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 collection. I’ve bought my palms on the latter, which is the extra premium possibility geared up 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 facet for controls and navigation.  

You may 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. In case you 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 possibly can swap them out for any suitable 22mm strap, must you desire. Huawei sells its personal vary, with completely different colors and supplies to select from.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

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

As a petite girl with pathetic spindly arms, the 65g weight and chunky design makes for an uncomfortable put on after lengthy intervals of time. The bigger dimension makes house for an enormous 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. Beneath testing, it labored completely nicely beneath water, with controls good and responsive after submersion. It’s additionally endured a couple of knocks and bumps with no bother, so its sturdy and hardy.  

On the again of the face, there’s an assortment of sensors, together with an optical coronary heart price sensor, an ambient mild sensor, a temperature sensor, an ECG sensor and a depth sensor. 

Not all wearables provide such a wealth of well being monitoring options, so it is a massive 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 giant, brilliant 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 beneath brilliant daylight with no points – although the show is vulnerable to some fingerprint marks.  

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

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

The watch additionally comes with a ‘increase to wake’ function, so whenever you carry your wrist to eye stage, the display will routinely mild up. Brightness is about to automated 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 possibly can flip it off within the settings menu – the voice on the wearable is surprisingly loud.

You may pre-load music out of your telephone onto the smartwatch. Nevertheless, the speaker isn’t anyplace close to adequate to duplicate the depth and color on a speaker or pair of headphones.  

There’s a built-in microphone on the Watch 4 Professional, so you possibly can take calls on it and that’s actually all of the speaker must be used for. My voice was apparently fairly clear on a name, besides if I jostled round. I used to be additionally capable of hear the opposite individual 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 collection of latest widgets, so you possibly can have extra on the big residence 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 capable of see my coronary heart price, train data, time and climate extra simply.

The watch routinely 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 it is a Huawei system, you gained’t discover any Put on OS apps like Google Maps or Spotify, however there’s 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 if you happen to’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 telephone 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 resembling WhatsApp with automated replies and emojis. 

There are additionally apps for every day organisation resembling 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 assessments in fast succession (it takes round a minute). On this time the watch measures your common coronary heart price, your SpO2 ranges, your pores and skin temperature, ECG, arterial stiffness, respiratory ranges and provides 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 might be having any respiration points. To check this, you should cough into the watch a couple of instances – I like to recommend doing this at residence to keep away from anybody considering you’re gross.

Sadly (or happily, 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 supposed. All the opposite outcomes I bought largely matched the scores I’ve bought from different wearables.

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Except for the well being monitoring, the Huawei Watch 4 Professional may also 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 resembling pilates, core exercises and even golf driving vary periods.  

Throughout train, the watch tracks your coronary heart price, your route by way of 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 you need to take breaks. For instance, the stroll/run course is a perfect one to observe if you happen to’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 couple of minutes.  

Put on the Huawei Watch 4 Professional all through the night time – if you happen to can naked the scale of it – and it’ll monitor your sleep. The rating then exhibits the place you had deep, mild 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 information is recorded within the accompanying Huawei Well being app. This can be a ache to put in. It isn’t out there instantly 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 problem.  

The app is filled 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 less complicated and simpler to navigate – and didn’t require such a convoluted set up course of – it will make this smartwatch simpler to make use of. 

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

Battery life & charging 

• 4.5 days typical utilization in normal 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 normal mode, which is according to my testing. Nevertheless, you possibly can lengthen this as much as 12 days in ultra-long battery life mode with typical utilization or, if used very conservatively, this system might be stretched to a whopping 21 days.

Be aware that if you happen to allow an eSIM, the watch will solely final two days in normal mode.

As you’ll count on, ultra-long mode disables portion of the options to save lots of on juice. Nevertheless, with this turned on you continue to get coronary heart price monitoring, ECG, SpO2 monitoring, train monitoring and sleep monitoring. The principle issues disabled are cell information, Wi-Fi and respiratory monitoring.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Subsequently, if you happen to solely actually use the watch when its connecting to your telephone by way of Bluetooth, then you possibly can 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 consists of 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 instantly, or by way of Amazon UK. As with different Huawei merchandise, the Watch 4 collection isn’t out there in America.  

For £100/€100 much less, you possibly can go for the common Watch 4. Regardless of the value leap from the Watch 4 to the Watch 4 Professional, there aren’t many main variations between the fashions aside 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 can be extra snug to put on. Subsequently, I’d counsel saving some cash and choosing the cheaper mannequin – you possibly can all the time swap the strap for one thing extra premium and nonetheless make an enormous 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 Sequence 8. Try our chart of the very best smartwatches for extra choices.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Verdict 

The Huawei Watch 4 Professional is a flexible wearable. It consists of 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 and feels premium, it’s solely appropriate in case you have bigger wrists or recognize a chunky end. In any other case, it can seemingly be too massive and heavy.

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

In case you’re not hooked up to the titanium casing and don’t thoughts choosing a barely smaller battery, it’s value 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 (normal/Professional)
• Accelerometer
• Gyroscope
• Optical coronary heart price sensor
• Ambient mild 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 – Customary mode (normal/Professional), 8/12 days – Extremely-long battery mode (normal/Professional)
• Wi-fi charging
• Magnetic USB wi-fi charger
• 48/65g with out strap (normal/Professional)
• 46.2 mm × 46.2 mm × 10.9mm (normal)
• 47.6 mm × 47.6 mm × 12.9mm (Professional)
• Compatibility: Android 6.0/iOS 13.0 or later