Review of Huawei Watch GT 4 - a smartwatch with a focus on design and health care.

The green version will definitely appeal to those who sort plastic.

Over the past few years, smartwatches have progressed in two directions: appearance and health features. Top-end accessories have to chase two birds with one stone, trying to offer new designs, unusual materials and previously unavailable features. All this must justify both the price and the expectations of users, who are becoming more and more difficult to surprise every year. Huawei with Watch GT 4 tried to advance in all directions at once. Let's see if it succeeded.

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Design
• Screen
• Control and interface
• Health and sports
• Application and features
• Autonomy
• Results

Specifications

Design and usability

Huawei Watch GT 4 comes in two sizes: 41 and 46 mm. The first version resembles an elegant jewelry watch, but the second is a massive and modern gadget. I would like to call this option masculine, but in fact it may well be suitable for girls, especially considering the variety in design.

There is a steel gray model with a metal bracelet, a silver one with a brown leather strap, a sportier black one with silicone, and an original green one, which we tested.

This version has a very interesting strap. Its outer surface is made of polyester made from recycled plastic bottles. The inside is very soft and tactilely pleasant nylon - it is made from recycled plastic caught from the ocean . In other words, it is a kind of eco-option.

This composite is complemented by white stitching, a classic buckle and two trench coats. The strap is removable - it can be replaced with any other with a 22 mm mount.

The watch case is made of stainless steel. The bezel is completely round, but the base underneath has an octagonal design. The corners of such a figure are slightly visible at the edges, and it looks quite original.

There are two buttons on the right side. The classic flat bottom, which launches the training mode by default, and the rotating crown on top. The latter, when pressed, opens a screen with applications or returns to the watch face, and its rotation allows you to scroll through vertical interfaces, move various sliders and interact with some dynamic elements.

There are no contacts on the inside of the watch, only sensors and two narrow speaker holes. The panel itself is ceramic.

Screen

The display of Huawei Watch GT 4 is flat, 1.43 inches with an AMOLED matrix with a resolution of 466 × 466 pixels. In our eco-version, it has an original two-color edging that harmonizes perfectly with the strap.

The manufacturer does not specify the peak brightness, but it is quite high. On a sunny day there will be no problems with readability. There is also auto-brightness based on a light sensor, as well as the Always On Display function.

The ratio of the density of dots and the size of the panel is optimal - the picture is very clear, the text is perfectly readable, images and small details of the dials do not crumble into dots.

By the way, about the dials. Watch GT 4 now has customizable options where you can change not only the displayed metrics, but also the background, color of symbols, type of tachymeter, and so on.

For example, the numbers can be repainted from green to pink, making them Roman. And after installing the new dial, use a rotating crown to adjust the boldness of the symbols. By similar scrolling on another dial you can change the degree of flower opening, and there are also several flowers to choose from.

All this is very cool: the watch seems much more alive and responsive than the manufacturer’s previous models. Flexible dial settings and original dynamics in simple elements that can be interacted with by scrolling, accompanied by barely perceptible vibration, have also benefited.

The only pity is that there are still few customizable watch faces. We hope it's a matter of time.

Control and interface

In terms of touch controls, everything is almost standard: swiping down from the watch face opens the quick settings curtain, up opens the notification panel with grouping of tiles by application, and swiping to the left allows you to scroll through widget cards.

The cards themselves have improved noticeably. Now these can be not just some application screens, but entire groups of functions. For example, “Health” immediately displays heart rate , stress level, sleep data and SpO2.

If you want to change something in this set, please, this option is provided. Just hold down the screen and use the usual gear to go to settings. By the way, the dials are configured in a similar way.

An innovation in the interface is the smart assistant, which is located to the left of the dial, just like on smartphones. This assistant displays a feed of useful widgets, such as weather, music player, reminders, and tips.

The main menu of all applications is represented by a grid with round icons, which can be scaled by rotating the same crown. By pressing, the desired icon can be moved closer to the center or, conversely, moved to the outskirts of this area. It all works very smoothly and quickly.

There is a little more data inside the applications themselves, so that you have to turn to your smartphone less often when, for example, you need to look at the weather for the whole week or analyze your daytime sleep.

Health and sports

The watch supports round-the-clock monitoring of heart rate and blood oxygen saturation levels, assessment of sleep quality and stress, and measurement of skin temperature. All this is already standard features, plus or minus, for a good smartwatch, but tracking breathing during sleep and the state of the cardiovascular system is still new.

Huawei Watch GT 4 can analyze the pulse wave and detect atrial fibrillation. If there are any deviations in the heartbeat rhythm, the gadget will warn the user about possible problems. But it is important to note that the watch is not a medical device and all its health data is intended only to alert you to potential risks. However, this is also great, especially for heart patients.

For sports, the watch has more than 100 training modes, including various types of swimming, because the watch can withstand immersion to a depth of 50 meters. You can evaluate your daily mobility using activity rings, setting goals for intense exercise time or calories.

For even more motivation, the watch now has the “Be Fit” app, which can compare calories burned and calories consumed and suggest plans for losing or gaining weight . True, you will have to enter the calories you receive with your hands through an application on your smartphone, indicating what you ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This feature should be added with the Huawei Health update. So far, the “Be Fit” service itself and the dial of the same name work only on the watch, that is, it is impossible to calculate the energy from meals at the time of publication of this review. But in any case, a very good start. It will definitely be appreciated by those who are used to counting calories.

Application and features

The Huawei Health application mentioned above, as before, is a bridge between your smartphone and the watch. You can download it from the AppGallery or App Store.

The application is quite convenient and easy to use. Its interface is represented by five tabs, the main one of which, “Health,” displays bars for all dimensions and metrics. Click and go to detailed data and visual graphs by day and month. There will also be tips and recommendations.

The adjacent “Exercise” tab allows you to start a running mode with route tracking via the watch’s GPS. You can also enable tracking from the Watch GT 4 itself. The path will be displayed on the gadget’s screen, but without a map. Direct navigation works in a similar way: you will only see signs indicating where to turn and where to turn. Moreover, to do this, you will need to install Petal Maps on your smartphone - the watch only works with this service.

In the Devices tab, when you select a connected Watch GT 4, you can navigate to the watch face store or AppGallery. Since the review of Huawei Watch Buds, the list of applications available for installation has not changed much. The selection is limited, but there is a calculator, a camera tool, a calendar, a pill tracker , and a TickTick scheduler client.

There, on the “Devices” tab, there is a function for searching for watches with a sound signal, sending music to the device’s memory, creating quick replies for instant messengers (no more than 36 characters) and adding contacts to make a call. The call itself goes through the smartphone, but the speaker and microphone of the watch allow you to use it as a headset. Moreover, the connection is maintained even at a great distance. You can walk freely around the apartment, literally speaking to the clock.

Since the accessory supports NFC, there is a “Wallet” for contactless payment. The function is implemented through the Huawei Pay service and only works with UnionPay cards of several partner banks. There was no suitable one at hand.

Autonomy

Huawei Watch GT 4 has a fairly capacious 524 mAh battery by the standards of the segment. According to the manufacturer, it provides up to 14 days of battery life. In our case, it turned out to be about 10, but it’s worth considering that we were constantly digging into the settings and playing with the dials. In normal day-to-day use without GPS, two weeks is quite realistic.

Wireless charging for the watch is included. The magnetic part has a USB-A connector. It takes approximately an hour and a half to replenish 100% energy (with an adapter from 5 V / 2 A).

Results

There are such devices that immediately fascinate. They are very pleasant to use and simply pleasing to the eye. All this applies to Huawei Watch GT 4. The green version with an unusual strap turned out to be extremely attractive.