Huawei Watch 4 Pro review

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 following installment in its flagship smartwatch line.

There are two fashions within the newest technology: the Watch 4 and the Watch 4 Professional, the identical naming conference seen on the Watch 3 sequence. I’ve bought my arms on the latter, which is the extra premium choice 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 basic 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. For those who 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 may swap them out for any appropriate 22mm strap, do you have to want. Huawei sells its personal vary, with completely different colors and supplies to select from.  

This smartwatch each seems and feels worthy of its high-end price ticket. You can very simply put on it within the workplace or out a drinks simply as you can for a run within the park… you probably 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 durations of time. The bigger measurement makes house 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 score. Beneath testing, it labored completely nicely below 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 fee 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 huge plus for the Huawei Watch 4 Professional.  

Show & audio 

• 1.5in AMOLED show
• At all times on choice
• Speaker and microphone 

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

It’s a 1.5in AMOLED panel with a decision of 466 × 466 pixels and 310ppi, lined by sapphire glass. I’ve been in a position to make use of it below vivid daylight with no points – although the show is susceptible 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 reveals 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 once you elevate your wrist to eye stage, the display will robotically mild 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 may 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 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 may 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 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 appropriate with each iOS and Android smartphones. For this iteration, the interface has a sequence of latest widgets, so you may have extra on the big house display. 

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

The watch robotically shows apps in a grid format just like the Apple Watch, however I take advantage of the listing format so I can see the outline of every function extra clearly. As it is a Huawei system, you received’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 can use it for phone-free navigation with Petal Maps in case you’re out working or biking. On high of that, you get Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and NFC assist – although the latter is redundant for UK patrons because it solely works with Huawei Pockets which doesn’t but assist UK credit score or debit playing cards.  

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

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

Health & monitoring 

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

For this newest smartwatch, Huawei has put an enormous deal with 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 fee, 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’re having any respiration points. To check this, you have to cough into the watch a couple of occasions – I like to recommend doing this at house to keep away from anybody pondering you’re gross.

Sadly (or fortuitously, relying on the way you have 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

Apart from the well being monitoring, the Huawei Watch 4 Professional may also be used to trace over 100 completely different actions. These embody your typical sports activities like working, strolling, biking and swimming, in addition to extra particular sports activities similar to pilates, core exercises and even golf driving vary classes.  

Throughout train, the watch tracks your coronary heart fee, 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 working, 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 comply with in case 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 rely the primary couple of minutes.  

Put on the Huawei Watch 4 Professional all through the evening – in case you can naked the dimensions of it – and it’ll monitor your sleep. The rating then reveals the place you had deep, mild and REM sleep, in addition to any durations 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. It is a ache to put in. It isn’t obtainable immediately within the Google Play Retailer, so that you’ll have to obtain it out of your browser. I additionally discovered that the watch initially had bother connecting throughout set-up, however a restart did clear up the problem.  

The app is filled with adverts, and never tremendous intuitive to make use of, with some settings and options buried deep in lots of folders. If the format 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 might be carried over to apps similar to Strava and Adidas Working, however you’ll nonetheless want the Huawei Well being app.  

Battery life & charging 

• 4.5 days typical utilization in commonplace 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 commonplace mode, which is according to my testing. Nevertheless, you may 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 in case you allow an eSIM, the watch will solely final two days in commonplace 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 fee monitoring, ECG, SpO2 monitoring, train monitoring and sleep monitoring. The principle issues disabled are cell knowledge, Wi-Fi and respiratory monitoring.  

Hannah Cowton / Foundry

Due to this fact, in case you solely actually use the watch when its connecting to your cellphone by way of Bluetooth, then you may 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.

Worth & 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 by way of Amazon UK. As with different Huawei merchandise, the Watch 4 sequence isn’t obtainable in America.  

For £100/€100 much less, you may go for the common Watch 4. Regardless of the worth leap 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 might be extra comfy to put on. Due to this fact, I’d recommend saving some cash and choosing the cheaper mannequin – you may at all times swap the strap for one thing extra premium and nonetheless make a giant saving. 

For the same vary of well being monitoring options, you 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 you probably have bigger wrists or recognize a chunky end. In any other case, it would probably be too huge and heavy.

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

For those who’re not connected 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 inexpensive 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 (commonplace/Professional)
• Accelerometer
• Gyroscope
• Optical coronary heart fee 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 (commonplace/Professional), 8/12 days – Extremely-long battery mode (commonplace/Professional)
• Wi-fi charging
• Magnetic USB wi-fi charger
• 48/65g with out strap (commonplace/Professional)
• 46.2 mm × 46.2 mm × 10.9mm (commonplace)
• 47.6 mm × 47.6 mm × 12.9mm (Professional)
• Compatibility: Android 6.0/iOS 13.0 or later