introduction
Honor’s most stylish smartwatch to date – the new Honor Watch GS 3 is with us. With its € 220 / £ 210 price tag it’s not exactly in premium watch territory, but it’s not an entry-level device either. Key specs include a large 1.46-inch AMOLED display, the usual health and fitness monitoring list, and 4GB of built-in storage along with a microphone and speaker, which means hands-free calling and local media playback are available.
While it lacks third-party app support and smart notification responses, the Honor Watch GS 3 is rated for up to two weeks of typical use, which is way ahead of some premium watches. Additionally, Honor boasts a new eight-channel optical sensor for measuring heart rate and blood oxygen, all wrapped up in a premium-looking casing.
I strapped a watch overhaul unit to my wrist and carried it with me day and night for over a week. Let’s see how the Honor Watch GS 3 fares in our real-world tests and whether it’s worth considering.
Drawing
Our Honor Watch GS 3 review unit comes with a gold-tone stainless steel case and brown Nappa leather strap. The design is very similar to a vintage timepiece and will certainly suit more formal occasions. Despite the large 46mm casing, the Watch GS 3 measures only 10.5mm and weighs 44 grams, which is really impressive given the large screen surface.
The 1.43-inch AMOLED on the watch is excellent with its crisp resolution of 466 x 466 px and 326 ppi. The 3D curved glass covering the display is a really nice touch and adds to the premium aesthetic. Being an AMOLED panel, you also get the Always-on Display (AoD) feature which is pretty neat as you can always check the time and your health / sport metrics depending on the watch face.
The watch is comfortable on the wrist and is solidly built. The leather strap is an added bonus here, although if you’re not a fan you can easily swap it for any equivalent 22mm strap of your liking.
The retail package consists of the watch, a proprietary two-pin magnetic charger and a USB-C to USB-A cable. The Watch GS 3 is water resistant to 50m (5ATM) and can monitor swimming sessions, although it would be advisable to switch to a silicone strap before entering the pool.
Features
Honor Watch GS 3 offers heart rate, SpO2, sleep and stress monitoring. Honor says the new eight-channel PPG sensor used on the GS 3 is expected to provide at least 97% accuracy for heart rate readings along with 24/7 blood oxygen measurements. activity tracking, you have access to over 100 sports modes.
Running, hiking and biking get the added benefit of the dual-band GNSS receiver with support for all five major global positioning standards. Unlike the Chinese version of the Watch GS 3, our international variant doesn’t support NFC for contactless payments, which is a downside.
You can get notifications from apps, although you can only answer incoming calls with a few pre-typed responses. Thanks to the built-in microphone and speaker, the Watch GS 3 can receive calls from your paired phone via Bluetooth. The watch also boasts 4GB of local storage (2.2GB available) which can be used to store music on the watch.
You can also pair a Bluetooth headset directly with the watch – ideal if you don’t want to take your phone with you during workouts. The vibration motor is a little underwhelming here, albeit probably due to the limited space inside the watch’s thin and light profile.
The 1.46 “AMOLED screen comes with automatic brightness functionality, although you can also set one of five manual brightness levels at any time. Watch GS 3 pairs via Bluetooth and you need the Honor Health app that al moment is an Android exclusive. You get 13 preloaded watch styles and 11 AoD options, and the Honor Health app allows you to download even more styles to suit your needs. Some watch faces support customizable watch complications and there’s even a option to create custom watch faces with images from your gallery.
The Watch GS 3 also boasts air pressure and altimeter readings, as well as a compass. You also get more than 100 sport and activity modes, including 12 fitness classes with voice prompts and detailed animations right on the watch. These range from simple stretching exercises to complete upper and lower body workouts with carefully programmed exercise instructions with voice coaching.
The Honor Health companion app offers a clean design with detailed enough information for all the health and sports tracking metrics you would need. There are quickly accessible tabs that show your exercise history, health readings, and other information like steps and calories burned at a glance. You can also start activity tracking sessions directly from the app and change watch functions such as alarm settings, transferring music and downloading new watch faces.
Performance
Honor Watch GS 3 runs on LiteOS, a proprietary operating system used on previous Honor and Huawei watches. GS 3 packs an Apollo4 chipset that handles daily tasks decently without major stutters or lags. The clock interface is pretty simple and easy to use. Navigation in the interface is mainly done via swipe although the button at the top will always take you to the lock screen. You can wake the screen by double-tapping or by one of the two side buttons.
The top button takes you to the apps page while the bottom one is assigned to the workout app by default although you can remap it to any app in the settings. You can also get up to six app shortcuts next to your home screen by swiping left or right. The built-in music player is an interesting touch, but transferring songs to the watch is a slow process done via the Honor Health app.
The built-in speaker gets quite loud, which is useful if you plan to use the GS 3 to answer calls. The quality of the microphone is adequate even if not on the level of your smartphone or a decent pair of TWS earphones. Still, it’s nice to have the ability to answer calls on the watch if needed.
Health monitoring on the Watch GS 3 benefits from the new eight-channel PPG heart rate sensor with rate detection and an additional AI heart rate algorithm. Honor’s webpage states that heart rate accuracy is over 97% and in my tests I found heart rate readings in line with those on my personal Xiaomi Mi Band 5.
SpO2 readings are comparable to any other smartwatch / strap, which means they are a good benchmark although certainly not medical grade. In a direct comparison with a pulse oximeter, the Honor Watch GS 3 showed results that ranged between 95-100% compared to the 93-95% values of the oximeter. I also had to restart the manual SpO2 measurements on the watch several times because “I was wearing the watch incorrectly”.
You can’t access detailed health metrics on the watch directly like on other watches. If you want to check your detailed sleep metrics or compare weekly data, you will need to log into the Honor Health app on your phone. The sleep tracking results showed accurate times for bedtime and waking up and also offers a breakdown of sleep by category with rapid eye movement (REM) included.
Activity tracking seemed in line with other smartwatches and smartbands we tested. Running data shows the usual metrics like average pace, speed, and stride rate along with heart rate and calories burned. If you enable GPS tracking, you’ll also get a fairly accurate map of runs, although your smartphone’s receiver is likely to give you more accurate readings. The GPS sensor on the watch took about 10 seconds to lock my location.
I found the fitness course options quite useful. You get twelve different types of workouts ranging from 3-minute stretching sessions to full-body workouts, all with audio guidance and exercise form. These guided workouts are a great way to change your workout routine or finish a workout with a step-by-step stretching session.
Battery life
Honor Watch has a 451mAh battery cell rated for 14 days of typical use and 30 hours of battery life with GPS enabled. During my tests I used the watch with manual brightness set to level 3, AoD activated, 24/7 heart rate measurement, SpO2, sleep and stress along with sync notifications and three to four workouts per week. With these usage patterns, I was able to squeeze out four days of use.
With lighter use, you might come to the two-week claims, but that would require sacrificing features and limiting the watch’s potential. A full charge takes just over an hour. The 5W charger can also give you a day of power with a five minute quick charge.
Verdict
Honor Watch GS 3 is a versatile smartwatch with a comfortable and elegant design and many useful sports and health monitoring functions. Get reliable metrics thanks to the updated optical PPG sensor with a long list of activities to choose from, including voice guided workouts with different difficulties to meet the needs of both novice and advanced users.
The spacious 1.43-inch AMOLED display comes with a decent amount of dials, as well as AoD functionality and auto brightness. The software experience on the watch is for the most part smooth, although the absence of an iOS companion app is a letdown in terms of compatibility.
Having a built-in speaker and microphone, as well as a standalone GPS, gives you the option to leave your phone in your pocket or completely abandon it during workouts. Voice guided workouts and their animations are a must-have tool on your wrist and can help even the most novice users on a regular training regimen. Battery life is decent, although if you turn on all the advanced features and answer calls on the watch you’ll need to recharge every three or four days.
The lack of third-party apps, NFC, and the ability to respond to notifications are the only downsides, although watches offering these features come at a higher price. Honor Watch GS 3 nails the key pillars of a great smartwatch and offers it in a sleek form factor that can be easily adapted thanks to the detachable 22mm strap. If you are looking for a new smartwatch in the € 220 / £ 210 range, the Honor Watch GS 3 is worth checking out.
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