Huawei knows a thing or ten about making a great smartwatch, and the Watch Ultimate 2 is still one of my favorite smartwatches. After releasing the Watch Fit 5 Pro a few months ago, Huawei has now introduced the Watch GT 7 Pro, and it is now available in the U.K. for £379 ($511), and as is the case with every new launch, there are decent launch incentives that bring the cost down to £329 ($443), and the brand is bundling the Huawei Scale 3 along with Huawei Care+ as free gifts when you buy the smartwatch.
The Watch GT 7 Pro has a lot of great features, but I’m starting with the one I like the most: battery life. While the Pixel Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 9 manage to last just over two days between charges, the Watch GT 7 Pro delivers a week of usage before you’ll need to charge it. This is with heavy use involving daily exercise monitoring, always-on panel, and 24/7 health monitoring.
This is the main reason why I continue to wear Huawei smartwatches, and not having to worry about charging the watch every other day is just plain refreshing. You can make the GT 7 Pro last longer by not using the always-on mode, and in that situation, you get around 10 days of battery life.
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At the outset, the GT 7 Pro doesn’t look too different to last year’s GT 6 Pro, and that’s a good thing. Just like Samsung and Google’s smartwatches, Huawei has a clearly-defined visual aesthetic, and it makes sense to continue the same design language across generations.
(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)
You still get a design that stands out quite a bit, and the new color choices give the GT 7 Pro an added dash of vibrancy; I’m using the yellow model, and it looks pretty great. It looks quite sporty, but you can switch out the bands if you need to wear it with a dress shirt.
The GT 7 Pro is sold in a single variant with a 46mm case, and while it is a little heavier at 55g (the Pixel Watch 5 is 37g), I actually like the heft as it makes the smartwatch feel like a regular watch. The build quality is among the best in this category, and the titanium alloy chassis with a ceramic bezel gives the GT 7 Pro a level of elegance that’s missing with its immediate rivals. Huawei retained the rotating crown, and it is a good way to navigate the interface and scroll through unread notifications.
The band is much better this time as well; Huawei calls it EasyCross, and the band essentially tucks underneath, and it looks cleaner. The quality of the fluoroelastomer band itself is great, and I didn’t see any problems in this area in the two weeks I used the Watch GT 7 Pro.
You get a 1.47-inch AMOLED panel with decent pixel density, and it gets bright — I had no issues viewing the contents on the screen under harsh sunlight. There’s 5ATM along with IP69 water resistance, the GT 7 Pro is dive-ready up to 40 meters, and you get dual-band GPS as well as NFC.
Coming to health monitoring, Huawei has all the requisite sensors to monitor heart rate and blood oxygen levels, and it gets ECG, A-fib analysis, emotional wellbeing, and sleep tracking. What I like is that there’s now a readiness score that takes all the disparate health metrics and gives you an overall score, similar to what Google does.
The GT 7 Pro has extensive fitness monitoring as well, with Huawei focusing on skiing and cycling this generation. Now, I don’t do those activities (there’s a distinct dearth of snow in India), but I wore the smartwatch to the gym, and it did a good job with HRV monitoring in HIIT workouts and treadmill runs.
(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)
As the smartwatch is running a lightweight RTOS, you don’t get the ability to install apps. While this is an issue with other smartwatches, Huawei does a great job delivering most of the things you need, and I particularly like the mini-workouts that are new this year. The idea is that instead of an extensive workout session, you can do small workouts right at your desk, with these targeting 10 key body parts with 30 guided workouts available. Oh, and the panda animations are adorable.
There are no problems in day-to-day use; the GT 7 Pro mirrored notifications to my wrist, and I was able to take calls as well. You get a good selection of watch faces, and Huawei Health pairs with Android as well as iPhones. There’s no Google Wallet, but Huawei collaborated with Curve Pay to bring NFC payments to select western markets. This is a good move, and while I wasn’t able to test it out (it needs a card issued in these countries), it is a viable alternative to Google Wallet.
(Image credit: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)
Overall, Huawei did all the right things with the Watch GT 7 Pro. It may not have a brand-new design, but the new colors are quite good, and you get a lot of software-focused additions that make a difference. Of course, the battery life continues to be the star of the show, and if you want a full-fledged smartwatch with standout battery life and all the extras, the Watch GT 7 Pro is a great choice.
The Watch GT 7 Pro combines a stylish design with useful health and fitness features, and the week-long battery life is easy to get used to.
