Smartwatches have always been a point of contention for us. While they readily offer up valuable information about your health that is otherwise gate-keeper’ed by your doctor, they always end up looking kind of not cool. While they are undeniably incredibly advanced technology, they look like a circle or square. Nice straps, though. Then comes the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro from the Chinese tech company Huawei.

Inspired by the automotive industry, GT in Italian is Gran Turismo and Grand Tourer in English,  a cheeky little reference to the watch’s longer than industry standard battery life. Coming in a very sleek 43-millimetre white Ceramic edition and a 46-millimetre Titanium edition, the new GT 3 Pro looks more traditional watch than a smart device. With the use of high-end materials that give it a significant heft,  an ultra-clear and large screen and a believable bezel. With a sapphire glass display comparable to the strength of diamonds, it’s nearly impossible to scratch it. That same sapphire glass extends to the back where the sensors are located, protecting a skin-friendly ceramic back shell which helps with better light penetration and more accurate heart-rate monitoring.

While this smartwatch is a Huawei device, you do not need one of their smartphones to run it. Instead, whether you are on Android or iOS, you can quickly download the Huawei Health App, register for an account, and you’re good to go. The GT 3 Pro runs on Huawei’s ‘HarmonyOS,’ which is a nice clean experience, with the actual app being easy to navigate and full of information. Especially in regards to your aforementioned health information. The GT 3 Pro supports ECG data collection, which can accurately provide single-lead ECG measurements, real-time analysis, sinus rhythm and atrial fibrillation detection, and premature atrial and ventricular beat reminders for users and supports arterial stiffness detection, allowing users to prevent the risk of vascular diseases actively. Finally, in addition to the heart rate monitoring, you can get info on your blood oxygen, sleep, respiratory health, and pressure, and track the changes in your body throughout the day and night. Although it’s a cool-looking watch, I am not entirely sure you would want to wear it to sleep.

Fundamentally one of the most important is the battery life. Now Huawei claims the GT 3 Pro can last fourteen days on normal usage and seven days on heavy usage. So let’s just call it five days for the sake of argument before you need to take it off and charge it; that is a great life cycle. Compared to the Apple Watch Series 7, the best we’ve seen is two days before needing to be charged, but more realistically, a day and a half. This is pretty good. Like, “oops, I forgot to bring my charger for a weekend but don’t sweat it, my watch will still work,” kind of good.

When it comes to the smartwatches on the market, there is no doubt that Apple with their Apple Watch is king. The only problem, as stated above, is that it looks like a square computer plopped onto your wrist, but you can’t beat that functionally. Well, shoutout to Huawei because they came close.  The Harmony OS on the Huawei Watch GT 3Pro allows for music playback (if you have a Huawei phone), remote shutter, text messages, emails, social app notifications, NFC transportation card, digital bank card, access
card, etc etc.

While in an overall head-to-head, the GT Pro 3 is a top-notch smartwatch, it is still competing against Apple, and while the form and function of the watch are more watchy than the series 7, it doesn’t quite have all the features available. At the time of writing this, out of the hundreds of exercise modes available on the GT 3 Pro, there wasn’t a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) option which is weird because that is the workout de jour these days. This is something that will be fixed asap, we would imagine.

Overall after playing around with the Huawei GT 3 Pro for a week or so, we can confidently say that this is one of the better ones on the market. If you are new to the smartwatch market or want an actual smartwatch that looks like a watch, there is no better option than the GT 3 Pro. The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Titanium Edition is available starting at $548.99, and Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro Ceramic Edition is available for $798.99 at selected Canadian retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, Canada Computers, and more.