Huawei Watch 3 review: In perfect Harmony? By Pocket-lint

Huawei has made great strides in the wearable market and the key to that success is seemingly being to offer a decent smartwatch, that's great for fitness, but keeping the price relatively low, while also offering great battery life. That did mean some compromises when it came to graphical interface layers. The software aptly named light OS was light in layers, but now we're onto the harmony OS generation, I'm km button from pocket lint- and this is my review of the Huawei watch 3 and while you're here, you can tap that like button hit subscribe and the notification bell, that would be brilliant, true to form Huawei's latest watch is completely round no temptation to go square here and that's something that the company has stuck to since its Wear OS days. There is a notable change here compared to the gt2 pro and the gt2e. The angled bevel has been replaced with hardened glass lens that rounds at the edges. That gives the illusion that the watch is much rounder than before, although the stainless steel casing still retains its straight edge.

The polished finish is a welcome change from the brushed look on offer in previous years, and one of the two buttons on the right side has been replaced by a rotating crown and, yes, it looks very much like Apple Watch's, digital crown, and it acts like one too rotating it will scroll up and down lists on the screen or zoom in and out of the new grid style app view in the interface. You even get a subtle haptic feedback when you interact with it, which is actually delightful. The bottom button meanwhile launches straight into a chosen workout mode from the home screen, so you can quickly launch into a run or a walk or a hit session. Whatever else you fancy tracking the 22 millimeter strap that ships in the box features a quick release catch. So it's super simple to remove it and replace for something that's more.

Your style Huawei will be offering models with metal link, bracelets nylon, weave bands and a more sporty and basic silicon strap, and if you are going to be using this primarily as a fitness, tracker or activity tracker, we definitely recommend going with something like the silicon band, because the leather really doesn't like excessive sweat. The underside of the watch 3 bears a striking resemblance to the watch, gt2 pro, which is no surprise. It's dark and glossy with a domed center featuring a neat collection of sensors and LEDs. It's a seamless finish, which has no external contact points, which in turn means wireless charging is possible. The AMOLED display on the watch tree measures 1.43 inches across on the classic model and features a pixel density of 326 PPI, it's bright, vivid and definitely sharp enough for something that's constantly at arm's length. It also can reach the dizzying heights of 60 hertz refresh rates.

That means animations on the screen are much smoother than they were on the previous watch gt models. It definitely feels more responsive to gestures and touches too. If you've used the Huawei watch gt series, it will feel immediately. Familiar parts of the interface are virtually the same, but there are differences in how harmony OS feels compared to light OS. The added background layers and richer animations and graphics elevate, the experience making it a bit more interactive without changing a huge amount.

I like how easy it is to get to the information you need too. Each dedicated fitness function has its own app, so you can launch it just by tapping the little round icon in the upgrade, and when notifications come through from your phone, you see them pop up on the screen, but just like light OS, you don't get to do much else with them. So if you do need to reply to something, you'll have to grab your phone in some regions pretty much just china at the moment there is e-sim support, so you can get a 4g connection straight from your wrist, and that means the ability to answer, calls and messages while you're on the move away from your phone and also streaming online music with Huawei music. But again it's not available here yet. So we haven't been able to test that what's more, the watch has app gallery now.

Pre-Installed and Huawei hopes to entice third-party developers to join its platform, and some already have, but the big hitters like Spotify and strata haven't yet, and those could be dealbreakers for some, so with a fancy new display and better capabilities in the software. It's no surprise that the battery life has taken a bit of a hit compared to the gt2 pro before it, at least in regular smartwatch mode. It can last up to three days and that's without the always on display activated. I got roughly three days in this setting, but when I did enable the always-on display the battery life is far less impressive, it would barely make it to a second day. However, you can enable something called ultra long battery life.

This deactivates, the cellular and Wi-Fi connections, limits some app access and reduces the screen refresh rate, but keeps the Bluetooth connection active and still lets you track workouts, using GPS and in this mode you can get about two weeks now. Moving on to fitness and health and Huawei has pretty much every sensor, you could possibly need to track your activities. That means a heart rate sensor. It's got GPS. It's got motion sensors for tracking your performance during exercise.

I used it to track running alongside other watches like the Garmin venue 2 and the phoenix 6 pro just to see how it compared, and genuinely it is a great watch for runners. Data captured is close, but not identical to the Garmin devices, usually within about 100 meters or so distance wise, with very close results in heart rate and cadence. But the data is one thing: it's Huawei's use of this data that we really like, like Garmin it gleans all that data from the sensors to give you a better sense of what condition your body is in. You don't just see your running route on a map with heart rate and cadence. You also get your vo2 max reading.

To tell you how much oxygen you can use efficiently, but more crucially, it tells you how tired your body is after a workout and how long you need to rest. For that means as a device, its concern is your overall health, not just your performance stats, and it's all displayed in really easy graphics and the data is easily found the Huawei health app on your phone that you download lets you dive deeper, still it's available for iPhone and android and is pre-installed on new Huawei phones and tablets. Of course, if all you want to do is have a watch that tracks your steps through the day and keeps on top of it to make sure you're moving enough and closing your rings. It does that. Well enough too, it reminds you to move and stretch if you've been sat for long periods and has a simple interface to show you, where you're up to on the day's goals, but there's more, it wouldn't be a modern fitness tracker without sp02 or blood oxygen and saturation sensing.

So it has that it can also track your sleep quality automatically every night and measures, your stress levels through the day, there's even a temperature sensor to help detect signs of illness. So in the end, the watch 3 is a great fitness focus. It performs well it'll. Let you keep on top of your notifications as well as help you stay fit. You could do a heck of a lot worse.

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Source : Pocket-lint