Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Smart On The Outside, Sporty On The Inside

Fitness-focused, lifestyle-ready – this isn’t just a gym buddy, it’s your daily companion.

Huawei is back with another square smartwatch, the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro. I’ve been using the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro for around 10 days before I started writing this review. This is a direct successor to the Huawei Watch Fit 3, which was released about a year ago. There are a lot of similarities between them, in both look and feel, and that’s not a bad thing, not at all. Last year’s model was a compelling product, and… spoiler alert, so is this year’s.

To be quite honest, the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro delivered exactly what I expected. Huawei has been making watches for a long time now, and expectations are always kind of high. The company is making a step forward with each generation, for the most part. As a reminder, the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro was released alongside the Huawei Watch 5. That review is coming in the near future. With that being said, let’s get down to it.

Specs

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Hardware / Design

The Huawei Watch 4 Pro looks very similar to the Huawei Watch Fit 3, with a couple of differences, which we’ll mention as we get to them. The Watch has a square shape, but its corners are rounded, they’re not sharp. The watch still has a red rotating crown in the upper portion of the right side, and due to its shape and ridges, it’s really easy to tell apart from the bottom button on that side. As if that’s not enough, Huawei also included a palpable protrusion in-between the two in order to minimize mispresses.

One customizable button is included

Speaking of the bottom button, that one is customizable. By default, it’s meant to be used for fitness, but you can easily change that. Unlike the Huawei Watch Fit 3, this model has a raised “lip” around the display for protection purposes. This is great for protection against bumps, but I preferred the old way of doing things. Why? Well, because sliding your finger from the sides was more enjoyable. Most people will likely prefer this way of doing things, though.

On the left side of the watch sits a speaker and a microphone. The watch band is not a standard one, unfortunately. It’s a proprietary one that goes inside the watch and is released via a button press. That button is located at the bottom of the watch, on each side, for each side of the watch band. You’ll also find a heart rate sensor at the bottom of this smartwatch. There are no pogo pins here, as the watch supports wireless charging.

Huawei used both titanium and sapphire glass here

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro’s shell is made out of titanium, while Huawei also used sapphire glass here. That is always good to hear, of course. Not only because of durability’s sake, but because of the lightweight properties of the watch. The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro is very light, actually, you surely won’t feel it weigh down your wrist or anything like that. It weighs 30.4 grams. One thing to note is that I actually managed to scratch the body of the watch, right under the display. I don’t know how or when, but I did it.

The watch ships with a watch band pre-installed. Considering that Huawei offers various different styles, your watch color and band material/look will depend on the model you opt for. It comes in Black, Blue, and Green colors. The one I’ve been using is is Black one with 3D wave style grooves fluoroelastomer watch strap. It’s basically a silicone strap, but a nice one. It looks nice, you can easily take a shower with it without damaging it, and there is even a watch strap keeper on there with a pin which sits inside one of the holes on the strap itself, so the excess strap sits in place and doesn’t dance around.

A magnetic wireless charger is included in the retail box

You’ll also get a charger included in the retail box. That is a charging puck, to be exact, just like the ones Huawei has been using for a long time now. It supports wireless charging, and it comes with a fixed cable that has a USB-A plug on the end of it. Overall, the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro looks great and feels great to wear. It’s also worth noting that it’s only 9.3mm thick.

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro has a square display, which is not an often occurrence in Huawei’s watch lineup. The company prefers to make circular watches, as do many other companies. In any case, this smartwatch features a 1.82-inch AMOLED display. We’re looking at a 347 ppi here, which is quite high for a watch. This smartwatch can also reach a peak brightness of 3,000, which is immensely high, especially for a watch.

The display is vivid, sharp, and bright

Huawei also claims that the watch offers vivid colors, all of which is true. It is very pleasing to the eye, very vivid. It’s more than sharp enough, and the touch response is also really good. I’ve never felt like I needed it to be brighter, not at all, not even under direct sunlight. The watch really cranks up the brightness when you need it to. The sheer size of the display is also more than good. Considering that it’s a square, it really does fit a lot of content, even though I still prefer round watches myself.

Sapphire glass protection is a welcome addition

On top of all that, Huawei used Sapphire Glass here, and the screen should be rather well protected against damage. I haven’t tested that part, of course, but during my 10-day usage, the display is still immaculate, for what it’s worth. All things considered, I really don’t have any complaints about this display, none whatsoever. I personally like the edges to slope down a bit, for them to be smooth, and the display to be less protected. But the “lip” that Huawei opted for around the display here is definitely the better call for the vast majority of people.

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Performance

Huawei did not share the SoC details for this smartwatch, nor did it say how much RAM and storage it has. I was also unable to get such information in the watch settings, unfortunately. That does not surprise me, as Huawei has been sharing less and less spec info when it comes to its wearables. I’ve never paid much attention to it, as the company’s wearables have been working extremely well for years now… that applies to this watch too, yes.

The performance is very fluid, as we’ve come to expect from Huawei watches

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro performs all tasks with ease. I’m talking about general UI performance here, of course, we’ll talk about the health aspect in another section. Scrolling is smooth, even though I presume this is a 60Hz display, but considering its size, it’s not a problem. The animations are great in HarmonyOS 5.1.0, which runs on the watch here. Huawei pushed things a bit further with animations, and for the better. They’re great, and also quite fast, so the experience is great.

The watch ran every app perfectly fine, even a third-party game

The watch also opens all apps that come pre-installed with ease, there’s no problem whatsoever. I never noticed lag, not at all. I can’t really speak about third-party apps, as there are not many of them, and I installed two of them, just for the sake of it. They ran perfectly fine, and one of them was a Flappy Bird-type game called ‘Surfing Joe’. The performance in general was really smooth, no complaints there, not whatsoever. Just a side note, I was running the watch connected to the OPPO Find N5 during the review period, so it wasn’t even Huawei’s phone.

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Battery

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro comes with a 400mAh battery. That, in combination with the company’s software and other components, is a recipe for success. Many Huawei smartwatches are well-known for great battery life, and this one is no exception. Huawei claims that the watch can provide 7 days’ worth of regular use, and 10 days of maximum use. I managed to go above the company’s expectations, then, it seems, the watch, despite all testing, did a great job. It lasted for 9 days, even with pretty much all the options activated. During my regular use, when I don’t use all of those features, I bet it can go beyond the 10-day battery life, which is great, needless to say. You can comfortably go for a weekend getaway and leave your charger at home.

The battery life is great & the wireless charging is plenty fast

What about charging? Well, a charging puck comes with the watch itself. The watch magnetizes itself to that charging puck, and the charging is conducted wirelessly. The charging puck itself has a USB-A port on the other end, which you’ll need to plug into the outlet. In regards to charging speed, you can get this thing fully charged in an hour, which is not bad at all, quite the contrary. No complaints in that regard, not at all.

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Software

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro comes with Huawei’s own software, not Wear OS. Chances are you already know that, as that was the case for a long time when it comes to Huawei watches. HarmonyOS 5.1.0 comes pre-installed here, and it’s very similar to HarmonyOS 5.0.0. I’ve noticed some changes in the app tray layout, and also some different animations on top of that. The animations are very fast, though, so it’s a joy to navigate the watch. And no, as I explained in the performance section, that does not affect the overall performance of the watch whatsoever.

The UI will seem familiar to you if you’ve used pretty much any smartwatch thus far

The UI is exactly what you’d expect. Swiping from the top will get you to quick toggles, doing the exact opposite will show you your notifications. Swiping from left to right will get you to a special menu vertical for weather and multimedia (which you can tinker with), and swiping from right to left will show you your watch widgets. These are customizable, and you can have more or less of them, it’s up to you.

The app tray is accessible by pressing the rotating crown button, and the other button on the watch is customizable. The menus look great, Huawei has refined the UI on its watches a lot since HarmonyOS first dropped. Everything you need is pretty much pre-installed here, ranging from Huawei’s rich Health/Fitness portfolio to a media player and even Petal Maps. You are out of luck if you want to use third-party apps, though, as there are really not a lot of them on the App Gallery store.

Some polishing is still needed, but everything works perfectly fine

Huawei still needs to polish out a couple of tiny details here, however. I’ve had cutoffs on the notification side of things. Not cutoffs in terms of receiving them, but cutoffs in terms of how UI portrays them. Some elements ended up being cut off by the edges of the screen, while for some apps, the messages themselves were cut off way too soon as well. These are just some details that need to be ironed out. It is worth noting that I’ve been using the watch connected to the Huawei Health beta app, though, so you can expect at least one more update before you get your hands on the watch. That will hopefully take care of the UI issues with notifications.

You’re getting one-way syncing for notifications, which is a plus in my book

Also, note that in terms of syncing, this watch offers one-way syncing when it comes to notifications. That’s the way I prefer it to be, but you may not. In other words, if you dismiss a notification from the watch, it will not disappear from your phone. It doesn’t work quite like Wear OS does in that regard. I prefer it this way as I like to see a notification, and then just get it out of my face, while being able to handle it on a phone later on. There is no way to alter this behavior. Another small thing to note is that you can now take screenshots via the watch. That seems to be a feature of HarmonyOS 5.1, as I was unable to do the same on HarmonyOS 5.0. It’s a neat feature for us reviewers, that’s for sure.

Other than that, the software on the watch was great, in all honesty. I’ve had a great experience with it, as I’ve had for the last couple of years. There are always small steps forward when it comes to HarmonyOS, at least when it comes to the company’s wearables. It’s a pleasant UI to use, that’s for sure, just don’t expect to get your favorite notifs.

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Health & Fitness

This smartwatch has the word ‘Fit’ in its name, so it’s not really difficult to figure out that it’s fitness-oriented. There are a lot of fitness and health features built into the device. It would be impossible to go into detail on all of them, or even test them all, but I did my best to hit the main ones. So, let’s start with fitness features in no particular order, and take it from there.

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro can track a lot of different exercises. That includes indoor runs, outdoor runs, pool swimming, outdoor and indoor cycling, diving, gold, rope skipping, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, and many, many more. Some of those workouts will kick off on their own when you start them, while others you have to start manually via the watch.

Huawei improved running tracking

This smartwatch actually comes with improved running tracking. It comes with a professional trail running mode built into the watch. You can even map specific key points on your run, just to ensure you’re on the right path. You can do that via the contour map,s scaling from 50 meters to 200 kilometers, and contour intervals up to 10 meters. I haven’t really used the key point mapping, but I did go on a short run, at the watch did a good job of tracking that.

I also decided to go on a longer bike ride, just to see how it’ll do, and it did just as well as the Huawei Watch Fit 3. In other words, it managed to keep up really well. I can tell that the metrics were fine, as that’s the bike path that I usually take, and the measurements were on par with other wearables I’ve used. I also went for a quick swim, and the watch did not fail in that regard either. It managed to count my swings accurately, as well as other included data. Other than that, I’ve only tracked my walks with the watch (which it did miscalculate a bit) when it comes to exercising. There are way too many exercises included here. There is something for everyone.

The watch is equipped with the Huawei Sunflower Positioning System

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro is equipped with the Huawei Sunflower Positioning System. That system is supposed to maximize GPS accuracy. It is supposed to be 56% more accurate compared to the Fit 3. I did not notice such a difference, but ti was accurate throughout my use, which is enough for me. You really should not have any problems when it comes to GPS, at least I didn’t. It managed to pick it up fast, and it tracked everything accurately.

This watch can also track your sleep. It is also equipped with Sleep Breathing Awareness, which is supposed to help identify potential sleep apnea and improve sleep overall. The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro also comes with the HRV (Heart Rate Variability). HRV can reflect the changes in heartbeats, measure the physical and psychological stress endured by the body, and help screen for disease risk.

It managed to track my sleep perfectly fine, save for one thing

The watch did a fine job with sleep tracking, though I still find that it’s not the most accurate if you remain in bed after you wake up, and make minimum movements. I usually check the news when I wake up, and my left hand (on which the watch sits) is usually still, so at times the watch thinks I’m still asleep. That was the case on every single smartwatch that I’ve used. It doesn’t always happen, but it’s worth noting.

This watch can also track your heart rate and SpO2. On top of that, it can track stress levels. Stress levels are usually a hit and miss, but the heart rate tracking seems to be rather accurate, at least compared to other watches I’ve used. There are a ton of other wellbeing features built into the watch, and goals you can set and reach on a daily or weekly basis.

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Audio

The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro comes with a speaker and a microphone. More and more smartwatches offer such a function, while Huawei’s watches have had it for ages now. The situation with them is similar to previous models, though. Can you take phone calls via the watch? Yes. Should you? Probably not. No, the quality is nowhere near a phone when you do, but you can do it if you want.

You can make calls with this watch, but you probably shouldn’t

Do note that it would be best if you don’t end up in a loud environment if you do that. The speaker, while not the worst out there, is just a single speaker on a watch. So, don’t get your hopes up too much. I’ve talked to two people via the watch, one of whom was my friend, who usually takes such calls from me. He said that I sound about the same as I did from the Huawei Watch GT 5 Pro, which I reviewed prior to this one. So… there you have it. The audio is decent, but this is just a watch. Remember that.

Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro Review: Should you buy it?

Is the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro a device for you? Well, if it’s within your budget, and you’re a sporty person, sure… go for it. This watch is more than solid. It’s not even made solely for sporty people. In fact, I can see just about anyone wearing this. As long as you like square watches, that is. I had a great time with it. Just make sure to manage your expectations in terms of third-party apps.

You should buy the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro if you:

• …love square watches
• …are a sporty person
• …don’t use many apps on smartwatches
• …like long battery life
• …need fast charging
• …love swimming and diving
• …are playing golf on a regular basis

You shouldn’t buy the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro if you:

• …prefer circular watches
• …need well-known third-party apps