Better than a Pixel Watch or Galaxy Watch?

As someone who has tested a plethora of smartwatches over the past few years, including every new Apple Watch, Pixel Watch, and several Galaxy Watches, I approached the HUAWEI GT 5 Pro with cautious optimism. Despite always hearing good things about the company’s wearables, this is the first HUAWEI smartwatch I’ve ever tested. To my pleasant surprise, this wearable has plenty going for it. While using the GT 5 Pro, I have been genuinely impressed that you can get all this starting from £329 (~$439).

Right off the bat, the design stands out. Available in 42mm or 46mm models (I tested the latter), the octagon shape exudes a cool, elegant vibe, and the aerospace titanium build adds a premium touch. While adjusting for my smaller wrists was a bit tricky, the titanium band complements the high-end feel. The watch is not small by any means; it’s undeniably big, but I was surprised by how light it was for the size. It’s also IP69K rated for resistance against water immersion and also high-temperature, high-pressure water jets.

Navigating the GT 5 Pro is also a breeze. The watch has a digital crown that you can use to navigate through the app screen and the UI. It’s tactile and feels premium. There’s a quick button that you can use to start activities and get into health tracking quickly, similar to the action button on other wearables we’ve seen.

It has a 1.3-inch AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 1,200 nits. While it’s not the brightest screen we’ve ever seen on a smartwatch, it does the job. The watch also offers a variety of new watch faces — 14 to be exact. That’s enough to get most users by; it is perfect for my tastes. My favorite is a sleek dark blue face, but options range from a pet panda that reflects your emotions to classic digital faces like Timecode and Modular. All these are located within the HUAWEI Health app, the central hub for health tracking and watch settings.

The app works on iOS and Android, so you should be able to connect this watch no matter what device you have. It’s like your hub; it’s where you live if you have this watch. It’s where you can look at your health tracking, use settings to change things on the watch and play with all those watch faces.

The watch works exactly how you would expect it to work on iOS and Android, except for a few things that don’t work. First of all, you cannot use NFC payments outside of China on this, and trust me, I have tried. You cannot add Google Wallet, which is a bit of a letdown. I found that notifications work pretty well, but there are times when I’m listening to music, for example, when I’ll get a ton of the same notifications one after the other about the song I’m listening to. That can be annoying, and it seems to happen mostly when Android Auto is connected.

But besides those minor quirks, everything else you expect to work works well. Using the full-size keyboard to reply to messages on things like WhatsApp is functional, even if it is a bit tricky. Using the watch to take calls, controlling music feedback by skipping tracks, pausing them, and controlling volume are all functional.

There’s a pretty cool swipe diagonal feature on the watch so you can see notifications, and then you have things like tiles that you can swipe through to see anything like your fitness and health stats and start quick activities (the watch supports over 100 activities, including a Pro-exclusive Free Diving mode). Harmony OS on the GT 5 Pro is a breeze to use. I haven’t used any other HUAWEI wearables, so I can’t tell you how it stacks up to the software on previous generations, but on the GT 5 Pro, it works wonderfully.

One of the GT 5 Pro’s most impressive aspects is its battery life. HUAWEI claims that it can endure for up to 14 days (or nine with the always-on display active). I haven’t gotten close to those two weeks yet, but I haven’t used this in power-saving mode either. However, even when using this watch normally, I’ve been able to recharge it for six or seven days, depending on how I use it. Coming from a Pixel Watch, where you have to charge every day or every day and a half (the only exception being the 45mm Pixel Watch 3), this is like a dream.

I always crave extended battery life on a smartwatch. I don’t want to be thinking all the time about charging it before I go to sleep, or if I’m trying to track sleep in the middle of the night, it might die. With the GT 5 Pro, you don’t have to worry about that. If you need to charge the watch, it can charge fully in about 60 minutes, and in the two weeks I’ve had it, I’ve had to charge it about twice.

Most smartwatches in 2024 can track your well-being and health, and the GT 5 Pro is no exception. TruSense is a big selling feature of this watch. It takes all of HUAWEI’s fitness features and puts them into one place. It has new glass darkening technology, which stops light from entering the sensors, meaning the signal coming from those sensors is a lot more accurate. It also now has 12 blood oxygen channels compared to the last generation’s four, and it can give you a blood oxygen reading in about 15 seconds. You have medical-grade ECG analysis (not available on the non-Pro GT 5), skin temperature readings, stress level readings, and a Breathe app for meditation.

One thing that I have tested out on this watch extensively over the past couple of weeks is its sleep tracking. I love a watch that supports automatic sleep detection, and the GT 5 Pro can do just that. It also offers sleep apnea detection, and within the sleep app on the watch, you can see your sleep score, how long you were in deep sleep, and other stats.

I compared it to the Pixel Watch 3 45mm to see how its sleep tracking compares, and the GT 5 Pro was found lacking. Every night, it would always give me about an hour’s extra sleep, and the Pixel Watch was just a little less. I’m not entirely sure which one of these is more accurate, but putting them together, they weren’t as close as I thought they would be.

The GT 5 Pro supports over 100 sports modes for sports enthusiasts, including trail navigation and professional golf mode. The sleep tracking feature is particularly noteworthy, offering automatic detection and sleep apnea monitoring. However, it did record about an hour more sleep compared to the Pixel Watch, so the accuracy might vary.

Overall, my first use of a HUAWEI watch has left me impressed. Of course, there’s no way to add Google Maps or Google Pay to this, which is disappointing because not having that NFC is just a little annoying. Also, being unable to download music through Spotify or YouTube Music is equally a little irritating.

But if you can look past those issues, this is a seriously impressive watch for the price. Here’s the sad news: if you like the sound of this and you’re in the US, you can’t pick this up because it won’t be coming to the US. But if you’re in Europe, you can pick this up, and if you need some seriously impressive battery life and accurate health tracking, then the HUAWEI GT 5 Pro might just be the watch you’re looking for.