For less than 200 euros, Honor is celebrating a successful smartwatch premiere with the Watch GS 3, which does not require the software and hardware from Huawei.
Every new beginning is both an opportunity and a risk. This also applies to Honor. Without the former parent company Huawei, Honor is trying to establish itself in the highly competitive smartwatch market with the Watch GS 3. The naming is strongly reminiscent of the earlier Huawei models. From a technical point of view, has a lot happened under the chic case?
Honor promises an innovative heart rate monitor, ultra-fast loading time and greater ease of use. This test from the Smartwatch theme world reveals whether the new smartwatch is already running smoothly and with which equipment and runtime the Watch GS 3 wants to score points . There you will also find the Apple Watch 7 (test report) , the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 (test report) or the long-running battery Withings Scanwatch (test report) .
model variants
Honor only sells the Watch GS 3 with a 46-millimeter case. However, customers can choose the color: the smartwatch is available in the colors Midnight Black, Ocean Blue and Classic Gold. Polished stainless steel is always used for the case, Honor combines it in silver with a blue one and in gold with a brown leather strap. If you opt for the black version, you can put a black rubber strap around your wrist. The equipment is identical for all variants. There is no LTE version with eSIM for making calls and surfing the Internet independently without a paired smartphone.
Design and comfort
We tested the GS 3 with a black case and black plastic strap. This smartwatch can be worn anywhere, it is an optical all-rounder that cuts a fine figure for sports as well as with a polo shirt or a jacket. With a height of 10.5 millimeters in the so-called ultra-curved 3D slim design, the Watch GS 3 is pleasantly slim and can easily be hidden under a shirt sleeve without it being tight. The rubber strap is soft and nestles comfortably against the skin. The 22 mm bracelets can be quickly exchanged without tools.
Without the bracelet, the Honor watch weighs just 44 grams, with it it’s around ten grams more, making it a real lightweight on the wrist. Display and housing merge almost seamlessly. The workmanship is of high quality, the body made of stainless steel leaves a very robust impression. The GS 3 can be worn for swimming in pools and in the sea, it is waterproof up to 50 meters.
screen
Bright colors, rich black and good viewing angle stability – the scratch-resistant display of the GS 3 reveals itself at first glance to be an AMOLED with Gorilla Glass. The 1.43-inch screen responds to swipe gestures and finger pressure and delivers a rich brightness of up to 1,000 nits and a resolution of 466 x 466 pixels. This results in a high pixel density of 326 ppi.
The watch is easy to read even in bright sunlight. Five manual brightness levels can be selected, and the display can optionally adjust its brightness automatically to the available ambient light. The display can be activated continuously for up to 20 minutes. Advantage: Thanks to a special coating, the screen is largely immune to fingerprints. Fonts, digits and symbols are displayed pleasantly sharp and easy to read.
A small black border is left between the dial and the edge of the case. You can download new watchfaces either directly from the watch or via the “Honor Health” app. The selection is decent, but not huge. You can choose from different genres such as “Business”, “Sport” and “Cartoon”.
Furnishing
The Honor GS 3 is aimed exclusively at owners of an Android smartphone (Android 8.0 or higher), users of an iPhone cannot do anything with the watch. Because you need the “Honor Health” app to set it up, which can only be installed on Android smartphones. Visually and in terms of structure, the “Honor Health” app is almost indistinguishable from the “Huawei Health” app.
As an operating system, the Chinese rely on the Lite OS previously used by Huawei, which has since been replaced by Harmony OS. The system is mature and runs smoothly, but does not offer the option of installing additional apps. So you have to be content with the mini selection that is already on board. These include alarm clock, stopwatch, weather app, breathing exercises, timer, compass, flashlight, air pressure gauge and a music player. Around 500 songs can be stored in the 4 GB memory. Loudspeaker and microphone are integrated, so you can make calls with the GS 3 in decent quality.
The Honor records the heart rate around the clock and shows the course with the highest, lowest and current value in a graphically appealing way on the display. The manufacturer points to an 8-channel PPG heart rate sensor that is said to be able to capture more optical signals. The determined values appear plausible. In addition, the Watch GS 3 measures the oxygen content in the blood and steps taken – the latter very precisely with a deviation of less than five percent. If the oxygen content in the blood is too low, the smartwatch vibrates and sends an advance warning. The app gives you access to daily, weekly, monthly and yearly overviews of heart rate, stress, steps and blood oxygen levels.
In addition, the Honor monitors sleep, registers different sleep phases and evaluates their quality. Thanks to dual-frequency GNSS, the watch can also register the location – jogging and cycling laps can be shown on a map in the app afterwards and training times, calories burned and average speeds can be called up.
The GS 3 is not particularly communicative: You can use it to make calls and reject incoming calls with an SMS, but there is no way to reply to WhatsApp or SMS messages.
service
The Honor GS 3 can be operated intuitively, its concept is self-explanatory. The upper right button takes you back to the watch face from any menu, and pressing the button again opens the applications. The bottom button leads to the different sports, i.e. the fitness programs. A swipe gesture navigates from the watch face to the heart rate measurement, the stress overview and music playback. A touch of your finger on the display and you start about a song. You have to do without additional ease of use with a rotating bezel or crown.
The touchscreen reacts very quickly and without delays. Apps also start quickly. During our test, the GS 3 didn’t have a single glitch or misfire, it scored with high reliability and uncomplicated handling. The Honor also did its job reliably when setting up and pairing with a Samsung smartphone via Bluetooth. If you’ve never owned a smartwatch before, you don’t need a long time to get used to the Watch GS 3.
sports and fitness
The Honor watch is not only waterproof up to 50 meters, but also withstands temperatures from minus 20 to plus 45 degrees Celsius when doing sports. It offers around 100 different sports functions. This includes various disciplines such as running, cycling, swimming, skipping, climbing, hiking, skiing, cross-country skiing, triathlon or cross trainers.
There are also twelve fitness and 13 running courses on board the Watch GS 3. The fitness courses have different goals such as strengthening the heart and lungs, abdominal muscle training, full body stretching or burning fat quickly. All instructions are in English only, but also include a demo. As known from other manufacturers, the Honor fitness rings also indicate that they need to be refilled every day. In addition to the steps taken, the movement time as well as medium and high physical loads are taken into account.
For selected sports such as running, cycling and swimming, additional values can be called up via the health app. These include training times, average pace, step and heart rate, and meters in altitude covered. The range of sports offered by the Watch GS 3 is okay and should easily suffice for all hobby and occasional athletes. More expensive smartwatches have even more in their portfolio.
battery pack
The lithium polymer battery in the GS 3 has a capacity of 451 mAh. Honor promises a runtime of 14 days with normal use. With heart rate measurement, we came up with a usage time of around ten days. The manufacturer points out that a maximum of 30 hours are possible with permanent GPS operation.
An interesting feature is the quick charge function: it is sufficient to place the watch on the charging cradle for five minutes so that it has enough juice for a day. You should plan about an hour for a full charge. That’s pleasantly little.
Price
Honor is officially selling the Watch GS 3 in Midnight Black for 219.90 euros, the variants in Ocean Blue and Classic Gold for 239.90 euros each. The watches are cheaper as part of discount campaigns. The Honor Watch GS 3 in black costs just under 200 euros at Amazon . The version in Classic Gold and Ocean Blue is currently available there for 186 euros .
Conclusion
The optics and workmanship of the Honor Watch GS 3 are great and the bright AMOLED display is convincing. The clock runs quickly, the ease of use is high, the sports and fitness facilities are decent. Additional plus points are the long battery life and the short charging time. The GS 3 weakens when it comes to apps: Only a few applications are preinstalled, and there is no option to download additional programs afterwards. Also, there is no option to reply to incoming messages.
An inexpensive alternative with a long battery life, but also without additional apps, is the Huawei Watch GT 3 (test report) . The excellent Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 (test report) is now also available for less than 200 euros. The hybrid watch Withings Scanwatch (test report) with an analog dial and integrated digital display is also exciting. We show other alternatives in the top 10 smartwatches 2022 .
