Huawei Watch 3 Pro Review - Smarter, faster, but is it better? By Bench House

In 2015 Huawei came out with their first smartwatch simply named Huawei watch. Their success in this domain, though, starts with the release of their watch gt, a model which, instead of the Wear OS, which proved to be neither ideal nor the best smartwatch solution started using the company's own proprietary operating system. With this model, Huawei has hit the sweet spot and the essence of what majority of users expect from a smartwatch with good hardware, essential functions, people actually use and a battery life that was way ahead of anything competition had to offer at that point. Since then, we've seen many models that were practically based on the same platform and philosophy with each one being a small evolution of the previous model. The main complaints that could be heard about the watch gt series was that there was no ecosystem of additional apps. You could install so some users felt that it wasn't really a true smartwatch, but more of a fitness watch with somewhat extended set of functions.

It is perhaps ironic that it was the U. S. sanctions against Huawei that helped solve this deficiency, forcing the company to develop their own operating system, software ecosystem and their app store. Huawei has put a lot of time and resources into developing their app gallery and harmony, OS, which is supposed to be a universal operating system for all smart devices, from mobile phones to watches TVs and anything else they wish to produce in the future. And while we wait for the first harmony OS smartphones to arrive, we had a chance to test the new Huawei watch, 3 pro smartwatches that uses this operating system and finally makes a big step up in terms of capabilities over its predecessors in designing this watch, Huawei has gone with a visual style that is halfway between the watch, gt2 and gt2 pro just like the gt2 pro.

The screen is flat on top with no bezel sticking out, but the shape of the case is quite similar to the gt2, which is a good thing, as the watch looks more classic with the traditional bracelet attachment points. Instead of what we saw on gt2 pro. The end result is a recognizable Huawei style watch, but still different from all the previous models and also larger than the gt2 and pro since the case is 48 millimeters wide instead of 46 or 46.7 millimeters watch 3 pro is also thicker and heavier though. Fortunately you don't get the impression of wearing an overly large watch compared to watch gt models. If those fit you well, this one will to watch 3 pro comes in two versions: classic edition and delete edition, the difference being that the classic comes with the genuine leather band.

While the elite has a band made of titanium, we got to test the classic edition and can say that its strap is made of high quality leather, though the chosen brown color will be a matter of taste. We feel like we've seen better. The band is replaceable, so you can use any 22 millimeter one. We tried the black silicone one and like boat, how it looks and how it feels as the leather is not ideal, when you're working out or sweating on a hot day as expected, materials used and build quality are top-notch and the titanium body ceramic back and sapphire glass promise toughness and durability. The watch is also 5 ATM waterproof and since it has a microphone and speaker openings on the side in the menu, you can find an option to expel the water from inside the case kind of like what we saw on the latest Apple Watch, where the speaker diaphragm, creates a positive pressure.

The biggest change over all previous Huawei watches are the keys on the right side of the case, where beside one standard key, we also have a digital crown which will make all the apple fans yell copycats, like we've, never seen a crown on watch before. Ok sure your grandpa's watch did have a crown, but when you pressed it, it did not display a menu which was clearly apple. Inspired. Personally, I think this was a mistake and that Huawei missed an opportunity to make a more practical menu than anyone else. The bottom key will, by default, give you a list of activities, though you can reassign it while pressing.

The crown gives you a list of apps, which you can zoom in and out by turning the crown as smooth and visually effective. As this may be, it's not the most practical solution, since it requires a lot of touching of the screen to activate options or apps and swiping your finger across to go back to the previous menu. If the bottom key was assigned to going back to the previous menu long press to go to the home screen, pressing the crown to activate an option and the menu adapted for scrolling via the crown operating, the watch would have been much faster and with no need to touch the screen. In fact, instead of the Apple Watch like menu, you can choose a classic watch gt menu, but that only solves a part of the problem. Oh well, perhaps next time we have to say, though, that the haptic feedback or vibration, when you turn the crown, is really nice and gives a convincing feel of turning something mechanical, even though it's completely smooth and linear.

So it's a shame. It wasn't more involved in controlling the watch. Huawei has also enabled the use of hand gestures like turning your wrist to activate the screen or contracting your hand to accept the call, though we weren't really able to make the ladder work in real use. For those who like to touch the screen, swiping left and right on the home screen will cycle through familiar widgets. By default, you get the weather, forecast and heart rate and blood oxygen saturation level.

Charts, though you can add others according to your own needs. The screen, which has practically stayed the same ever since the first watch gt, is finally upgraded and now comes with a slightly better resolution of 466 by 466 pixels and the size of 1.43 inches. It is still AMOLED, so the display quality is exceptional, and it offers enough brightness for good visibility, even on a bright day with automatic brightness control and an always on display option which uses simplified watch faces in order to save battery. We've already mentioned that the watch 3 pro comes with a new operating system, harmony, OS 2.0 and the new software ecosystem, so in terms of watch faces, Huawei has done what Samsung has done long ago allowed the third-party designers and developers to create their own watch faces and sell them in app gallery store. This move has attracted a lot of creative people, so the number of available watch faces is practically limitless, as we've scrolled through the list of available designs and could not reach the end of it.

The selection is perfect and most of the watch faces cost between half a euro and three euros, which is fine. If you like something and wants to freshen up the appearance of your watch. Of course, there are some free designs as well, both in the store and on the watch which are well-designed and varied, so you don't have to spend any money in order to get a good-looking watch face. Another advantage of the new platform is that it has finally enabled installing of the additional apps, not only in theory but with actual apps available in the app gallery, app on your watch with new releases being added regularly. At the moment we counted around 40, among which there are apps used for navigation, guided training, sports results, listening to music or radio, sending messages creating checklists translating and more though, the initial number of available apps is not that big Huawei has grown their developer base while getting their phone app gallery up and running.

So it would not be a surprise if we soon get to see a lot more apps available for the watch after it has been on the market for a while. As for the apps that you get pre-installed on the watch, there's a fairly usual selection with stuff like barometer compass, alarm, stopwatch and timer, music, app and guided breathing exercises. Huawei's watch 3 pro also allows you to take phone calls on it, see new messages and notifications and, although replying to messages is not supported by default, there are a few apps that you can pair with their mobile app counterpart and therefore enable that as well. The watch also supports ENIM. So if your local phone operator supports this, you can clone your sim card on it and use the watch completely independently to make phone calls and get internet connection for apps with no need for the phone, as was the case with the last few Huawei smartwatches, if you're using a mobile phone by some other manufacturer in order to use the full set of capabilities, it is required that you install the Huawei health app from the official web page as well as app gallery and hm score service for the watch to have full access.

Interestingly, even on an iPhone with only Huawei health installed, the watch works. Fine though the watch face store will be limited to free designs only, which is an apple restriction, of course, since this is a fitness watch as well, there's a bunch of functions that have become a signature of watch gt series as well as some. We have not seen on previous models for tracking pulse stress, sleep and blood oxygen saturation, there's a new true scene, 4.5 system with 6 diodes and 4 sensors, which is pretty efficient and tracks pulse changes well during warm-up, as well as during an actual activity. Sleep tracking, which has traditionally been a strong point of Huawei watches, seems to have changed the algorithms a bit or the old ones have not been completely optimized for new sensors. Yet so, even though the results are mostly accurate, there were some errors in detecting the time when the user would fall asleep or awake state during the night.

There's plenty of sleep information, though, like the time spent in light and deep sleep or the rem phase, comparison between your results and normal reference values, as well as some advice on how to improve your sleep and fix things that are not optimal. Stress tracking can be used both on demand and automatically throughout the day, and the same goes for tracking blood, oxygen saturation and the new function of tracking skin temperature, which is quite useful in a current pandemic situation. Granted the watch 3 pro is not a body thermometer and the temperature mostly fluctuates between 33 and 35 degrees Celsius, but wearing it every day. You'll know your normal temperature and will be able to notice if there's anything unusual, going on with your body as for activity tracking this time, around Huawei has chosen to focus on what people actually tend to track. So there are no obscure activities like what we saw in many smartwatches lately, but rather just the classics, walking running biking and swimming both indoors and outdoors tracking and mountaineering, skiing, few gym, cardio machines, triathlon and the general profile for all other activities.

The only somewhat unusual supported activity would be golf where the watch will show you an animated, proper swing, form and measure the swing time and speed. There's also a guided running training display of time required for full recovery and a detailed analysis of every activity that you can see both on the watch and in Huawei health apps. We should note that it takes about a minute for the watch to establish the GPS signal when outdoors and besides guiding you to your starting point. It can also display a detailed map with street names if you're carrying your phone with you as well or are using ECM. Another new feature is the SOS where the watch will call a number you set if you press the key 5 times in a row or the watch detects the fall as for the battery life, which has been one of the main selling points for previous Huawei watches this time due to the new features and noticeably better performance, it is much shorter than what we're used to Huawei rates it at five days of use and in our tests with normal use, constant tracking of all supported features, daily activities and some GPS.

Without always on screen. The watch lasted almost 6 days on a single charge. So it's still a good compromise for those who need all the new features and apps good thing is that the watch charges fast, so you can top it up anytime. It's convenient for you within those five days, both via the included wireless charger or by reverse wireless charging on your mobile phone overall watch.3 pro is definitely an evolution of Huawei watches, but also a model which will not make the watch gt series obsolete. They share plenty of similarities in terms of looks and software, but have very different design philosophies.

Those users who choose the watch 3 pro, will get an option to install additional apps, a slightly better screen, improved sensors and some new ones and all the features we like about Huawei watches at the cost of shorter battery life and the price of nearly 500 euro. Previous Huawei models have been quite popular, but we'll see how well the watch 3 pro will do. You can tell us how you like it in the comments below we hope you enjoyed this video enough to give us a thumbs up and maybe consider subscribing to our channel for more interesting tech content. You're watching bench house, my name is Ivan, and I'll see you next time.

Source : Bench House