Apple continues to be an unstoppable force in the wireless earbud space but, in the LG Tone Free FN7, the flagship AirPods Pro might finally face a worthy competitor. AirPods have absolutely dominated the consumer audio market since the release of the first AirPods back in 2016 and, today, the lineup has since expanded to products like the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max — the former being the go-to choice for premium in-ear earbuds.

In the years since AirPods’ grand debut, company after company has tried competing with Apple to take away some of its dominance. While not all of these attempts have been successful, this has resulted in a lot of truly excellent alternatives. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro are among the best wireless earbuds for Android users, the latest version of Google’s Pixel Buds continue to be an easy recommendation, and countless smaller brands like Skullcandy, Anker, and others have found success in creating earbuds that drastically undercut Apple’s offerings.

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Among all of those, there have also been numerous attempts from LG. The company has had mixed success with its Tone Free earbud lineup thus far and, with its most recent Tone Free FN7, LG thinks it’s created its best pair of flagship buds yet. While the Tone Free FN7 don’t get everything right, there’s a lot of promise here for LG’s future in the wireless earbud space — assuming it doesn’t go the route of the company’s now-defunct mobile division. Let’s dig in.

What The LG Tone Free FN7 Get Right

One of the biggest issues with the FN7’s predecessor, the Tone Free FN6, was audio quality. The earbuds sounded flat, muffled, and substantially worse than the price tag suggested. Thankfully, LG addressed that head-on with the FN7. When the Tone Free FN7 have a secure in-ear fit, the earbuds sound fantastic. They can be cranked up to high volumes with hardly any distortion, music sounds nice and rich, and there’s a really big bass presence. Some listeners may actually find the low-end too overpowering, but if that’s the case, there’s an equalizer in the Tone Free companion app that allows full user customization. LG also has a few pre-made EQ modes right out of the box, with the Natural preset offering the most balanced listening profile. Whether it be AJR’s modern take on ragtime with 3 O’Clock Things, zoning out to Spotify’s Lo-Fi Beats playlist, or anything else in between, the FN7 have been a joy to listen to.

Another highlight of the FN7 is the hardware for the entire package. The included charging case is wonderfully compact with a pleasing soft-touch finish, it charges via USB-C and Qi wireless, and there’s an LED indicator on the front to indicate the current charge status. The earbuds themselves are small, comfortable to wear, and have extremely accurate in-ear detection for automatically pausing/playing a song as the earbuds are removed and re-inserted in the user’s ear.

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In regards to battery life, the Tone Free FN7 are perfectly adequate. Users can expect up to 7 hours of continuous listening time and up to 21 hours of total endurance when the charging case is factored in. That’s substantially better than the 4.5 hours of continuous battery life provided by the AirPods Pro and, even though Apple has better overall endurance at 24 hours, the fact that continuous playback is almost double with the Tone Free FN7 is legitimately impressive.

Where The Experience Falls Flat

Great audio quality, hardware, and battery life are all nothing to scoff at, but unfortunately for the Tone Free FN7, a variety of quality of life issues ultimately hold them back from truly dethroning any of its competition — including AirPods Pro. For starters, the touch controls on the Tone Free FN7 are far too sensitive to be useful in day-to-day use. Any time the earbuds are adjusted to get a better in-ear fit, the controls are inadvertently activated — resulting in music constantly being paused unintentionally. It’s good that LG includes an option to lock these controls in the companion app because, when left activated, they cause more problems than anything else.

As for why someone would need to regularly adjust the in-ear fit of the FN7, it’s because audio quality takes a massive hit if they don’t have a perfect in-ear seal. The Tone Free FN7 may initially sound kind of flat and lifeless, but that’s just because they aren’t deep enough in the ear. The earbuds themselves are comfortable to wear and sound great when everything is just right, but the minute they move around even just a little bit, sound quality takes a big hit.

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More annoying than all of that, however, is the wireless connection of the FN7. The initial pairing process with an iPhone 11 Pro was perfectly seamless, but since then, the earbuds have been consistently inconsistent. The FN7 don’t always automatically connect after being taken out of their case, meaning users have to go into their phone settings and manually connect them. Sometimes this doesn’t even work, requiring the FN7 to be unpaired and re-paired all over again. Also, while LG’s companion app for the FN7 is great when it works, it has its own fair share of issues — such as not starting up at all or randomly enabling Transparency Mode when the FN7 are first turned on.

AirPods Pro Are Still Better, But LG Is Getting Close

It feels like LG took one step forward and one step back with the Tone Free FN7. Audio quality is far and away better than it ever was on the FN6, but somewhere in that whole process, a slew of connectivity bugs have popped up to introduce a different kind of headache. That’s honestly upsetting because, if the Tone Free FN7 were more reliable, they’d be a serious contender in the flagship earbud space.

Ultimately, though, AirPods Pro should still be the go-to choice for most shoppers. While hardware, battery life, and sound quality are all neck-and-neck between AirPods and the Tone Free FN7, Apple delivers where LG stumbles. AirPods Pro have some of the best touch controls on the market, their connectivity with iPhones is unmatched, and ANC + transparency modes are both better overall experiences compared to their somewhat timid performance on the LG earbuds.

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While the Tone Free FN7 may not be the home run LG was hoping for, the company is gradually getting closer to being a real force in this niche. If it can release an FN8 model later this year that rights the wrongs of the FN7, Apple may have something to be legitimately worried about. Until then, though, AirPods Pro aren’t going anywhere.

Source: LG

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About The Author


Joe Maring
(1528 Articles Published)

Joe has been actively writing and talking about consumer tech since 2012. His biggest passion lies with smartphones, but he’s happy to talk your ear off about just about anything with a CPU. He lives in Kalamazoo, MI with his wife, two cats, and pit bull/boxer mix.

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