Huawei Watch 4 Pro Review: Tracking Galore

Value When Reviewed

Not out there within the US

Earlier this 12 months, Huawei launched its first headphone and smartwatch hybrid, the Watch Buds. Now, the model is increasing its wearable tech with the subsequent installment in its flagship smartwatch line.

There are two fashions within the newest era: the Watch 4 and the Watch 4 Professional, the identical naming conference seen on the Watch 3 sequence. I’ve acquired my arms on the latter, which is the extra premium possibility outfitted with a titanium construct and a beefier battery.

Design & construct 

• Leather-based and titanium strap choices
• 65g weight
• 5ATM water resistance

Huawei has caught with custom for this iteration of the Watch, with a big round face remnant of a traditional time piece. It has the identical 3D rotating crown and accompanying button on the right-hand aspect for controls and navigation.  

You possibly can go for three shades of bands on the Huawei Watch 4 Professional: a silver titanium strap, a blue composite strap or a darkish brown leather-based strap. If you happen to go for the cheaper Watch 4, you’ll simply get a rubber strap in black.  

I examined out the leather-based model, which is paired with silver titanium casing. The straps are fast launch, so you’ll be able to swap them out for any suitable 22mm strap, do you have to favor. Huawei sells its personal vary, with completely different colors and supplies to select from.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

This smartwatch each seems to be and feels worthy of its high-end price ticket. You possibly can very simply put on it within the workplace or out a drinks simply as you possibly can for a run within the park… when you have bigger wrists, that’s.   

As a petite lady with pathetic spindly arms, the 65g weight and chunky design makes for an uncomfortable put on after lengthy intervals of time. The bigger measurement makes area for a giant battery and extra sensors, however a slimmer design would have meant that I’d be much less inclined to take this off all through the day – defeating the purpose of a watch.

Aesthetics apart, the Huawei Watch 4 Professional comes with 5ATM water resistance (to 50m) and an IP68 ranking. Underneath testing, it labored completely nicely underneath water, with controls good and responsive after submersion. It’s additionally endured just a few knocks and bumps with no bother, so its sturdy and hardy.  

On the again of the face, there may be an assortment of sensors, together with an optical coronary heart charge sensor, an ambient gentle sensor, a temperature sensor, an ECG sensor and a depth sensor. 

Not all wearables provide such a wealth of well being monitoring options, so this can be a large plus for the Huawei Watch 4 Professional.  

Show & audio 

• 1.5in AMOLED show
• All the time on possibility
• Speaker and microphone 

While the cumbersome construct is an annoyance, it does imply that the display is massive, vibrant and spectacular. 

It’s a 1.5in AMOLED panel with a decision of 466 × 466 pixels and 310ppi, coated by sapphire glass. I’ve been in a position to make use of it underneath vibrant daylight with no points – although the show is vulnerable to some fingerprint marks.  

Navigation is responsive, with no lag when swiping between numerous screens and apps. There may be additionally an choice to allow a fundamental always-on show which exhibits the time and date, however this could minimize the battery life in half.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

The watch additionally comes with a ‘elevate to wake’ function, so while you raise your wrist to eye degree, the display will mechanically gentle up. Brightness is about to computerized out the field, and it adjusts nicely to its ambient environment.  

The Watch 4 Professional is provided with a built-in speaker. As default, the watch will learn out your stats after a exercise. If (like me) you get second-hand embarrassment about this throughout an train class, you’ll be able to flip it off within the settings menu – the voice on the wearable is surprisingly loud.

You possibly can pre-load music out of your cellphone onto the smartwatch. Nevertheless, the speaker isn’t anyplace close to ok to copy the depth and color on a speaker or pair of headphones.  

There’s a built-in microphone on the Watch 4 Professional, so you’ll be able to take calls on it and that’s actually all of the speaker needs to be used for. My voice was apparently fairly clear on a name, besides if I jostled round. I used to be additionally in a position to hear the opposite particular person simply.  

Software program & options 

• Concord OS 3.0
• Helps e-SIM

The Huawei Watch 4 Professional runs on Huawei’s personal working system, Concord OS 3.0, and is suitable with each iOS and Android smartphones. For this iteration, the interface has a sequence of latest widgets, so you’ll be able to have extra on the massive dwelling display. 

The default wallpaper has planet Earth rotating, however I made a decision to obtain one in all many from the accompanying app, so I used to be in a position to see my coronary heart charge, train information, time and climate extra simply.

The watch mechanically shows apps in a grid format just like the Apple Watch, however I exploit the checklist format so I can see the outline of every function extra clearly. As this can be a Huawei machine, you received’t discover any Put on OS apps like Google Maps or Spotify, however there may be an abundance of different issues to mess around with.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

The watch helps a standalone e-SIM, so you possibly can use it for phone-free navigation with Petal Maps when you’re out operating or biking. On prime of that, you get Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and NFC help – although the latter is redundant for UK consumers because it solely works with Huawei Pockets which doesn’t but help UK credit score or debit playing cards.  

For communication, Huawei has a cellphone log, contacts and messaging app, although you’ll must allow permission for contacts in your smartphone. You will get notifications on the watch and reply to some messages on issues reminiscent of WhatsApp with computerized replies and emojis. 

There are additionally apps for each day organisation reminiscent of a notepad, alarms and the climate.

Health & monitoring 

• Over 100 actions
• ECG and temperature sensors out there
• Makes use of the Huawei Well being app

For this newest smartwatch, Huawei has put an enormous concentrate on the well being monitoring options and making them simpler and faster to entry.  

The Well being Look function is the headliner, the place the watch does seven checks in fast succession (it takes round a minute). On this time the watch measures your common coronary heart charge, your SpO2 ranges, your pores and skin temperature, ECG, arterial stiffness, respiratory ranges and offers you a stress rating.  

Respiratory is a brand new measurement for Huawei watches within the West, which ought to allegedly detect whether or not you’re having any respiratory points. To check this, you will need to cough into the watch just a few occasions – I like to recommend doing this at dwelling to keep away from anybody considering you’re gross.

Sadly (or luckily, relying on the way you take a look at it), I didn’t have a case of the sniffles throughout testing to see if this function works as meant. All the opposite outcomes I acquired largely matched the scores I’ve acquired from different wearables.

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Other than the well being monitoring, the Huawei Watch 4 Professional can be used to trace over 100 completely different actions. These embrace your typical sports activities like operating, strolling, biking and swimming, in addition to extra particular sports activities reminiscent of pilates, core exercises and even golf driving vary periods.  

Throughout train, the watch tracks your coronary heart charge, your route through GPS (if relevant) and some different issues relying on the game. For instance, throughout a session within the pool the watch broke down the completely different strokes I used – and it was fairly on the cash compared to another wearables just like the Amazfit GTS 4.  

The watch has some preset programs for operating, with timers to find out your tempo and when it is best to take breaks. For instance, the stroll/run course is a perfect one to observe when you’re simply stepping into jogging.

There may be additionally an auto-detect function for sure actions. I used this on a stroll, and while it did activate it usually didn’t depend the primary jiffy.  

Put on the Huawei Watch 4 Professional all through the night time – when you can naked the dimensions of it – and it’ll observe your sleep. The rating then exhibits the place you had deep, gentle and REM sleep, in addition to any intervals of waking up. Once more, all the info recorded appeared correct to my expertise.

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

All of your monitoring knowledge is recorded within the accompanying Huawei Well being app. This can be a ache to put in. It isn’t out there immediately within the Google Play Retailer, so that you’ll must obtain it out of your browser. I additionally discovered that the watch initially had bother connecting throughout set-up, however a restart did remedy the difficulty.  

The app is stuffed with advertisements, and never tremendous intuitive to make use of, with some settings and options buried deep in lots of folders. If the structure was easier and simpler to navigate – and didn’t require such a convoluted set up course of – it might make this smartwatch simpler to make use of. 

Knowledge out of your smartwatch may be carried over to apps reminiscent of Strava and Adidas Operating, however you’ll nonetheless want the Huawei Well being app.  

Battery life & charging 

• 4.5 days typical utilization in customary mode
• As much as 21 days in ultra-long mode
• 90 minutes to cost

Huawei claims that the Watch 4 can final round 4.5 days with typical utilization in customary mode, which is consistent with my testing. Nevertheless, you’ll be able to prolong this as much as 12 days in ultra-long battery life mode with typical utilization or, if used very conservatively, this machine may be stretched to a whopping 21 days.

Word that when you allow an eSIM, the watch will solely final two days in customary mode.

As you’ll anticipate, ultra-long mode disables a great portion of the options to avoid wasting on juice. Nevertheless, with this turned on you continue to get coronary heart charge monitoring, ECG, SpO2 monitoring, train monitoring and sleep monitoring. The primary issues disabled are cellular knowledge, Wi-Fi and respiratory monitoring.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Subsequently, when you solely actually use the watch when its connecting to your cellphone through Bluetooth, then you’ll be able to just about use it within the ultra-long mode more often than not.  

Huawei claims that it takes round 90 minutes to cost the Watch 4 Professional from flat to full, which is correct. The field contains an accompanying magnetic charger.

Value & availability 

The Huawei Watch 4 Professional is priced at £499/€549 for brown leather-based strap and blue variations, and £549/€649 for the silver titanium model. You should buy it from Huawei immediately, or through Amazon UK. As with different Huawei merchandise, the Watch 4 sequence isn’t out there in America.  

For £100/€100 much less, you’ll be able to go for the common Watch 4. Regardless of the value bounce from the Watch 4 to the Watch 4 Professional, there aren’t many main variations between the fashions apart from the construct supplies and the battery life.

While the Watch 4 doesn’t look as costly, it’s a lot lighter at 48g, so will probably be extra snug to put on. Subsequently, I’d counsel saving some cash and choosing the cheaper mannequin – you’ll be able to all the time swap the strap for one thing extra premium and nonetheless make a giant saving. 

For the same vary of well being monitoring options, you possibly can go for one thing just like the Google Pixel Watch or Apple Watch Collection 8. Take a look at our chart of the very best smartwatches for extra choices.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Verdict 

The Huawei Watch 4 Professional is a flexible wearable. It contains well being monitoring options that some manufacturers don’t provide, dependable train monitoring and a really spectacular battery life when used within the ultra-long mode.  

While the construct seems to be and feels premium, it’s solely appropriate when you have bigger wrists or admire a chunky end. In any other case, it is going to possible be too large and heavy.

The app can also be clunky, and also you’ll must make do with none Google apps and issues like Spotify help.

If you happen to’re not hooked up to the titanium casing and don’t thoughts choosing a barely smaller battery, it’s price contemplating the Watch 4 over the Professional model. It’s extra reasonably priced and light-weight, and doesn’t sacrifice on these spectacular well being monitoring options.

Specs

• 1.5in round (466×466) AMOLED show
• 316L stainless-steel/titanium casing (customary/Professional)
• Accelerometer
• Gyroscope
• Optical coronary heart charge sensor
• Ambient gentle sensor
• Barometer
• Temperature Sensor
• ECG sensor
• Depth sensor
• Speaker
• Microphone
• 100+ exercise modes
• 5ATM water resistance
• eSIM (LTE)
• Bluetooth 5.2 + BLE
• WiFi (2.4GHz-only)
• NFC
• GPS
• Battery: Typical utilization 3/4.5 days – Commonplace mode (customary/Professional), 8/12 days – Extremely-long battery mode (customary/Professional)
• Wi-fi charging
• Magnetic USB wi-fi charger
• 48/65g with out strap (customary/Professional)
• 46.2 mm × 46.2 mm × 10.9mm (customary)
• 47.6 mm × 47.6 mm × 12.9mm (Professional)
• Compatibility: Android 6.0/iOS 13.0 or later