The Huawei Watch GT Pro 3 is the Chinese tech giant’s latest flagship smartwatch. And it is also the most luxurious smartwatch it has launched so far with two editions of Titanium and Ceramic.
In Singapore, only the 46mm Titanium edition – with fluoroelastomer watch strap – is available. Not that I am complaining, as the Watch GT 3 Pro is equipped with a titanium case, sapphire glass lens and ceramic back case. All these materials that are associated with luxurious watches.
- Price: $468, get it at Shopee
- Display: 1.43 inches, AMOLED, 466 x 466 pixels
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi
- Water resistance: IP68, 5ATM; free diving up to 30m
- Weight: 54g (without strap)
If this watch has an Apple logo, it will probably cost over S$1,000. Thankfully, the Watch GT 3 Pro is priced under S$500. Only downside is it only comes with fluoroelastomer watch strap. While this is great for workouts, it might not be the most elegant when you are going for formal events. But you can easily change the strap with any off-the-shelf 22mm watch straps.
| PROS | CONS |
| Sleek classy design | Needs a Huawei smartphone to fulfil its potential |
| Made of premium materials like titanium case and sapphire glass lens | Lacking some smartwatch features |
| Accurate steps and GPS-tracked runs | Advanced health features like ECG and atrial stiffness detection not available in Singapore |
| Spot-on sleep tracking | |
| Long battery life |
Looks wise, the Watch GT 3 Pro is absolutely stunning. Easily one of the best-looking smartwatches in the market. It features a gorgeous 1.43-inch circular display with thin black bezel on the exquisite titanium case with explorer lugs.
There are only two buttons on the right side of the watch case – a pushable rotating crown at the 2 o’clock location and another side button at the 4 o’clock position. The crown is also the home button and offers haptic feedback when turned, while the side button acts a shortcut to the Workout menu.
The display is responsive to all your touches. Swipe up will bring up the notifications, and swipe down lets access the settings menu.
Swiping right leads the weather, while swiping left moves you through several widgets including physical activities, heart rate, SpO2 (blood oxygen level), weather, moon phase and sleep record.
Running on HarmonyOS, it works best with a HarmonyOS-powered or Huawei smartphone like the P50 Pro. For this review, the Watch GT 3 Pro is paired with a Huawei P50 Pro.
The Watch GT 3 Pro features an Apple watchOS-like user interface via a grid launcher app menu. You can also change it to a list app menu in settings. You press the crown to bring up the app menu. Rotating the crown will let you zoom in or out of the UI. It is pretty intuitive.
However, the Watch GT 3 Pro lacks many smartwatch features. For instance, you cannot reply to a WhatsApp message directly from a notification on the smartwatch’s display.
It also works best with a HarmonyOS-based Huawei smartphone. For example, you can only send photos to the Watch GT 3 Pro via NFC using a Huawei smartphone. It also lacks support for other music platforms like Spotify or Deezer. Not to mention, there are very few apps available on the AppGallery via Huawei Health app. I counted only 31 apps available to install. These apps include Calculator and Petal Maps. And there are some apps that failed to install.
If only Huawei can support Google’s Wear OS platform, this smartwatch would have been absolutely splendid. Unfortunately, it is still caught in sanctions imposed by the US due to the trade war. On the bright side, there are many watch faces that you can download for free or buy.
Plus, on the fitness front, the Watch GT 3 Pro is superb. In fact, the Watch GT 3 Pro even comes with over 100 workout modes. But I highly doubt anyone will be using it other than jogs, walks and swims.
It is equipped with Huawei’s TruSeen 5.0+ data monitoring system for all-day accurate heart health measurement and blood oxygen monitoring. It also features a built-in dual-band navigation system that takes advantage of five global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) – GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, Galileo and QZSS – to ensure accurate tracking of your runs.
As a result, you get very accurate results when tracking fitness metrics. To start, the readings of step tracking by the Watch GT 3 Pro vary by only around 3 per cent from my calibrated Apple Watch Series 7.
For GPS-tracked runs, it took only 10 seconds for the smartwatch to get a GPS fix on the first try. Many smartwatches usually take around 30 seconds or more for the first time.
Plus, the GPS-tracked distance is only off by 20m on a 4.2km jogging route along a park connector. The heart rate recorded is also consistent to that of Apple Watch Series 7.
By default though, there is still a loud voice notification that sounds off at every kilometre during a run. Unless you want the whole world to know your workout progress, I highly recommend disabling the sound. You can do so by going to Workout settings > Workout broadcast, and reduce the volume to zero.
Unlike the Watch GT 3 that has sleep tracking issues, the Watch 3 Pro’s sleep tracking capability is excellent. It correctly pinpointed the time I went to sleep and woke up as well as when I got up for a pee break in the middle of the night.
It is also pretty comprehensive. There are sleep cycle graphs that break your sleep patterns into deep sleep, light sleep and rapid eye movement sleep. The Huawei Health app also provides insights into deep sleep continuity and your breathing quality during sleep. But it does sound like a broken record, like get more sleep and sleep early, after a while.
The Watch GT 3 Pro has a rated battery life of 8 to 14 days depending on usage scenario. During my tests, I found the battery life to be around 10 days with two runs/walks clocked, daily sleep tracking and Always-on Display turned off. As such, you can safely charge it once a week instead of daily. This is better than many smartwatches, which you have to charge daily.
VERDICT: The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is an affordable luxury smartwatch, if you do not mind its shortfall in smartwatch features. It is an absolute stunner with its exquisite design and great looks, while offering accurate fitness tracking and long battery life.