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Introduction
Honor’s most premium-looking smartwatch to this point – the brand new Honor Watch GS 3 is with us. With its €220/£210 price ticket it’s not precisely in premium watch territory nevertheless it’s not an entry-level system both. The important thing specs embody a spacious 1.46-inch AMOLED show, the standard checklist of well being and health monitoring in addition to 4GB of onboard storage alongside a microphone and speaker which implies hands-free calls and native media playback are a go.
Whereas it lacks third-party app help and good replies to notifications, Honor Watch GS 3 is rated at as much as two weeks of typical use which is means forward of some premium watches. As well as, Honor is boasting a brand new eight-channel optical sensor for coronary heart fee and blood oxygen measurements all lined in a premium-looking casing.
I strapped up a overview unit of the watch to my wrist and carried it with me day and night time for over every week. Let’s see how the Honor Watch GS 3 fares in our real-world testing and if it is price contemplating.
Design
Our Honor Watch GS 3 overview unit comes with a gold-colored chrome steel casing and brown Nappa leather-based watch strap. The design is admittedly just like a classic timepiece and will definitely slot in on extra formal events. Regardless of the massive 46mm casing, Watch GS 3 measures in at simply 10.5mm and weighs 44 grams – severely spectacular given the massive display actual property.
The 1.43-inch AMOLED on the watch is superb with its sharp 466 x 466 px decision and 326 ppi. The 3D curved glass protecting the show is a very nice contact and provides to the premium feeling aesthetic. Being an AMOLED panel you additionally get All the time-on Show (AoD) performance which is kind of neat since you’ll be able to at all times examine the time and your well being/sports activities metrics relying on the watch face.
The watch feels comfy on the wrist and is solidly constructed. The leather-based strap is an additional benefit right here although in case you’re not a fan you’ll be able to simply change it up with any 22mm equal band of your liking.
The retail bundle consists of the watch, a proprietary two-pin magnetic charger and a USB-C to USB-A cable. Watch GS 3 is 50m waterproof (5ATM) and may monitor your swims classes although it might be advisable to change as much as a silicone strap earlier than you get within the pool.
Options
Honor Watch GS 3 brings coronary heart fee, SpO2, sleep and stress monitoring. Honor claims the brand new eight-channel PPG sensor used on the GS 3 ought to ship 97% minimal accuracy for coronary heart fee readings alongside 24/7 blood oxygen measurements. As for the exercise monitoring aspect, you get entry to over 100 sports activities modes.
Runs, hikes and bike rides get the additional advantage of the dual-band GNSS receiver with help for all 5 main international positioning requirements. In contrast to the Chinese language model of the Watch GS 3, our worldwide variant doesn’t help NFC for contactless funds which is a draw back.
You possibly can obtain notifications from apps, although you’ll be able to solely reply to incoming calls with a number of pre-typed replies. Due to its built-in microphone and speaker, Watch GS 3 can take calls out of your paired telephone by way of Bluetooth. The watch additionally boasts 4GB of native storage (2.2GB obtainable) which can be utilized to retailer music on the watch.
You possibly can even pair a Bluetooth headset instantly with the watch which is good in case you don’t wish to carry your telephone with you throughout exercises. The vibration motor is a bit underwhelming right here although that’s doubtless as a result of restricted area inside the skinny and light-weight watch profile.
The 1.46” AMOLED display comes with auto-brightness capabilities although you may also set one of many 5 levels of guide brightness always. Watch GS 3 pairs by way of Bluetooth and also you want the Honor Well being app which is an Android unique in the mean time. You get 13 pre-loaded watch types in addition to 11 AoD choices and the Honor Well being app enables you to obtain much more types to fit your wants. Some watch faces help customizable watch issues and there’s additionally an choice to create customized watch faces with photos out of your gallery.
Watch GS 3 additionally boasts an Air Strain and Altimeter readings in addition to a compass. You additionally get upwards of 100 sports activities and exercise modes together with 12 health programs with step-by-step voice and animation directions instantly on the watch. These vary from easy stretching workouts to full-blown higher and decrease physique exercises with fastidiously timed train directions with voice-assisted teaching.
The Honor Well being companion app brings a clear design with pretty detailed information for all of the well being and sports activities monitoring metrics you’d want. There are rapidly accessible playing cards that present you train historical past, well being readings and different info like steps and energy burned at a look. It’s also possible to begin exercise monitoring classes instantly from the app and tweak watch capabilities like settings alarms, transferring music and downloading new watch faces.
Efficiency
Honor Watch GS 3 runs on LiteOS which is a proprietary working system used on previous Honor and Huawei watches. GS 3 packs an Apollo4 chipset which handles day-to-day duties decently nicely with none main stutters or lag.The watch interface is fairly simple and simple to make use of. Navigating the interface is completed primarily by way of swipes although the highest button will at all times take you to the lock display. You possibly can get up the display by way of a double-tap or from one of many two aspect buttons.
The highest button takes you to the apps web page whereas the underside one is assigned by default to the exercises app although you’ll be able to remap it to any app in settings. You additionally stand up to 6 app shortcuts subsequent to the house display by swiping left or proper. The built-in music participant is an attention-grabbing contact however transferring tunes to the watch is a sluggish course of executed by way of the Honor Well being app.
The in-built speaker will get fairly loud which is helpful in case you plan to make use of the GS 3 for taking calls. Microphone high quality is enough although not on the extent of your smartphone or an honest pair of TWS earbuds. Nonetheless, it’s good to have the choice to take calls in your watch if it’s good to.
Well being monitoring on the Watch GS 3 advantages from the brand new eight-channel PPG coronary heart fee sensor with frequency monitoring and an extra AI coronary heart fee algorithm. Honor’s webpage claims coronary heart fee accuracy is over 97% and in my testing, I discovered coronary heart fee readings according to these on my private Xiaomi Mi Band 5.
SpO2 readings are similar to another smartwatch/band – that means they’re an excellent level of reference although definitely not medical grade. In a direct comparability with a pulse oximeter, Honor Watch GS 3 confirmed outcomes that diversified between 95-100% in comparison with the oximeter’s 93-95% values. I additionally needed to restart the guide SpO2 measurements on the watch a number of occasions as I used to be “carrying the watch mistaken”.
You don’t get entry to detailed well being metrics on the watch instantly like you’ll be able to on another watches. If you wish to examine your detailed sleep metrics or evaluate weekly information, you’ll want to move over to the Honor Well being app in your telephone. Sleep monitoring outcomes confirmed correct fall asleep and wake-up occasions and likewise provide a sleep breakdown by class with fast eye motion (REM) included.
Exercise monitoring appeared according to different smartwatches and smartbands we’ve examined. Working information reveals you the standard metrics like common tempo, pace and stride frequency alongside the center fee and energy burned metrics. If you happen to allow GPS monitoring you’ll additionally get your runs mapped pretty precisely although your smartphone’s receiver is probably going to provide you extra correct readings. The GPS sensor on the watch took about 10 seconds to lock my location.
I discovered the health course choices fairly helpful. You get twelve various kinds of exercises starting from 3-minute stretching classes to full-body exercises all with audio and train kind steerage. These guided exercises are an effective way to change up your train routine or end up a exercise with a step-by-step stretching session.
Battery Life
Honor Watch has a 451 mAh battery cell rated at 14 days of typical utilization and 30 hours of endurance with GPS turned on. Throughout my testing I used the watch with guide brightness set at degree 3, AoD turned on, 24/7 coronary heart fee, SpO2, sleep and stress measurements alongside notifications syncing and three to 4 exercises per week. With these utilization patterns, I managed to squeeze 4 days of utilization.
With lighter use, you would get to the two-week claims however that might require sacrificing options and limiting the watch’s potential. A full cost takes simply over an hour. The 5W charger may also get you a day’s price of energy from a fast five-minute cost.
Verdict
Honor Watch GS 3 is a flexible smartwatch with a cushty and trendy design and loads of helpful sports activities and well being monitoring options. You get dependable metrics due to the up to date optical PPG sensor with an extended checklist of actions to select from together with voice-guided exercises with various difficulties to swimsuit the wants of each novice and superior customers.
The spacious 1.43-inch AMOLED show comes with an honest quantity of watch faces in addition to AoD performance and auto-brightness. The software program expertise on the watch is easy for essentially the most half although the absence of an iOS companion app is a letdown by way of compatibility.
Having an onboard speaker and microphone in addition to standalone GPS offers you the choice to go away your telephone in your pocket or ditch it utterly throughout your exercises. The voice-guided exercises and their animations are fairly the instrument to have in your wrist and can assist even the extra inexperienced customers into an everyday exercise regime. Battery life is first rate, although in case you activate all of the superior options and take calls on the watch you’ll should recharge each three to 4 days.
The dearth of third-party apps, NFC and the choice to answer to notifications are the one downsides right here although watches that supply these capabilities include increased value tags. Honor Watch GS 3 nails the important thing pillars of an ideal smartwatch and delivers it in a classy kind issue that may be simply tailored due to the detachable 22mm watch strap. If you’re out there for a brand new smartwatch within the €220/£210 vary then the Honor Watch GS 3 is price wanting into.
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