Huawei Watch GT4 review – convincing design and battery life
8-12-2023
Translation: Veronica Bielawski
The Huawei Watch GT4 does what it does well. But a lack of features means it’s not the perfect smartwatch.
The fact alone that the Watch GT4 comes in a whopping seven variants makes me happy. Prices start at around 230 francs/euro and go up to just under 400 francs/euro. You choose between a diameter of 41 or 46 millimetres, seven case colours and five different strap materials.
However, the variants are fixed; the Milanaise metal strap, for example, is only available on the 41 mm version with gold casing. For my review, I received the silver 46-millimetre Watch GT4 with a stainless steel strap, which currently costs just under 340 francs/euros.
An important question that pops up with a strap like this is if it can be easily adjusted to your wrist size. The answer is yes; Huawei has come up with a very clever solution. About half of the links on the metal strap have small sliders,
allowing you to remove individual links without any tools. Huawei also supplies a few extra ones in case you need to extend the strap. After adjusting the strap to fit my meaty wrist, I still have four links left over and 10 links I could remove.
Source: Lorenz Keller
A beautiful watch
Both comfort and appearance are important to me, as I wear my watch every day. In fact, I wear the Huawei Watch 24/7 with nearly no breaks. I can definitely feel the GT4 on my wrist with its weight of 135 grammes including the strap.
But since the smartwatch fits perfectly, the large and rather heavy watch doesn’t bother me, even at night. Still, if you’re sensitive to such things, you’d best opt for the smaller version of the watch with a leather, textile or silicone strap. It weighs less than half of the big one.
Source: Lorenz Keller
The GT4 with the stainless steel strap looks beautiful and of a much higher quality than I’d expect for the price. Even after two months of intensive use, I haven’t yet picked up any scratches.
At first glance, the Huawei Watch looks like a classic watch. You only notice the display at second glance. If you’re partial to this look, you can hardly get comparable quality for this price. Many competitors opt for a technical look. But I really like Huawei’s design.
Impressive battery life
It’s not just because of the GT4’s looks that I hardly put it down during my test. There was also simply no reason to do so. While you have to take off the Apple Watch or Google’s Pixel Watch every evening to charge it at night, this isn’t so with Huawei’s GT4.
I switched on the always-on screen, tracked all my activities, heart rate and blood oxygen levels during the day and recorded my sleep every night. Even so, the battery only gave out after seven days. That’s fantastic!
Especially because it doesn’t require any compromises; I used various apps and applications, synchronised the watch regularly, received notifications – all without any noticeable losses in performance to save power.
Source: Lorenz Keller
Many functions – but not freely expandable
What you need to know is that the GT4 runs on HarmonyOS, Huawei’s own operating system. Although this contributes to the great battery life, it has one major disadvantage: the GT4 is significantly less well integrated into the smartphone system than Android watches or the Apple Watch.
You’ll notice this during the somewhat complicated installation. You need to download the Huawei Health app in order to pair the watch. In the app, you’ll not only find all the tracking data, but also the watch’s app store and watch face management. Unfortunately, the app isn’t quite so intuitive and clear.
Source: Lorenz Keller
Huawei has already pre-installed an enormous number of features, especially in the health and fitness sector. There’s a special overview with the most important measurements such as blood oxygen, temperature, sleep, stress level and pulse.
The Watch GT4 can record around 20 types of sport. When you record jogging or walking, the watch also tracks the route. The GPS works excellently, you can follow your route down to the metre. However, you must use the Huawei app for evaluation and tracking. This should be enough for the occasional workout, but those who do sports often will be better off with a specialised watch.
Source: Lorenz Keller
Huawe’s 1.43-inch AMOLED screen is exemplary. It’s bright and the menus are beautifully designed. They’re very colourful, but still clear and easy to use. The large screen is used to its fullest, making text messages easy to read.
But things become tricky if you have very specific needs. There are only around 40 additional apps you can download from the Swiss app store. Let’s say you want to trigger your smartphone camera on the watch. While there is a watch app for this, you’ll also need to install a special camera app on your phone for things to work somewhat well.
If you want to control Spotify on your watch, you’ll also need to install a host app on your phone – but it’s only available in Huawei's App Gallery. It’s all a bit complicated and tedious.
Certain features are missing completely, the key one being contactless payment. GT4 does support it in principle, but not in all countries. In Switzerland, for example, you can’t add any credit cards to the wallet.
Source: Lorenz Keller
My verdict: the perfect smartwatch for some
The Watch GT4 is impressive as an uncomplicated, stylish smartwatch with a great battery life. Charging once a week is enough, which is a real gain in convenience compared to many other watches that have to be plugged in three, four or even seven times in a week.
The things that bothered me more when reviewing the quite similar Watch 4 Pro play a less important role in the Watch GT4. The new smartwatch is cheaper, yet looks almost as high-quality as the more expensive model. Given the price, I’m much more forgiving of the GT4’s lack of functions than the Watch 4 Pro’s.
And you have to make surprisingly few compromises compared to the more expensive Watch 4 Pro anyway. What the Watch 4 Pro offers is more sophisticated materials (ceramic and titanium), an ECG sensor and diving features. Other than that, the two watches are very similar.
If a close connection to your smartphone system is important to you, you’re probably better off with a model from Samsung, Google or Apple. Notification management is smoother on them. With the GT4, it depends on the app whether you can respond directly to messages, for example. In addition, the quality and range of additional apps offered by the competition is better.
Header image: Lorenz Keller
Lorenz Keller
Senior Editor
Lorenz.Keller@digitecgalaxus.chGadgets are my passion - whether you need them for the home office, for the household, for sport and pleasure or for the smart home. Or, of course, for the big hobby next to the family, namely fishing.
