the buds that will monitor and cancel out sound waves from the outside world, granting you greater clarity when listening to music without having to crank the volume up to max.
The earbuds also come with a bacteria-killing UV charging case that LG purports can kill "up to 99.9%" of bacteria on the speaker mesh of the buds – an undoubtably useful feature for anyone concerned about cleanliness.
LG's previous model, the FN6, came with this cleaning charging case – and you'll notice a lot of similarities between the FN6 and the FN7, at least on a surface level.
This new range also included the FN6's twist fit “vortex ribs” which is supposed to give you the best fit and reduce the overall din from the outside world. Pairing this with LG's ANC, it is promising to "almost completely neutralize" external noises.
By using the LG Tone Free app, which you can download on Apple and Android devices, you'll also be able to play with some audio settings like customizing the EQ, bass boost and treble boost settings.
The FN7 buds are launching in South Korea as of October 26, releasing in North America, Europe, and other areas in Asia sometime towards the end of 2020.
What about the FN6 earbuds?
In our review of the previous FN6 model, we were left less than impressed with the overall sound quality delivered by the earbuds.
We found that the audio quality offered by the LG Tone Free buds wasn’t very good at all – trebles sounded harsh and distorted, while the bass managed to be both underwhelming and muddy at the same time.
Experimenting with the equalizer did yield some better results, but the bass frequencies tended to overpower the rest of the soundstage, while the trebles sometimes sounded a little sibilant, with an annoying hiss at higher volumes.
So, while the addition of ANC is a big plus for the new FN7 earbuds, here's hoping that LG has taken a good look at the audio quality, too. Unfortunately, it sounds as though the ability to block out environmental noise is the only upgrade that's been given to the true wireless earbuds.
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