Is Huawei smartwatch good

Huawei Watch GT 4 review: Huaweis best smartwatch yet could use third-party support

Huawei Watch GT 4: One minute review

I really like the Huawei Watch GT 4. Its an impressive-looking device with a wide variety of materials and colorways available, and every one of these iterations looks fantastic. The big AMOLED screens refresh rate is nice and smooth, colors pop, and the speaker is loud embarrassingly loud, if you leave workout notifications on during a class.

Its functional too, with highly accurate metrics. TruSleep tracking was accurate and the metrics in the Huawei Health app were pleasantly detailed, although I was missing some actionable advice on that front. Huaweis TruSeen 5.5+ algorithm offers great heart rate tracking that extends to workout tracking, too, and the GPS was comparable to the best smartwatches (we tested it against an Apple Watch Ultra 2), so youll get great results on runs and rides.

Having said all that, I wont be using it again. Under normal circumstances, Id be giving such a watch a glowing review, perhaps even full marks, but its languishing on 80% here. The watch itself is fantastic, but its impossible to ignore the frustrations that come with it being saddled with Huaweis baggage.

The limits imposed by the US and every smartphone manufacturer, and Huaweis refusal to abandon its AppGallery store, which most phones will only support in-browser, means you have a watch that cant interface with lots of popular apps. Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Spotify, and more are on the no-go list, although others like Strava were fine.

However, if you can get over these flaws, youll find a gorgeous watch waiting to be loved. If you already have a Huawei phone and are used to a few workarounds, its probably the best smartwatch for you.

Huawei Watch GT 4: Specifications

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Huawei Watch GT 4: Price and availability

• From 229.99 in the UK
• From 249.90 euros in the EU
• Unavailable in the US and AU

For starters, lets address the elephant in the room: Huawei technology is unavailable in the US or Australia, due to ongoing disputes with the Chinese telecoms manufacturer (and the Chinese government) over security concerns.

The UK has removed Huawei devices from its 5G network but hasnt banned the sale of these devices entirely. The EU still allows Huawei devices to be sold. While UK and European fans can access Huawei tech, some functionality, such as NFC contactless payments, is limited.

Its a shame because the Watch is terrific value. Both the 46mm with silicone black strap and the 41mm with silicone white strap cost just 229.99 in the UK and 249.90 in the EU, which is a great price for a chunky fitness watch with a stainless steel case. Prices rise with a variety of different options, including a rose gold version with Milanese straps or leather straps on the 46mm.

The most expensive is the 41mm steel-and-gold edition watch, which costs 349.99 / 399.90 euros, followed by the stainless steel 46mm with stainless steel strap, which costs 299.99 / 369.90 euros. Its a very well-priced watch that looks gorgeous and could be an absolute powerhouse with the right support; its just a shame about the lack of availability. Unless youre an existing Huawei user, theres almost always a better option.

Huawei Watch GT 4: Design

• Seven different looks
• Beautiful, premium designs belying price
• OS is simple enough to use

From an external style standpoint, Huawei watches as a whole have virtually no consistency. When comparing the Watch GT 4 models to the thick, boxy, plastic cases on the gimmicky Huawei Watch Buds and Huawei Watch D, its like night and day. Whereas the Watch D and Watch Buds were quirky at best and unsightly at worst, Huawei Watch GT 4 models look fantastic, with in-built microphones and speakers allowing you to take and receive calls on-wrist.

These watches evoke different styles of traditional watches, from delicate circular fashion and dress watches to field and diving units. The unit I tested, the 46mm with stainless steel strap, looked very much like an analog dive watch when I picked the right face. Like all the GT 4 models, it has a circular digital crown on the top right and a secondary button on the bottom right, which combined with the very responsive touch-screen, made it easy to navigate around the watch. It was a pleasure to use.

The screen gets a lot of real estate, and its a fantastic screen on both sizes of the watch. The full-color AMOLED screen offers a fantastic refresh rate, ensuring a smooth swiping action, and pops with color. The AMOLED screen was better than many Garmins (although not quite up to Apples Retina Display) and output around 600 nits of brightness. This is enough for most people, though its a far cry from the Apple Watch Series 9, which can output an impressive 2,000 nits.

Some watch faces (the free ones, at least) are pretty dross, but I found one I liked that echoed an analog watch face and carried several on-face complications, including step count, the moons current phase, and a calendar. It echoed a classic chronograph and complemented the stainless steel aesthetic.

Speaking of the stainless steel, I have to share a grievance about changing the band. It might be because of my short nails, but after removing the silicone band, applying the stainless steel band to the watch took 15 minutes of effort, accompanied by lots of grunting and profanity. It was not a painless experience, but the watch looks ace with it on.

Huawei Watch GT 4: Features

• Lots of workout profiles
• Lacking payments in many regions
• Forced to sideload apps

The Huawei Watch GT 4 is entirely dependent on the Huawei Health app, which isnt available on the iOS or Google Play store, but can be easily downloaded via your browser and the QR code provided. From there, you can customize your watch faces, toggle various notifications streams on and off, and view all your health data in greater detail. The Huawei Health app is excellent at what it does, showing you comprehensive information and offering actionable advice on your workout and sleep.

For example, I am a light sleeper, so Huawei Health recommended I cut out caffeine in the evening before bedtime not groundbreaking advice, but nice to have. The Watch GT 4 has a load of workout profiles, from outdoor and indoor cycles to pool and open-water swims that count your strokes and lengths as you go.

The workout profiles interact with Huawei Health nicely and offer bonus features like AI-generated plans to help you train for specific goals in common exercises such as running, which you can follow along on your watch. TruSleep and TruSeen 5.5+ sensors offer advanced heart rate monitoring and ECG functionalities. A temperature sensor, blood oxygen measurement, and a stress metric round up the useful suite of health features on offer here.

All the Huawei-native stuff is great: its the lack of compatibility with other phones and operating systems thats the problem. You can get WhatsApp and email notifications, but not respond to them, and good luck trying to use apps like Gmail without considerable sideloading jiggery pokery. Want Google or Apple Maps on your watch? Tough, youre stuck with Huaweis own Petal Maps. Unless you live in a country that supports Huawei NFC payments, you wont be able to use contactless cards on your watch either. As I used the watch, I noticed more and more features either missing or not gelling, and while getting a Huawei phone would go some way towards solving this (if you dont live in the US or Australia), in the UK you cant use Huawei telecoms devices on a 5G network, so the phone wont live up to its potential.

Huawei Watch GT 4: Performance

• Great battery life
• Excellent sleep/workout metrics
• GPS matched an Apple Watch Ultra 2 for accuracy

During my time testing the Huawei Watch GT 4, the battery life performed as expected. I tested it over five days, and each day the watch depleted between five and 10 percent, depending on GPS usage. Im very satisfied the watch lives up to its bold claims of up to 14 days, and I can see the average user getting 10 days out of the watch with a few GPS workouts thrown in.

Sleep and workout metrics held up very well, and I was happy with the results I got. Running Ability index, Training Load and Training index metrics take a lot of your stats (if youre a runner, of course) and boil them down into simple numbers. Running Ability will tell you if youre running, for example, 44% better than users of a similar age, gender, height, and weight. Huawei is good at condensing complex statistics into easily accessible nuggets of information its reminiscent of the best Fitbit watches in this way.

When I tested the GPS tracking against an Apple Watch Ultra 2, the main noticeable difference was that the Huawei Watch GT 4 took far, far longer to connect to a network. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 was almost instantaneous, while the GT 4 took at least two and a half minutes, during which it encouraged me to be in an open area, probably at the place the workout is starting. It doesnt sound like much to ask, but you either stand stationary for around 150 seconds in front of your house before you start running, or you just run and the watch starts tracking you halfway through your first kilometer.

Other than that, the Watch GT 4 matched the Ultra 2 closely in terms of both heart rate and distance covered when I wore them simultaneously, so Im satisfied with the watchs accuracy.

Huawei Watch GT 4: Scorecard

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Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

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Huawei Watch 4 review

The Huawei Watch 4 is an excellent all-rounder smartwatch, well-suited to Android users. The design, materials and supeb balance of health and fitness features make it a really strong offering although the price tag does make it an expensive option. Huawei still cant match Apple or Google in terms of apps, payments but otherwise, theres a lot to like about the Watch 4.

• Good looking, great screen
• Broad array of health features
• Good fitness accuracy

• Pricey
• Lack of apps/payment support
• Middling battery life

The Huawei Watch 4 is the revamped flagship Huawei smartwatch, and it's back with a big dose of health and fitness features.

It comes hot-on-the-heels of the Huawei Watch Ultimate, and shares many of its characteristics including diving-rated water resistance.

If you opt for the Huawei Watch 4 Pro you get the same titanium materials, and both get an array of medical-grade features and health-tracking features.

But has it rectified the issues we experienced in our review of the Huawei Watch 4? And is it worth its lofty price tag?

We put it through its paces to find out.

Price and competition

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The Huawei Watch 4 costs 399/399 (its not formally available in the US, and hasnt yet appeared on Amazon), so its still a steep price and more than an Apple Watch Series 8.

If you go for the Huawei Watch 4 Pro that rises to 499/499.

It pales to the 799/$899 of the Huawei Watch Ultimate, which is just silly - and the incredible spec sheet of the Watch 4 makes it even less recommendable.

But the Huawei Watch GT3 still offers great value, and the Watch GT 3 Pro also offers ECG and arterial stiffness.

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Elsewhere, any iOS user is better with an Apple Watch thats just a fact.

But the Huawei Watch 4 beats most Wear OS watches in terms of design, health and wellness features, and battery life. But youll have to live without apps and payments. That means the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is a great alternative.

Design and screen

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The Huawei Watch 4 doesnt have the slightly over-egged grandeur of the Huawei Watch Ultimate and it's better for it.

The standard Watch 4 has a stainless steel 46mm case, so its not especially unisex and quite large on the wrist.

We tested the Huawei Watch 4 Pro (47mm), which comes in around 20g heavier, despite having the titanium case. Its a whopping 13mm thick with a doming glass that dominates the wrist and will suit anyone who covets oversized watches.

Both watches are 5ATM rated so they're good for the pool, but also comply to EN13319 standards, making them suitable for free diving to 30 meters. They also have a depth sensor built in, which will automatically record and display data when submerged.

Our review unit came with a titanium link bracelet, which we immediately swapped out for a standard band, thanks to its unsuitability for working out and it's a real shame the Huawei Watch 4 doesn't come with a silicone alternative. However, it takes any 20mm strap with a standard clasp fitting so you can find something easily.

But there are choices for titanium link, composite, or leather options.

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The screen on the Watch 4 is gorgeous, like most Huawei wearables. Its a huge 1.5-inch AMOLED LTPO display, with a 466 x 466 resolution, and theres not much out there that bests it.

Its easy to read, fits plenty of data and information, and makes for a good-looking, professional look. It doesnt ooze personality, like something like an Apple Watch Ultimate, but its a good-looking watch nonetheless.

Features, OS and ecosystem

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The Huawei Watch 4 runs HarmonyOS 3, the latest version of the companys wearable, and cross-mobile operating system.

In terms of usability, Huawei has made improvements, and some new neat app dock features are accessed by pressing the second button, as well as a floating bauble that will return you to previous apps.

The Watch 4 also includes the App Gallery, where you can download a small number of HarmonyOS apps.

However, they are mostly Huaweis own take on popular apps (see maps/wallet), and not quite up to the standard you might be used to.

The best of these are pre-installed, such as Huaweis own Petal Maps (above).

That specific app works well but does have some odd quirks. It seemed to show every church or place of worship clearly, but we couldnt identify things like train stations. Whats more, it does show things like footpaths, but you have to zoom so close it makes things very difficult to follow. It's no Google Maps, but it can be accessed during workouts, so you can find your way and this becomes more powerful if you're using an LTE connection.

The rest of the App Gallery offerings are quite random, with notable big-name offerings in the form of Adidas Running. But its certainly not full of premium titles.

Theres also Huawei Wallet, for storing cards, passes, and tickets.

It pales in comparison to watchOS and Wear OS in terms of apps and contactless payment support.

For Android users, you can get apps from the Huawei App Gallery, and there is a growing list of options here.

The Huawei Watch 4 does support eSIM, so it can be attached to a data plan. That means calling and messages on the wrist, untethered to your smartphone. But without apps for music/podcasting and email clients, we have to question the appeal.

The Huawei Watch 4 does have plenty of health and fitness smarts, which well come onto shortly.

But it also packs Celia, its voice assistant. It works pretty well for opening apps and features using your voice if you like that sort of thing.

There are quirks to using the Huawei Watch 4, especially with iOS. We found some issues with WhatsApp notifications being delivered multiple times, sometimes days later. But overall, its easy to use and covers smartwatch essentials.

Sports tracking

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Huawei has excelled at sports tracking over the past few years, and all its best features are here on the Watch 4.

The Watch 4 packs GPS, although its not treated to the multiband action we found on the Huawei Watch Ultimate.Thats no problem, as the Ultimate suffered from a bug that causes us to have problems with getting accurate distances.

Fortunately, there was no such issue on the Watch 4, and our GPS runs were tracked correctly, across 5K to 10K distances and in line with the Apple Watch Ultra.

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As with devices such as the Huawei Watch GT 3, GT3 Pro, and even the excellent Huawei Fit 2, there are 100+ sports modes, with a particular focus on running.

Running not only gets multiple workout profiles, and coaching modes with guided workouts, and a heap of biometric insights and stats.

The Running Ability Index provides some context on your performance, and theres recovery information, including a timer that counts down to when you should next work.

During a run, theres information on your performance condition as you head out on your first mile.

There are some issues here. The Watch 4 tracks VO2 Max which was wildly overestimated, despite clocking up a fair number of runs with the smartwatch. As such, the race predictor, which shows likely times for the most popular race distances, was also extremely generous.

Also, we found that the Running Ability Index showed a blank number quite often especially if we hadn't run on that particular day, which seemed like a bug.

Heart rate accuracy was, on the whole, decent. After issues on the Huawei Watch Ultimate, the Watch 4 delivered a clean bill of health, with average and max HR tracked accurately against a chest strap.

We have no hesitation in recommending the Huawei Watch 4 as a fitness-friendly smartwatch. But we should caveat that some extraneous data points have issues. However, the Android smartwatch field is awash with dodgy fitness data (were looking at you Samsung) so on the whole, it comes easily recommended. If you want top-notch fitness analytics, buy Garmin or Polar.

The other obvious thing to point out is that sports tracking performance is almost the same as the Huawei Watch GT3 so theres money to be saved if you forgo the materials.

Health tracking

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The Huawei Watch 4 is something of a health-tracking powerhouse and is Huaweis most complete health watch (bar the Watch D).

The Watch 4 features a huge range of different health metrics, but pleasingly, the Huawei Health app has also grown to make better use of all this data.

Theres the Health Glance feature, which bundles ECG (which is CE cleared), arterial stiffness checks, heart rate, SpO2, stress and a new respiratory health score together into one test (well three concurrent ones within a single session). And this is all reported in the Huawei Health app.

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Respiratory health is a bit of an odd test and were not sure the instructions were clear enough. You need to take two or three deep breaths within 30 seconds, and also cough into the microphone on the watch.

We weren't clear whether to breathe out and then cough, or cough on the exhale. It was a bit confusing, to say the least. But its an interesting data point and one thats unique in wearables and we got an 'average' score, which was a bit of an eye-opener.

Huawei now displays Health Trends, which keeps tabs on metrics such as resting heart rate, SpO2, stress, and sleep duration.

Its a shame skin temperature isnt tracked among them, which would make this feature feel a little more useful than it does currently. Skin temperature isn't used to detect illness, or as part of menstrual tracking, so it's a bit of a non-starter.

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The Health Trends feature feels similar to Fitbits Health Dashboard, but actually, the data trends are more user-friendly. Fitbit (and Whoop/Oura) put huge focus on heart rate variability which is the gap between heartbeats. Low HRV is a leading indicator of stress/tiredness/poor recovery, but it can feel abstract and requires user knowledge to figure it out.

So it's nice that Huawei's Health Trends are so easy to understand. Sleep trends and resting HR are much more interesting to most people, and we applaud Huawei for focusing its attention here.

However, Whoop and Oura have both used HRV to great effect, so wed like to see Huawei follow suit and make it meaningful. And likewise, its disappointing not to see respiratory rate used here, as such a powerful wellness tool.

Activity and sleep tracking

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Huawei has also revitalized activity tracking with the Health Clover, which youre encouraged to complete every day.

This requires hitting a step and sleep/wake goals for bedtime consistency, and also keep stress under control, and taking guided breathing if its not. Its a little abstract, but we like the more holistic look at health beyond a step and calorie count.

Health Clovers is implemented on the Watch 4 and can be found within the app menu.

However, theres a more traditional activity tracking widget that shows progress to traditional calories, active minutes, and stand hours with a swipe to the right from the main watch face.

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We like the Huawei sleep tracking experience overall, with its slick interface, and granular ratings of everything from deep sleep continuity to breathing quality and wake times. Each of these is analyzed and individually rated, which makes it plausible for someone to improve their sleep.

As ever with Huawei sleep tracking, we felt total duration was overestimated, and the Watch 4 usually clocked a whole extra hour of sleep versus Whoop, which we feel is the best in the business.

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Thats not a huge problem as its generally consistent enough to be useful to compare sleep data over time. But we do feel that over-estimation means that people will be less empowered to improve sleep, or create better sleep habits.

Battery life

The battery life of the Huawei smartwatch has been a strong selling point, but once you enable most of its best features, the longevity of the Huawei Watch 4 isnt that much better than the Apple Watch Ultra or TicWatch Pro 5.

Huawei claims the battery life of the Watch 4 Pro to be 4.5 days of typical use, with 3 days for the standard Watch 4. In our testing, this felt about right but youd have to live without the always-on display.

We saw a daily drop-off of about 35% with the always-on display turned on on the Watch 4 Pro, which is right in line with Huaweis estimates. By the same margin, you can expect around two days from the standard Watch 4.

An hour run using GPS knocked about 10% off the total, so if you were to do a marathon with the Watch 4, youre more than set.

If you do use LTE, you can expect those totals to be decimated again.

Should you buy it?

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The Huawei Watch 4 is a good-looking, premium watch, that performs well as both a health and fitness smartwatch while there are some issues around the deeper fitness data, its easy to recommend.

So should you buy it? If you own an iPhone, then you should buy an Apple Watch. Theres not enough of a pay-off in terms of battery life here to justify turning your back on the best smartwatch for iOS.

If youre using Android, this is a contender. The fitness and health elements are a cut above anything on Wear OS.

The obvious alternative is perhaps the incoming Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, which trumps Huaweis lack of apps and payment support.

Huawei Watch 4 specs