Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro review: A stylish Apple Watch alternative for Android users
The recently launched Watch Fit 4 Pro is the first Huawei device I've reviewed in several years. While the Chinese company remains on the US sanctions list and doesn't support Google or its services, its wearables continue to impress with stunning features and sleek design.
The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro combines flagship smartwatch features with a slimmer, lighter design, making it perfect for all-day wear, including sleep tracking.
Design and build
The Watch Fit 4 Pro feels great on the wrist, thanks to its premium materials, slim profile, and lightweight design. Picture: Noel Campion.
The Watch Fit 4 Pro weighs only 30.4 grams (without the strap) and is just 9.3mm thick; it's even slimmer than the standard Fit 4 model. At a glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is an Apple Watch Ultra. However, when placed side by side, the differences become much more noticeable.
For someone like me, who has mostly worn the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for the past year, the Fit 4 Pro feels slimmer and lighter, especially at night. In everyday use, I hardly notice it on my wrist.
The rotating crown matches the band colour perfectly, a clever design detail. Picture: Noel Campion
Huawei offers the Pro model in black, blue, and green. I tested the green version with nylon strap, which not only stays secure during activities but also impressively resists sweat and moisture. This is a beautiful watch that both looks and feels premium. It's the small details that make a difference, like the matching green accent on the rotating crown, the lightweight metal body, and the sapphire glass screen, which I found to be impressively resistant to scratches.
Display
The 1.82-inch AMOLED display features a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, is protected by sapphire glass, and a titanium alloy bezel. Picture: Huawei.
The Watch Fit 4 Pro boasts a 1.82-inch AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, which is 50% brighter than the non-Pro version. Visibility is flawless outdoors, even in direct sunlight. In the recent sunny weather, I keep brightness maxed out and always-on display enabled, and it still holds up well on battery.
The screen is sharp and vivid, and interacting with it feels smooth. Navigation is aided by a responsive rotating crown that lets you scroll without needing to swipe on the screen. The lower side button acts as a quick shortcut to apps like activities, and is customisable.
Features and battery life
Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro. Picture: Noel Campion.
Huawei's HarmonyOS 5.1 powers the watch and will feel familiar to anyone who's used a recent Huawei wearable. You can swipe to access widgets, scroll through apps in either list or grid view, and choose from hundreds of watch faces, including animated or custom photo options. Battery life is solid. Huawei claims up to 10 days of battery life with light use, and I've averaged 4–5 days with the always-on display and maximum brightness, plus around 30 minutes of daily activity. The 400mAh battery takes about 60 minutes to fully charge. The new magnetic dock is a significant improvement over the old pogo-pin system, offering greater security and user-friendliness. The wireless charging is Qi-compatible, although I found it a bit tricky to locate the sweet spot on a standard wireless charging pad.
Activity and smart features
The Watch Fit 4 Pro is EN 13319 certified, with 40-metre dive-grade water resistance and an IP6X dustproof rating. Picture: Noel Campion.
The watch offers a comprehensive suite of health and fitness tracking. It includes Huawei's new TruSeen 5.5+ system for heart rate and SpO2 monitoring, with added support for ECG and Heart Rate Variability (HRV). The latter offers insights into stress and cardiovascular health.
The Fit 4 Pro provided me with a detailed breakdown of light, deep, and REM sleep, along with practical recommendations for improving my sleep quality. Thanks to its lightweight design, I've worn it nightly without issue. Compared to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, Huawei's sleep analysis tends to report higher amounts of deep sleep, although both devices generally agree on the total time spent asleep.
The Watch Fit 4 Pro features a five-system GNSS setup, providing enhanced positioning accuracy that Huawei claims is 30% better than the Fit 3. It supports trail running with offline contour maps, diving mode up to 50m (5 ATM), and even golf tracking, with support for over 15,000 courses globally. I used the watch to track my cycling trips, and while it accurately recorded the route, I noticed it also counted steps while I was cycling. On a 10km ride, it logged around 3,500 steps, which suggests the step tracking isn't fully optimised for cycling activity.
Water sports mode tracks speed, heart rate, and route, making it suitable for swimmers or kayakers. And for everyday users, there's support for over 100 workout types. The bottom button quickly launches workouts, or you can use voice control to start one using AI voice.
The Watch Fit 4 Pro is equipped with a range of sensors, including an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, optical heart rate sensor, barometer, temperature sensor, ECG sensor, and depth sensor. Picture: Noel Campion.
Unfortunately, although the watch features NFC, the Wallet app isn't available under the Devices tab in the Huawei Health app, and it doesn't appear to support contactless payments in this region. I'm a huge fan of using my watch for payments and love the convenience it offers, so the lack of support for contactless payments is a noticeable drawback. I suspect this missing feature could be a deal-breaker for some users.
When paired with an Android device, you also get access to a full keyboard for quick replies. However, voice dictation is only available if you're using a Huawei smartphone.
The Watch Fit 4 Pro works great with Android and iOS. I was able to switch between Android and iOS phones, and the Health app syncs everything, including sleep and activity data, across platforms. There are a few minor feature gaps on iPhone (e.g. no full keyboard or Petal Maps), but nothing deal-breaking.
Verdict
The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro combines flagship health and fitness features with a sleek, comfortable design that feels more like a fitness band than a bulky smartwatch. It's the perfect hybrid for serious tracking and everyday comfort.
€249 Currys
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
‘The mask is off in tech. You're getting fired if you speak out'
William Fitzgerald has a lot on his mind. It's on the button of 2pm in Dublin when the WhatsApp call notification appears, making it barely 6am where he is, on the Pacific coast of the United States . What's it like in that part of the world? 'That's a big question,' the Waterford -born founder of The Worker Agency says, answering what was meant to be a light starter question about the weather. 'It's kind of surreal. I lived in Hong Kong when the students [in 2012] protested against the curriculum being changed. I was working for Google at the time, and I attended some of the protests, but I wasn't involved [directly]. Now I'm kind of directly involved in trying to stop what Trump is doing with the support of corporate America.' READ MORE The Irishman isn't exaggerating his current situation. Fitzgerald founded The Worker Agency in 2018. This was shortly after he did the unthinkable for many people in his position: abandoning a 10-year climb up the corporate career ladder in Google and quitting his job in the tech giant's public policy unit. The idea for The Worker Agency, which he describes as an advocacy firm, was born out of Fitzgerald's convictions and the work he did with Google that put him into the orbit of activists around the globe. Providing public relations services to campaign groups and trade unions in the US, the agency began as a one-man operation but now employs 10 people at its offices in Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area. 'We help people design their strategies,' Fitzgerald explains, 'and then we help them execute on the tactics, whether that's helping pitch stories, helping to do the social media.' His clients have included everything from racial justice campaigns to workers trying to form a union within Google parent Alphabet , as well as the likes of Radices, a Texas-based non-profit promoting migrant rights. [ Why Donald Trump is only beginning his pursuit of the 'enemy within' Opens in new window ] In the immediate aftermath of Trump's election victory last November, Fitzgerald sat down with The Irish Times for a brief interview on the fringes of the Web Summit in Lisbon. 'Tech is really in bed with the bad stuff,' he said at the time, whether that's defence contracts or surveillance on behalf of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). He warned that the next few years could be great for big tech but bleak for almost everyone else if Trump's policies matched his increasingly authoritarian rhetoric. I think actually the formative part of my youth was my mum basically saying: 'Go out and live your best life and do whatever the f*** you want' Some seven months later, it seemed like a good time to sit down with him again, given what has happened in the interim. Whether it's the deployment of the California National Guard to quell protests in Los Angeles, the deportation of people to a prison in El Salvador or the litany of other developments in American public life, the Trump administration's ability to execute its plans has surpassed the expectations of many of its most vocal critics. 'Since I moved to America,' Fitzgerald says, 'it has operated, for better or for worse, as a place where anyone could just say whatever the heck they wanted. It feels to me now like they're trying to turn America into a place like Singapore or somewhere, where, literally, that just doesn't happen any more. Now, I don't know if they're going to be able to do it, but they're definitely trying.' Even in the face of these outrages, the slavishness of the tech barons – not just Elon Musk – to the administration has been notable. It's also novel, given Silicon Valley's previous outwardly liberal gloss that at least ticked the necessary cultural boxes. What changed? 'They stopped pretending,' Fitzgerald says. 'The mask is off. You're getting fired if you speak out. Back in the day, [tech employees] used to be even asking questions [of their employer] in the comments on company chat boards.' In 2025, however, avenues for dissent have been barricaded up and a 'culture of fear' is very much in effect, he says. That sense of precarity has at least something to do with the massive rounds of lay-offs big tech embarked upon a couple of years ago, Fitzgerald explained in Lisbon last November. 'The software engineers making big money in Silicon Valley, they don't know if they're going to wake up tomorrow and they're gone. So, the culture within the companies has also changed.' Little surprise, then, that Fitzgerald says the last six months have been the busiest ever for his firm. 'I have back-to-back calls, meetings', he says, describing what a typical day looks like for him. 'Sometimes, I almost have to do what you do as a reporter, meeting sources, meeting people in tech companies, trying to build relationships.' Berkeley, where Fitzgerald lives with his wife and daughter, has a special place in the history of American dissent. The birthplace of the US Free Speech Movement in the mid-1960s, the city was a hotbed of activism during the period of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. That heritage remains a strong part of the culture there. 'A lot of our neighbours came up during that era,' Fitzgerald says. 'There's a lot of people – some would call them boomers – of the older generation who are really annoyed, really sad but really determined […] They're trying to do everything they can to actually not let [Trump] do it.' [ Finn McRedmond: It's no wonder people my age are miserable. Everyone keeps telling them they're totally screwed Opens in new window ] That sense of outrage and the desire to resist is one of the reasons The Worker Agency has been so busy, according to Fitzgerald. 'I'm kind of impressed because people aren't just letting it happen. People are resolute.' 'Resolute' is also an adjective that fits Fitzgerald. His decision to leave Google two years into the first Trump administration was born, to some extent, out of his frustrations with the company. In previous media outings he has described his dismay at the search engine giant's initial unwillingness to make a strong statement about the 45th president's mooted 'Muslim ban'. Although it eventually came out against it, Fitzgerald, who was head of policy communications at the time, has said it was a key turning point in his relationship with the company. Fitzgerald was born in An Sean Phobal in the Gaeltacht area of Waterford. His father, a local insurance man, died when William was four. That left his mother to raise six children on her own. 'It was an interesting journey,' Fitzgerald says. 'In that my dad had done well by buying property in Dublin in the 1980s when it was tough to do that. So, he had put money aside.' That money allowed the six children to go to boarding school. Fitzgerald's sisters went to King's Hospital in Dublin while Fitzgerald went to Clongowes Wood College in Co Kildare. 'Each year, I was in school with the richest boys in Ireland but at home, there was literally nothing.' Surely this must have influenced his activist bent? Only to an extent, suggests Fitzgerald. 'I have five siblings and we're all 100 per cent different. Even at a young age, I was kind of wanting to volunteer and stuff, so I think your surroundings are one part of it.' More important in those years was his mother's parenting style, he says. 'I think actually the formative part of my youth was my mum basically saying: 'Go out and live your best life and do whatever the f*** you want'. Like, we were getting arrested as teenagers and the police were trying to tell her we were juvenile delinquents. She was shouting at the police: 'How dare you!'' But 'no matter what', Fitzgerald says, 'she supported us and loved us' and let her six children find their own light. His siblings have gone on to do 'incredible things', he says, not least his brother Richard, who founded Augustus Media, the brand behind Lovin Dubai and other lifestyle websites in the Middle East. Fitzgerald's work with Google, which he joined while completing a business and politics degree in Trinity College Dublin, brought him around the globe and helped shape his worldview. 'One of the first jobs I had,' he recalls, 'was flying around Asia giving out two-factor security keys to activists. I met my wife. She was one of the free speech activists in Pakistan. It was a place that kind of encouraged me to live and breathe my values in a real way.' The job eventually took him to California, where he says he involved himself in 'Black Lives Matter stuff' and other campaigns. 'My evenings were spent during those 10 years at Google kind of providing free communications services to organisations,' he says. Starting The Worker Agency, the first task was to find some of those groups 'that might be willing to pay for this as a service'. On this side of the pond, the public and political conversation about Trump and big tech has centred mostly on tariffs and the economic fallout. Fitzgerald is realistic about the reasons for that. 'Foreign direct investment is so important to Ireland,' he says, and the tax base's reliance on just a handful of American multinationals is always going to create a cautious atmosphere in Government when it comes to talking about tech. 'I remember when I was at Google, the joke was: 'Oh, if we just sneeze, Enda Kenny will run down.' I do understand how difficult it is.' But tech's Trump-ward turn is going to highlight some glaring contradictions in the Government's positions. One such tension is the Coalition's messaging on Israel and its war in Gaza , which Taoiseach Micheál Martin has described as genocide. Big tech's dealings with Israel and its military are increasingly being criticised and highlighted by current and former workers at the world's most powerful companies, such as Microsoft, where the No Azure for Apartheid campaign is looking to end the group's cloud and AI contracts with the Israeli military. Fitzgerald's former employer, Google, is facing similar pressure. Last December, the New York Times reported that lawyers at the tech giant had warned senior executives in 2021 that its cloud computing services deal with Israel, Project Nimbus, could be 'used for, or linked to, the facilitation of human rights abuses' in the West Bank . The Nimbus issue has been 'a lightning rod for arguments' inside Google since the start of the war in Gaza, the newspaper reported at the time. For its part, the company has denied that its technology is 'directed at highly sensitive, classified or military workloads'. 'It's going to get harder for the kind of Irish mainstream establishment to continue taking nice pictures with these tech executives,' says Fitzgerald. 'It's also things like immigration and the Irish [in the US]. We are impacted by that. I know there are Irish-Americans who are really struggling. I just think it will get harder [for Irish politicians] as you see more stuff happening. And it's still very early in the administration. We're not even a year in.' What the next three years bring is anyone's guess. For Fitzgerald's part, he wants to bring The Worker Agency to Ireland in some capacity. Last week, he incorporated a company called The Worker Agency Ireland Ltd with the Companies Registration Office . Can we expect to see the firm open a Dublin – or Waterford – office in the near future? 'I have a real ambition [to do that],' he says. 'I feel like there are things in Ireland and the European Union that we work on from afar that we'd be much better at if we had a physical presence in Ireland. But will we have a team of three in Dublin in six months? God, I'd love that. But I can't say for sure.' CV Age : 39 Family : Married to Sana, one child (Zaina) and another on the way Lives : Berkeley, California Something you might expect : 'Every year, I find myself both surprised and disappointed when Waterford fall short of winning the All-Ireland hurling final.' Something that might surprise : 'Most days I either swim or surf somewhere around the San Francisco Bay, convincing myself it's warmer than Clonea Beach back in Dungarvan, Co Waterford'
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro review: A stylish Apple Watch alternative for Android users
The recently launched Watch Fit 4 Pro is the first Huawei device I've reviewed in several years. While the Chinese company remains on the US sanctions list and doesn't support Google or its services, its wearables continue to impress with stunning features and sleek design. The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro combines flagship smartwatch features with a slimmer, lighter design, making it perfect for all-day wear, including sleep tracking. Design and build The Watch Fit 4 Pro feels great on the wrist, thanks to its premium materials, slim profile, and lightweight design. Picture: Noel Campion. The Watch Fit 4 Pro weighs only 30.4 grams (without the strap) and is just 9.3mm thick; it's even slimmer than the standard Fit 4 model. At a glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking this is an Apple Watch Ultra. However, when placed side by side, the differences become much more noticeable. For someone like me, who has mostly worn the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for the past year, the Fit 4 Pro feels slimmer and lighter, especially at night. In everyday use, I hardly notice it on my wrist. The rotating crown matches the band colour perfectly, a clever design detail. Picture: Noel Campion Huawei offers the Pro model in black, blue, and green. I tested the green version with nylon strap, which not only stays secure during activities but also impressively resists sweat and moisture. This is a beautiful watch that both looks and feels premium. It's the small details that make a difference, like the matching green accent on the rotating crown, the lightweight metal body, and the sapphire glass screen, which I found to be impressively resistant to scratches. Display The 1.82-inch AMOLED display features a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, is protected by sapphire glass, and a titanium alloy bezel. Picture: Huawei. The Watch Fit 4 Pro boasts a 1.82-inch AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, which is 50% brighter than the non-Pro version. Visibility is flawless outdoors, even in direct sunlight. In the recent sunny weather, I keep brightness maxed out and always-on display enabled, and it still holds up well on battery. The screen is sharp and vivid, and interacting with it feels smooth. Navigation is aided by a responsive rotating crown that lets you scroll without needing to swipe on the screen. The lower side button acts as a quick shortcut to apps like activities, and is customisable. Features and battery life Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro. Picture: Noel Campion. Huawei's HarmonyOS 5.1 powers the watch and will feel familiar to anyone who's used a recent Huawei wearable. You can swipe to access widgets, scroll through apps in either list or grid view, and choose from hundreds of watch faces, including animated or custom photo options. Battery life is solid. Huawei claims up to 10 days of battery life with light use, and I've averaged 4–5 days with the always-on display and maximum brightness, plus around 30 minutes of daily activity. The 400mAh battery takes about 60 minutes to fully charge. The new magnetic dock is a significant improvement over the old pogo-pin system, offering greater security and user-friendliness. The wireless charging is Qi-compatible, although I found it a bit tricky to locate the sweet spot on a standard wireless charging pad. Activity and smart features The Watch Fit 4 Pro is EN 13319 certified, with 40-metre dive-grade water resistance and an IP6X dustproof rating. Picture: Noel Campion. The watch offers a comprehensive suite of health and fitness tracking. It includes Huawei's new TruSeen 5.5+ system for heart rate and SpO2 monitoring, with added support for ECG and Heart Rate Variability (HRV). The latter offers insights into stress and cardiovascular health. The Fit 4 Pro provided me with a detailed breakdown of light, deep, and REM sleep, along with practical recommendations for improving my sleep quality. Thanks to its lightweight design, I've worn it nightly without issue. Compared to the Apple Watch Ultra 2, Huawei's sleep analysis tends to report higher amounts of deep sleep, although both devices generally agree on the total time spent asleep. The Watch Fit 4 Pro features a five-system GNSS setup, providing enhanced positioning accuracy that Huawei claims is 30% better than the Fit 3. It supports trail running with offline contour maps, diving mode up to 50m (5 ATM), and even golf tracking, with support for over 15,000 courses globally. I used the watch to track my cycling trips, and while it accurately recorded the route, I noticed it also counted steps while I was cycling. On a 10km ride, it logged around 3,500 steps, which suggests the step tracking isn't fully optimised for cycling activity. Water sports mode tracks speed, heart rate, and route, making it suitable for swimmers or kayakers. And for everyday users, there's support for over 100 workout types. The bottom button quickly launches workouts, or you can use voice control to start one using AI voice. The Watch Fit 4 Pro is equipped with a range of sensors, including an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, optical heart rate sensor, barometer, temperature sensor, ECG sensor, and depth sensor. Picture: Noel Campion. Unfortunately, although the watch features NFC, the Wallet app isn't available under the Devices tab in the Huawei Health app, and it doesn't appear to support contactless payments in this region. I'm a huge fan of using my watch for payments and love the convenience it offers, so the lack of support for contactless payments is a noticeable drawback. I suspect this missing feature could be a deal-breaker for some users. When paired with an Android device, you also get access to a full keyboard for quick replies. However, voice dictation is only available if you're using a Huawei smartphone. The Watch Fit 4 Pro works great with Android and iOS. I was able to switch between Android and iOS phones, and the Health app syncs everything, including sleep and activity data, across platforms. There are a few minor feature gaps on iPhone (e.g. no full keyboard or Petal Maps), but nothing deal-breaking. Verdict The Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro combines flagship health and fitness features with a sleek, comfortable design that feels more like a fitness band than a bulky smartwatch. It's the perfect hybrid for serious tracking and everyday comfort. €249 Currys
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Doro Aurora A30 review: A smartphone that truly understands its users
The Doro Aurora A30 takes a refreshingly different approach in the crowded smartphone market. Instead of overwhelming users with complexity, it focuses on accessibility, safety, and clarity. Designed for seniors or anyone looking for a more straightforward digital experience, the A30 proves that being smart doesn't have to mean being complicated. The Aurora A30 is a thoughtfully designed smartphone that's not about raw power or flashy features; it's about usability, reassurance, and staying connected without stress. Design and build Doro Aurora A30. Picture: Noel Campion. The Aurora A30 is a 6.1-inch smartphone with a sturdy, easy-to-grip design. While many modern phones prioritise thinness and glossy finishes, the A30's textured back and solid frame make it easy to hold, even for users with limited dexterity. It's noticeably chunkier than your average Android flagship, but that extra size helps users operate the phone confidently. Doro's Secure Button is there for quick access to an emergency contact. Picture: Noel Campion. There are three physical buttons located beneath the screen for easy calling, as well as a dedicated Home button for quick navigation. These tactile controls help to reduce accidental taps, which is something Doro says seniors often mention as a pain point. It's also worth mentioning Doro's Secure Button, a physical key on the back of the device that can instantly alert a trusted contact in an emergency. It's unobtrusive but potentially life-saving. Display The Aurora A30 sports a large and clear 6.1-inch display. Picture: Noel Campion. The A30's 6.1-inch display is essential for users who need larger fonts and clearer visuals. Too often, phones for seniors have small displays. The text is easy to read, and icons are well-spaced, thanks to Doro's Easy Interface, which simplifies the Android layout without stripping away functionality. The panel itself isn't high-end by modern flagship standards. Still, it's an HD+ screen with decent brightness, but in use, it delivers where it counts: clarity, colour accuracy and visibility in everyday conditions. There's no overwhelming clutter on the home screen, and everything feels designed with purpose. Performance The A30 isn't built to win benchmark wars. It runs a modest processor paired with 4GB RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of storage. But for its audience, it feels fast enough. Standard tasks, such as browsing the web, making video calls, and opening apps, perform acceptably without too much lag. The system feels solid, and I didn't experience any app crashes, and transitions between screens are smooth. For the tasks it's built for, like communication, camera use, and navigation, it's more than capable. Features Physical buttons make using the Aurora A30 much easier. Picture: Noel Campion. The Aurora A30 ClearSound audio technology delivers louder and crisper call audio, and it's especially good when paired with hearing aids or used in speaker mode. The Easy Interface strips away the bloat of standard Android and presents only the essentials in large, readable tiles. There's also TeamViewer support built in, so a family member or caregiver can access the phone remotely and assist with settings or updates, which is perfect for those less confident with technology. The Aurora A30 is charging on the optional wireless dock. Picture: Doro. Charging is equally fuss-free, with an optional wireless dock that includes a dimmable night light and supports hands-free video calls. It's a great example of hardware designed around daily life, rather than technical specifications. However, like other handsets, no charger is included in the box. You also get a reassuringly large 50MP rear camera, which takes surprisingly decent snaps in daylight, and a selfie cam for video calls. The results won't rival the latest flagships, but for sharing moments with loved ones, it gets the job done well. Verdict The Doro Aurora A30 is a smartphone that prioritises clarity, confidence, and care. With its accessible interface, loud sound, and safety features, it's an ideal choice for seniors seeking a no-fuss digital companion. €350
