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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 but it surely’s not an entry-level system both. The important thing specs embody a spacious 1.46-inch AMOLED show, the standard record 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 assist and sensible replies to notifications, Honor Watch GS 3 is rated at as much as two weeks of typical use which is method forward of some premium watches. As well as, Honor is boasting a brand new eight-channel optical sensor for coronary heart price and blood oxygen measurements all lined in a premium-looking casing.
I strapped up a evaluate unit of the watch to my wrist and carried it with me day and evening for over per week. Let’s see how the Honor Watch GS 3 fares in our real-world testing and if it is value contemplating.
Design
Our Honor Watch GS 3 evaluate unit comes with a gold-colored chrome steel casing and brown Nappa leather-based watch strap. The design is actually much like a classic timepiece and will definitely slot in on extra formal events. Regardless of the big 46mm casing, Watch GS 3 measures in at simply 10.5mm and weighs 44 grams – severely spectacular given the big display screen actual property.
The 1.43-inch AMOLED on the watch is great 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 sort of neat since you may at all times examine the time and your well being/sports activities metrics relying on the watch face.
The watch feels snug 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 may simply change it up with any 22mm equal band of your liking.
The retail package deal consists of the watch, a proprietary two-pin magnetic charger and a USB-C to USB-A cable. Watch GS 3 is 50m water-resistant (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 price, 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 price readings alongside 24/7 blood oxygen measurements. As for the exercise monitoring facet, 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 assist for all 5 main international positioning requirements. In contrast to the Chinese language model of the Watch GS 3, our worldwide variant doesn’t assist NFC for contactless funds which is a draw back.
You may obtain notifications from apps, although you may solely reply to incoming calls with just a few pre-typed replies. Because of its built-in microphone and speaker, Watch GS 3 can take calls out of your paired cellphone by way of Bluetooth. The watch additionally boasts 4GB of native storage (2.2GB out there) which can be utilized to retailer music on the watch.
You may even pair a Bluetooth headset instantly with the watch which is good in case you don’t need to carry your cellphone with you throughout exercises. The vibration motor is a bit underwhelming right here although that’s seemingly because of the restricted area inside the skinny and light-weight watch profile.
The 1.46” AMOLED display screen comes with auto-brightness capabilities although you can even set one of many 5 levels of handbook 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 meanwhile. You get 13 pre-loaded watch kinds in addition to 11 AoD choices and the Honor Well being app allows you to obtain much more kinds to fit your wants. Some watch faces assist 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 Stress 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 data for all of the well being and sports activities monitoring metrics you’d want. There are shortly accessible playing cards that present you train historical past, well being readings and different data like steps and energy burned at a look. You may also begin exercise monitoring classes instantly from the app and tweak watch features 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 effectively 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 screen. You may get up the display screen by way of a double-tap or from one of many two facet 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 may remap it to any app in settings. You additionally stand up to 6 app shortcuts subsequent to the house display screen 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 beneficial in case you plan to make use of the GS 3 for taking calls. Microphone high quality is satisfactory although not on the extent of your smartphone or a good pair of TWS earbuds. Nonetheless, it’s good to have the choice to take calls in your watch if you should.
Well being monitoring on the Watch GS 3 advantages from the brand new eight-channel PPG coronary heart price sensor with frequency monitoring and an extra AI coronary heart price algorithm. Honor’s webpage claims coronary heart price accuracy is over 97% and in my testing, I discovered coronary heart price readings according to these on my private Xiaomi Mi Band 5.
SpO2 readings are akin to every other smartwatch/band – that means they’re a very good level of reference although actually not medical grade. In a direct comparability with a pulse oximeter, Honor Watch GS 3 confirmed outcomes that various between 95-100% in comparison with the oximeter’s 93-95% values. I additionally needed to restart the handbook SpO2 measurements on the watch a number of instances as I used to be “carrying the watch flawed”.
You don’t get entry to detailed well being metrics on the watch instantly like you may on another watches. If you wish to examine your detailed sleep metrics or examine weekly information, you’ll want to go over to the Honor Well being app in your cellphone. Sleep monitoring outcomes confirmed correct fall asleep and wake-up instances 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 exhibits you the standard metrics like common tempo, pace and stride frequency alongside the guts price and energy burned metrics. In the event you allow GPS monitoring you’ll additionally get your runs mapped pretty precisely although your smartphone’s receiver is probably going to present 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 sorts 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 handbook brightness set at degree 3, AoD turned on, 24/7 coronary heart price, 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 may get to the two-week claims however that will require sacrificing options and limiting the watch’s potential. A full cost takes simply over an hour. The 5W charger also can get you a day’s value of energy from a fast five-minute cost.
Verdict
Honor Watch GS 3 is a flexible smartwatch with a cushty and classy design and loads of helpful sports activities and well being monitoring options. You get dependable metrics because of the up to date optical PPG sensor with a protracted record 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 a good quantity of watch faces in addition to AoD performance and auto-brightness. The software program expertise on the watch is clean 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 cellphone in your pocket or ditch it fully throughout your exercises. The voice-guided exercises and their animations are fairly the device to have in your wrist and will help 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 shortage of third-party apps, NFC and the choice to answer to notifications are the one downsides right here although watches that supply these features include increased value tags. Honor Watch GS 3 nails the important thing pillars of a fantastic smartwatch and delivers it in a trendy kind issue that may be simply tailored because of the detachable 22mm watch strap. In case you are available in the market for a brand new smartwatch within the €220/£210 vary then the Honor Watch GS 3 is value wanting into.
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