Honor Watch GS 3 Review

The Honor Watch GS 3 is a stylish smartwatch featuring a 1.43-inch AMOLED display, high grade materials, and plenty of health and fitness tracking features all wrapped in a premium and elegant case.

The screen is protected by curved glass and the smartwatch is available in three color options – Ocean Blue, Classic Gold, Midnight Black. The strap can also be customized in two different types: Fluoroelastomer or Leather strap.

It runs on LiteOS which is a proprietary operating system used on past Honor and Huawei watches. The watch comes packed with features such as Accelerometer, gyro, heart rate, barometer, compass, SpO2 sensors. The watch can run for up to 14-days for typical usage on a single charge. Honor says that even a 5-minute charge should allow a full day of use

Apart from compass, weather, flashlight, stopwatch, timer and standard smartwatch features, the GS 3 can also monitor over 100 different fitness activities, measure blood saturation, heart rate and track sleep patterns. It is also 5 ATM water resistant which means you can dive up to 50m for 10 minutes with it.

Honor Watch GS 3 Specifications

Our review model is the Honor Watch GS 3 edition with a Fluoroelastomer strap.

Packaging

The Honor Watch GS 3 comes in a premium, Huawei branded cardboard box.

Inside the packing are:

• The Honor Watch GS 3
• Wireless charging pad
• Charging cable
• Quick Start Guide, safety Information & warranty card

Design

Our review mode is the Honor Watch GS 3 Midnight Black edition with a Fluoroelastomer strap. The Honor Watch GS 3 has a circular dial. The watch face is protected by a 3D curved glass and has a tougher, scratch resistant exterior. The housing is made of stainless steel and plastic.

There are two buttons on the right side of the watch. The top button can be pressed to bring up the application drawer when pressed from the home screen or to go back. The lower button can be configured to go directly to workouts or a specific app. Between the two buttons, at the back, is a cutout for the speaker.  Rest of the operations are done via swiping and scrolling through the touch screen.

The base of the Honor Watch GS 3 has the heart rate monitoring sensor that provide accurate readings. It emits a red and green light when in use and supports real-time heart rate monitoring and also 24-hour heart rate monitoring. The back slightly protrudes outwards but you do not feel it when wearing the watch, it is very comfortable.

The black Fluoroelastomer strap is of good quality and with enough strap holes to fit comfortably wrist sizes between 140-210mm. Honor Watch GS 3 has excellent build quality, and is lightweight for it size at just 44 grams. It looks classy, and only on close inspection you’d realize it is a smartwatch.

Honor Watch GS 3 is also 5 ATM water resistant which means you can dive up to 50m for 10 minutes with it.

Display

The display is 1.43-inch circular AMOLED touch panel, with a resolution of 466 x 466 pixels and 326 PPI. It comes with enough watch faces to suit any occasion. The display is bright enough to read both indoors and outdoors in the sun and offers different levels of brightness. There are no problems reading even the finest details.

The viewing angles are wide, colors are vibrant and the contrast is great with the screen being able to display good black levels.

There are a lot of watch faces to choose from and for additional customization. A neat feature here is that the display can be turned off using a vertical palm swipe. It also turns off automatically after a few seconds and comes back on when you raise your wrist to look at the time. There is also always on display featured that can be turned on in the settings.

Connectivity

In terms of connectivity, The GT 3 Pro supports Bluetooth 5.2 and GPS. However, there is no support for NFC.

Hardware & OS

The Honor Watch GS 3 runs runs on LiteOS which is a proprietary operating system. There is no support for third-party apps. For firmware updates and additional watch faces, the watch can connect to the HONOR Health app for direct-to-device downloads.

The Honor Watch GS 3 integrates many sensors including heart rate, SpO2, sleep and stress tracking features. The watch can monitor over 100+ workout modes and supports accurate data tracking. There are even whole running courses built-in with full voice guidance. After training sessions, the watch calculates your ideal recovery time and shows it at the top of the activity menu. And if you sit for too long, the GS 3 Pro reminds you that it is time for a walk.

If you sleep with the watch on, you get an overview of your sleep rhythm by light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep and how long you slept in total. The watch can also determine your stress levels and lets you do breathing exercises that are pre-programmed in the watch.

There is also a “Route Back” function which shows your route back to the starting point at all times. A built-in air altitude barometer detects air pressure changes in real time and alerts you if the air pressure suddenly changes.

On the notifications side, Honor Watch GS 3 shows them in real time as soon as they appear on the connected phone. You need to allow what apps can send you notifications via the HONOR Health app. While it is possible to see the notifications, you can’t interact or respond to them in any way, you will have to return to your mobile device for the same. However, you can reply to incoming calls with a few pre-typed replies.

The GS 3 Pro also comes with a built-in mic and speaker, which lets you answer calls once paired with your phone via HONOR Health app. Sound quality is good and is loud enough for phone conversations even in noisy environments.

To track the data that the watch stores such as heart rate, sleep monitoring, fitness data etc., it needs to be connected to the dedicated HONOR Health app via Bluetooth. The health app can be installed on an iPhone without any issues but with limited compatiblity. However, the Android version also requires the latest version of Huawei Mobile Services (HMS Core) which is not available on the Play Store and needs to be side-loaded via Huawei App Gallery from Huawei’s website.

From the Health app, you can see all the collected health information along with graphs and charts of your fitness data, heart rate, sleep and stress. The app also displays stats about sports activities and lets you view previously travelled routes. There is a lot of information here and everything is presented beautifully.

Battery

The HONOR Watch GS 3 Pro is features wireless charging, instead of a pin-based connection. The watch now magnetically attaches to the new charging dock in any orientation and is also compatible with phones that offer reverse wireless charging.

Charging is fairly fast and with a full battery charge, the GS 3 Pro lasted about four days during our usage with some fitness activities, active heart rate monitoring, location enabled, Bluetooth on and sleep tracking. A full charge takes about an hour. It’s also worth mentioning that a quick 5 minutes of charging can you get a full day of usage.

Honor Watch GS 3 Verdict

The Honor Watch GS 3 is a stylish smartwatch that also doubles as a health and fitness tracker. It comes with a beautify 1.43-inch AMOLED display, multiple sensors and plenty of features. It can adapt to any scenario – from being a fitness tracker to a high-end watch.

However, it’s connectivity with iOS devices is limited, there is no support for third-party apps or NFC and these could be a deal breaker for some. With that said, the Watch GS 3 Pro is definitely worth considering given its superb build quality, ability to take calls on the watch, great battery life and fitness and well-being features.