Honor Watch GS 3, analysis: the battery is not the only thing that attracts attention in the top Honor smartwatch

Honor returns to the charge and it does so with a fairly heavy artillery. The Chinese company, now independent of Huawei, wants to earn its piece of the cake and, for this, it has brought the best of the best from its catalog to Spain. We are of course talking about the Honor Magic4 Pro, its Lite sibling and its latest smartwatch, the Honor Watch GS 3.

It is a watch that we already know more than enough. The smarwatch was presented in China a long time ago and arrived in Spain a few weeks ago. Now is the time to put it to the test and see what this device offers, an elegant device, well finished, with some other peculiar things and a price of 239 euros. Without further delay, let’s go with the Honor Watch GS 3 review.

Technical sheet of the Honor Watch GS 3

Design: exquisite and elegant

As always, we start talking about the design. The Honor Watch GS 3 is available in three finishes (Ocean Blue, Midnight Black and Classic Gold), the blue color being the one we have analyzed. The watch case is made of 316L stainless steel, although the back is made of polycarbonate, a fancy way of calling plastic. The box feels premium, very well finished and with a sensational finish.

Unlike other smart watches, Honor has not beaten around the bush and has chosen to launch a single model of 46 millimeters. What does that mean? That if you have a small wrist, it will surely be huge. It’s a shame there isn’t a 42-millimeter version, of course, but if you like big analog-looking watches, the Honor Watch GS 3 ticks all the boxes.

The watch weighs 44 grams without the strap, a fairly correct weight and in the average of what we have already seen on the market. It’s not awkward at alland less so when you get used to wearing it, although the truth is that its size can make it not entirely pleasant to wear it while we sleep (that’s why we monitor sleep, although we’ll come back to that later).

On the right side we have two buttons that, although they click a little, have a good travel. They are lightly etched by the pulsation zone to offer more friction, something that is appreciated when having wet or dirty hands. The top button opens the application drawer, while the bottom one opens, by default, the sports modes, although it can be modified at will.

Unfortunately, Honor hasn’t gone for a digital crown, something we see more and more on smartwatches in this price range. That means that the only way we have to interact with the menus and icons is through gestures and keystrokes. What has not been forgotten is the resistance to water, which in this case is 5 ATM.

On the right edge we have, in addition to the buttons, the speaker (for calls and music), while on the left edge we find the microphone (again, for calls). In the lower part, made of plastic, we have the eight-channel PPG heart rate sensoras well as the pulse oximeter and charging pins. Very simple, nothing out of the ordinary.

In short, it is a watch that retains the design lines of analog watches and offers an elegant and very premium design. It is very pleasant to the touch and looks good on the wrist. Personally, of the three models available, the blue one I think is the most refined and the best looking, but it is something that is left to the end user. I liked it a lot on the outside, but now we’ll see how it is on the inside.

However, first we must talk about the strap and we must take off our hats. The Honor Watch GS 3 incorporates a very, very nice blue leather strap. It is pleasant to the touch with the skin and it feels resistant (although I would not put it in water, really). The closure is a standard buckle (detail of the engraved Honor logo included) and offers a double loop to prevent the strap from coming off.

But in the hypothetical case that we don’t like the strap, the strap is 22 millimeters with standard coupling, so we can buy a 22-millimeter strap that we like or use one that we have at home. It is a wiser decision than opting for proprietary straps and it seems to me a success that Honor has opted for this type of finish.

Really, it’s hard to fault the design of the Honor Watch GS 3. The only thing I can think of is that stainless steel of the box is shiny, ergo a magnet for fingerprints. It is not something as dramatic as it can be on a mobile, but there it is. For the rest, we have been really satisfied with this smartwatch. For now.

Screen: AMOLED to load

So we went on to talk about the screen, a section that we liked a lot. The Honor Watch GS 3 has premium smartwatch aspirations and, unsurprisingly, AMOLED technology has made an appearance. It is a well-worked screen, with a size, brightness level and resolution that is more than correct.

We talk about a 1.43-inch AMOLED panel with 366 x 366 pixel resolution, which translates to 326 pixels per inch. As for its brightness, the firm promises us up to a thousand nits. Although it is something that is difficult to measure on a day-to-day basis, we can ensure that the visibility of the clock screen is very good, even when the light is tight, and that at no time have we had problems reading the content. .

At a reasonable distance, the typical one at which a watch is usually used, it is difficult to appreciate the pixels. Auto brightness works well and fast and the panel detects touches well, although we will talk about the general performance of the clock in the following sections. What is not so good is the use of the front.

On the one hand, the Honor Watch GS 3 has curved edges with a 2.5D glass. This causes the screen to overflow from the sides and that elegant look that we highlighted before, but it also causes there are some flashes when light falls directly on the screen. It is not a drama, of course, but it never hurts to comment on it.

On the other hand, despite the fact that the box has a size of 45.9 x 45.9 millimeters, the screen has a diagonal of 1.43 inches (36.3 millimeters). As can be elucidated from the figures and images that accompany this article, there is a generous black frame bordering the screen. Thanks to the AMOLED screen and that the frame is black, with a watch face adequately we can hide it, but that does not mean that it is not there.

More watchfaces can be downloaded from the smartphone app.

That said, it should be noted that the screen can be turned on with the gesture of looking at the time or by pressing a button, but not touching the screen. To turn it off, simply cover the panel with the palm of your hand. As a personal tip, I recommend programming the “Do not disturb” mode so that the screen does not turn on by itself when we are sleeping (and so that a WhatsApp at the wrong time does not wake us from our peaceful sleep, of course).

In short, we can conclude that the screen is up to the task in terms of visibility, quality and brightness, but we would have liked the front to have been used a little better and, by the way, that the oleophobic layer was a little more effective in preventing the fingerprints from being so marked. But otherwise, a very enjoyable screen.

Performance: wait, this sounds like a lot to me…

So far so good, but let’s go to the performance. First things first, compatibility. The Honor Watch GS 3 is only compatible with Android, at least for now (the iOS app will be released in the coming months) through the application Honor Health (available on Google Play). If we take a look at the icon, we will see that it is surprisingly similar to that of Huawei Health, the app for Huawei watches, and I can already tell you that it is not the only similarity.

Do you remember LiteOS, the operating system for Huawei smartwatches before HarmonyOS? It was a simple, closed operating system, which did not allow third-party apps or mobile payments and with the fair and necessary options to squeeze the clock to the fullest. With the arrival of HarmonyOS this operating system left, but now it’s back. Because if what is in the Honor Watch GS 3 is not LiteOS, it is certainly a twin brother.

Everything, absolutely everything, is the same as LiteOS, from the application icons to the menus, through the widget interface, the notification curtain and the quick settings panel. And if we add to that the design of the smartphone application, we can conclude (and we do) that the experience with the software of the Honor Watch GS 3 is the same, exactly the same, as the one we had with the Huawei of yesteryear.

The performance of the operating system is correct, but it is not up to what we are seeing in current smartwatches. A little more fluidity is missing when scrolling through screens and navigating through menus, especially when swiping fast. In short, it is not what we expected from a watch of 239 euros.

Sliding to the sides we will scroll through the widgets, which contain information such as pulses, sleep or time. Sliding down we will open the quick settings panel and, sliding up, the notification curtain. From the notifications we can see the content, but not respond, not even with default messages / quickly answers. A pity, of course.

Pressing the top button will open the application drawer, arranged in a vertical list. We did not find any surprises. We have the fitness apps, call log, contacts, music, health apps, weather, compass, barometer, and a find phone feature, among others. The problem is that third-party applications cannot be installed and that we don’t have a payment system either, that having an RTOS system allows it to be done, but here Honor has everything, the Watch GT Runner or the Amazfit GTR 3 Pro. For something else it is also possible to find the Galaxy Watch 4 and the TicWatch Pro 3UltraGPS. The thing is difficult.

Honor has found the key in terms of construction materials, design, screen and autonomy, but it has to improve the software and performance a lot to compete against the big ones. Is the Honor Watch GS 3 a bad watch? Not at all, but it’s far from the best.

The device has been loaned for testing by Honor. You can check our company relations policy.

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