Huawei Watch 5 review: On a health kick

Best Prices Today: Huawei Watch 5

The Huawei Watch 5 is the latest instalment in Huawei’s flagship smartwatch series as the Chinese company continues to swell the ranks with connected timepieces as it makes a more concerted push to innovate with all things wearable.

The Watch 5 lands nearly two years after the Watch 4 series, announced alongside the Watch Fit 4 series. It continues the trend of promising a high-grade look, strong health, fitness and smartwatch features with a battery that won’t run out after a couple of days.

A new sensor bolsters the Watch 5’s health tracking abilities, along with new display technology, all while giving you a bit more battery life to play with.

Once again, it’s sitting at a price – from £399 – that puts it in the same category as the Apple Watch Series 10, Google Pixel Watch 3 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 7.

On paper, the Watch 5 has the specs and features to make sure it’s still competing with the best, but should you buy it over those rivals? Let’s find out.

Design & Build

• Two case size options
• Available in steel or titanium
• New side-mounted sensor

The Watch 5 comes in two case size options. There’s your pick of 42- or 46mm sizes and the option of stainless steel or a lighter, yet still very tough, titanium finish.

That means, unlike its predecessor, there’s now a significantly smaller model that sits more in line with the sizing applied to Huawei’s cheaper Watch GT 5. That’s good news if you found the previous watch a bit too hefty.

Huawei uses spherical sapphire glass, giving the display a curvier look and elevating the already likeable design

That’s matched up with a strap that’s thankfully easily removable with a simple button press. I had the 46mm, grey-purple titanium case paired with a similarly coloured composite strap, which has a leather effect to give off the impression it’s more formal than it appears.

I’d say the larger version doesn’t exactly scream unisex and is a design not far removed from the Watch 4 Pro.

Down the right side of the watch case lies a rotating crown with a flatter physical button a bit further down. Sandwiched in between that lies Huawei’s new sensor technology (more on that later), which is made up of an ECG electrode, pressure and PPG sensors.

At the rear is the other PPG sensor and is where you’ll drop the proprietary charging disc cradle onto when you need to power it up again.

The Watch 5 is waterproof up to 50 metres depth, making it safe for swims and showers and also meets the EN13319 standard to make it suitable for free diving up to 30 metres.

In the pool, it disables the screen to prevent accidentally activating it and offers good screen visibility underwater.

Screen & Audio 

• Now curvier LTPO display
• Built-in speaker and microphone
• eSIM support

The Watch 5 packs a bright, high-quality touchscreen display with a smaller bezel, giving you more screen to play with.

It also uses version 2.0 of the LTPO display technology Huawei started to add to its smartwatches in recent years and means the display can provide smoother visuals and can even have a positive influence on battery performance by automatically adjusting the refresh rate.

Huawei uses spherical sapphire glass, giving the display a curvier look and elevating the already likeable design, though it introduces some glare when outside.

When you want to swipe and tap, it’s pleasingly responsive and another sign that Huawei is putting a pretty impressive display technology on your wrist.

You get a microphone and speaker that, along with eSIM support, meaning you can ditch your phone when you want to handle calls or stream music via Huawei’s own music app.

I’d say the speaker setup certainly prioritises volume over giving you supreme sound quality, but it does a good enough job to make using its voice and audio-enabled features worthwhile.

Software & Features 

• Latest version of HarmonyOS
• Now supports gesture controls
• AppGallery and Petal mapping offered

It’s no major surprise to discover that the Watch 5 runs on the latest version of Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system and continues to be compatible with iPhones and Android phones.

iPhone users will once again miss out on some features, like the music player.

The user interface is clean and fills that curvy screen nicely

On the watch, the experience is strong. The user interface is clean and fills that curvy screen nicely. The notification support works well and is well optimised and it’s always useful that you have the choice of how apps are presented on the main app screen too.

For the music player, audio needs to be synced over from the Huawei Health app and is easily done if you’ve got some files on your phone to send over – if it’s not an iPhone.

Other basic smartwatch staples are covered, like letting you view your calendar, weather forecasts and there’s a good array of watch faces to pick from. Huawei Wallet offers a place for your transport passes and uses the built-in NFC and Bluetooth.

You have access to Huawei’s AppGallery app store directly from the watch, though a browse shows this still can’t rival the Apple App Store or Google Play Store in terms of offering big-name apps.

Huawei also offers a couple of useful gesture controls letting you slide and double tap your fingers to use for the music playback, handling calls or switching off alarms. It doesn’t take too long to master them and adds another potentially useful method of control when you can’t get to that touchscreen.

Off the watch, it feels like Huawei’s companion app has got busier somehow and seems to have picked up a lot more bloatware, which makes getting to the places you actually care about a bit overwhelming with the amount that’s crammed onto the screen.

Sometimes, less is more.

Fitness & Tracking 

• New X-Tap sensor technology 
• Over 100 sport modes
• Offers full colour maps

For the Watch 5 it’s clear where Huawei has sought to make huge strides and that’s through increasing its health tracking powers.

This is led by its new multi-sensing X-Tap technology

This is led by its new multi-sensing X-Tap technology, which is made up of a pressure, ECG electrode and PPG sensor that aims to boost signal quality for capturing biometric data by reducing the type of interference that can be caused from monitoring from the rear sensor where hair and different skin tones can impact on accurate readings.

What that means in feature terms is that you can use that sensor for ECG readings, on-the-spot SpO2 readings, monitor for arterial stiffness and boost Huawei’s Health Glances feature.

It gives you an increased 9 indicators to better notify you if something doesn’t seem quite right. It should be said, though, that not all of these health metrics are regulatory-approved, like the arterial stiffness detection. 

One thing you need to deal with is having to agree to the individual terms for each feature to start using them, which could be solved by doing this once from the app. The placement of the sensor is an interesting one, especially if you choose to wear something alongside the watch, which can make using it a bit more awkward.

I’ve been taking measurements of blood oxygen, heart rate and metrics like skin temperature during my testing and the results look good on the whole when compared to other smartwatches and a pulse oximeter.

My main concern is that with the increase in health tracking, the communication and presentation of that data on and off the watch needs to be great and while it is in places, it can also often feel overwhelming to take everything in.

I’ve always found Huawei’s sports tracking to be solid on the whole and it’s no different with the Watch 5.

All of the good fitness and sports tracking stuff remains from the Watch 4, including over 100 sports profiles, including running, cycling, swimming (pool and open water) and there is a free diving profile as well as a triathlon mode.

You get Huawei’s latest dual-band GPS to boost outdoor tracking accuracy and the ability to view offline maps. There are training insights on hand, like letting you glance at your current training load, see VO2 Max estimates, recommended recovery time and having your running ability scored as well.

I’ve always found Huawei’s sports tracking to be solid on the whole and it’s no different with the Watch 5.

GPS performance matched up well against a Garmin and Apple Watch, while heart rate data for most activities wasn’t wildly off until upping the intensity tended to see it struggle to keep up with the sudden spikes and drops in heart rate compared to a Polar heart rate monitor chest strap.

Sleep tracking is data-rich and well presented both in the app and on the watch. You’ll be able to see sleep scores, sleep stages and enable monitoring breathing during sleep, with access to music in the app to help you drift off.

The data felt largely in line with rival sleep trackers I tested it against, with the odd tendency to overestimate overall sleep duration, though that might be a welcome placebo.

Battery Life & Charging

• Up to 4.5 days (46mm)
• Ultra-long battery life mode available
• New dual battery mode

The 46mm version of the Huawei Watch 5 I tested is capable of running up to 4.5 days or 3 days if you opt for the 42mm due to its smaller battery.

There’s also a battery saver mode that disables Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity along with some other core features to push battery to anywhere from 7-11 days depending on what size model you get.

It’s a mode that’s not as limiting as it might sound and does help to keep you tracking activity and health metrics for long enough to make it a mode worth enabling over grabbing the charger.

I started out using it without the screen set to always-on mode and managed to get four days before I was prompted to move to the battery saver mode. You can set the watch to automatically change battery modes when it drops below 15%.

When I enabled the always-on display mode, daily battery drop was around 30% a day, which works out to 3 days. It never felt like the battery was dropping in a really dramatic fashion, unless using the always-on display mode.

If you can live without that, the battery performance is more than respectable. Especially compared to most other smartwatches at this price.

When it does get low, there’s a fast charging mode that gets you from 0-100% in 90 minutes. You have to deal with a proprietary charging cradle as is often the case, but at least it’s a good quality one that does secure firmly to the Watch 5’s caseback.

Price & Availability

The Huawei Watch 5 officially goes on sale today (15 May) and prices start at £399, rising to £599.

Like the previous instalment, this is a smartwatch that’s going to be a tricky one to get hold of in the US, where Huawei is still at loggerheads with the US government.

The cheapest Watch 5 model sticks to the same launch price as the Huawei Watch 4. How much you pay depends on the size and finish you opt for.

There are four versions of the 42mm Watch 5, all with a stainless steel construction. The 46mm Watch 5 is also available in four looks, with three offered in titanium and one in stainless steel. Basically, going bigger and titanium sees you paying out the big bucks.

If you take that base price, it puts it in the same cost category as smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 10 ($399/£399) and the Google Pixel Watch 3 ($349/£399).

See our list of the best smartwatches to see our top picks.

Should you buy the Huawei Watch 5?

The Huawei Watch 5 is a smartwatch that’s never felt more like a health watch.

As Huawei makes big breakthroughs with health monitoring, as showcased on the Huawei Watch D2, its other smartwatches like this one seek to benefit from the more concerted push to let you tap more into your health metrics.

The problem is that it feels like the shift has seen Huawei overlook some areas that help to make a great smartwatch – nailing the staples like payments, music features and app support – along with some other software quirks that still exist from previous watches.

The Huawei Watch 5 is a good all-rounder and offers improvements in various areas. As a complete package, though, Huawei has taken its flagship down a path that will make it great for some and not so appealing for others.

Specs

• Stainless steel or titanium finishes
• 42mm and 46mm case sizes
• LTPO 2.0 touchscreen display
• Spherical sapphire glass
• HarmonyOS 5.0
• Rear and side mounted health sensors
• e-Sim functionality
• Built-in GPS
• Free offline mapping
• 3-4.5 days battery life
• ECG and PPG sensors

Best Prices Today: Huawei Watch 5