Well, it might have taken six years, but after two weeks with the huawei watch 3 i got ta say it was worth the wait bracketed between 22 millimeter lugs, the 46 millimeter casing is 5 atmosphere. Water resistant made from polished stainless steel that blends into a ceramic cap on the back punctuated by a heart rate sensor beneath a sapphire window. On the flip side, the face is dominated by a gorgeous 1.4 inch amoled with a thousand knit peak brightness, which means i never had trouble seeing it, no matter how brightly the sun hit it and with the pixel density about on par with fossils, gen 5. Smart watches, the screen is also sharp enough that i didn’t want to stop looking at it. That’S thanks also to the 30 or so pre loaded watch faces, some of which are enchanting enough to make me wish. I could use them on all my watches and the display gets one more lovely shot in the arm from the domed glass crystal over the top, whose curves also make swiping through the software much more pleasant than the sheer sided glass on other watches. But, as i often say, my favorite part of the interface on well designed watches is that you don’t need to touch the screen for everything yep. This isn’t just for looks it’s an active digital crown useful for everything, from setting timers to scrolling lists and as on the moto 360 it’s placed at the 2 o’clock position to make it less prone to accidental activation.
When you bend your wrist every time, you scroll, you feel little micro clicks, as on the apple watch, it’s a surprisingly convincing simulacrum of a mechanism taken away with each tenth of a turn and if you’re, tired of the cupertino comparisons. This will be the last one. I’M very glad huawei offers the option to dispense with the apple aping cloud of app bubbles for a menu in favor of a more straightforward list. The only other button is a variable function, pusher at the four o’clock position, which you can map to any app. You like the software, does its best to complement the watch 3’s excellent hardware with a degree of thoughtful polish that wasn’t possible on huawei’s earlier gt series. That’S because, instead of a bare bones operating system that prioritizes battery life above all, the watch 3 essentially runs a custom fork of android. That huawei calls harmony os 2., so it can run full on third party apps, like the excellent pre loaded voice, memo app that every smart watch should offer it can send and receive calls and messages independently of a phone thanks to a built in e sim, and It can leverage its custom, processor and two gigs of ram to elevate the interface with tiny touches like slowly fading out the display once it times out, rather than flipping it off like a light switch. You also get handy features like a toggle that keeps the screen on for up to five minutes at a time useful if you’re keeping an eye on the countdown timer, which counts among its less useful features, a ticking sound effect that you’ll either love or love to Hate folks, if the story stopped, there, i’d have already bought the huawei watch 3.
To add to my own watch box, steep price tag notwithstanding, but as always, there are downsides to go with the ups and i’ll get to them right after this, the huawei watch 3’s disadvantages begin in familiar territory, both literally and figuratively, and i’ll take the former first. If you live in the us, you shouldn’t buy this watch, even if you can find one to import because you’ll effectively get a half broken watch the esim won’t activate, so you lose the standalone phone and, while i’m, all for switching to the metric system. Until we do i’d like to have the imperial option, at least worse, yet the only way to get additional apps on the watch is through huawei’s own app gallery, which would not function on my device. In fact, to work at all. The watch requires you to download the huawei health app and its associated framework, which at the moment needs to happen through your phone browser. Not the google play store. Andy box hall at digital trends points out that, while this process is a little easier using the watch with the iphone, there are major limitations to that experience as well. I’Ll link his review below, even once i got it set up on my samsung galaxy fold 2 and motorola razer 5g. There were odd bugs when using it with either the watch. Seldom got my location right, even after an update. It took well over a week for it to realize that i had left norfolk virginia to come home to greenpoint brooklyn.
The location, dependent tide tables have remained blank on all my watch faces since i unboxed it and if you’re used to the rich notification support, you can find elsewhere. Well, you won’t find it here on a wear os watch. I can read most of the first paragraph of an email to see. If i need to pull out my phone, i can dictate or choose a pre programmed reply. If i need to respond quickly from my wrist, the huawei watch 3 gives me almost none of that. Add in some odd bugs like raised awake, not always working emojis coming across as asterisks and telegram notifications, sometimes coming in quadruplicate and from a notification standpoint. It feels a lot more like a fitness band than a nearly 500 smartwatch. Now, if fitness is your focus, maybe you’ll find enough to like that. You can forgive those shortfalls. I mean you can take your skin temperature. With this watch. You can keep an eye on your blood oxygen or swap out the leather strap for silicone and fire up. Huawei workouts, if a virtual coach praising you in an unidentifiable regional dialect is what gets your legs a puppet? It took 37 minutes 37 seconds recent one mile average pace 17 minutes 26 seconds per mile. Your current heart rate is 131. and even with the extra load imparted by gps, you won’t have trouble making it to the end of the day, actually with typical use. I averaged about 51 hours before i had to drop this on its magnetic charging puck.
It charges wirelessly, but sadly it won’t charge reliably on a phone’s, reverse wireless charging mode. On my fold, two and flip the best i got was about a 20 boost before the phone gave up and i had even worse luck on standard qi. Charging pads just don’t forget your puck when you go on the road now harmony os is in its early days, and i expect it to advance rapidly. Even during my review period, i received two updates in as many weeks i mean that fast evolution is all but required. If huawei is to innovate past the roadblocks the us government has thrown in front of it in a few months time.zXVAesILpCM
