Watch GT 3 SE is Huawei’s latest smartwatch model that has just been launched in the market. The product inherits the unique features of the previous Watch GT series at a more accessible universal price.
According to IDC statistics in the second quarter of 2022, Huawei is currently leading the smart wearables industry in Indochina with 18.5% market share. “Overcoming victory”, Huawei continued to launch the Huawei Watch GT 3 SE not long after launching a series of smartwatches including Watch GT3, GT3 Pro.
Sporty, healthy design
My first impression of the Huawei Watch GT 3 SE is a watch with a strong, sporty design. This smartwatch is equipped by Huawei with many angular lines with raised edges, engraved numbers, and prominent edges that look quite fashionable.
The version I experienced has the main black color with some red textures on the copper face and the right knob area to help add highlights. Watch GT 3 SE also has a blue version with yellow textures that also look quite fancy, suitable for those who like to break out. Note that the knob on the side of the Watch GT 3 SE can be rotated, but cannot scroll the page or zoom in and out of the app list like on the GT 3 and GT 3 Pro.
With a watch face as large as 46.4mm, the Watch GT 3 SE is aimed at people with large wrists, and male audiences. Of course, you can still wear this smartwatch if you want, but you will need to have a large enough wrist.
The Watch GT 3 SE weighs 35.6g (excluding the strap) and has an overall thickness of just 11mm (watch body). Indeed, when worn on the hand, this watch feels very light, comfortable, does not cause fatigue even when worn for a long time.
Because Huawei has used a reinforced polymer plastic frame with fiberglass reinforcement instead of a metal frame like previous products, it has helped the Watch GT 3 SE “lighter” significantly. However, because it is plastic, if you look closely, the Watch GT 3 SE will not be as luxurious and sophisticated as the previous GT seniors.
Watch GT 3 SE’s strap is made of silicone material, so it can be used well for sports activities, dust and sweat well.
The Watch GT 3 SE itself is water resistant to 5ATM, and water resistant to 50 meters, so you can use it to swim comfortably, or “wash” under the faucet without any problem.
The connector on the strap uses the popular lever form on today’s smartwatches, so it can be easily removed and replaced with other material straps if desired. The traditional hook-and-loop fastening mechanism should be much easier to wear than the hidden strap of some other smartwatches.
The screen is bright and clear, with good definition, with Always On Display
The screen of the Watch GT 3 SE uses AMOLED technology with a size of 1.43 inches, a resolution of 466 x 466 pixels, with a pixel density of 326 PPI, helping to display clear, sharp, fresh colors, and high contrast. High contrast, deep black.
The brightness of the screen is enough to see well under strong sunlight without any problems. The device is also equipped with Corning Gorilla Glass for the screen to prevent scratches and abrasion. The screen has a sensor that automatically adjusts the light according to the environment, so you don’t have to manually adjust the brightness when you’re walking from home to the street, or when you’re in the shade and out in the sun.
Watch GT 3 SE has a lot of built-in watch faces in many different styles for users to choose, suitable for many different usage scenarios, From training to work.
In addition to the available watch faces, you can use everyday outfit photos and portraits to personalize your watch faces.
Huawei’s smartwatch also features Always On Display (AOD) – Always On Display – and will change with different watch faces so you can always see the time and date without lifting the watch or touching the screen. Of course, when AOD is turned on, battery life will be slightly affected. If you don’t need to see the time too often, you can turn this feature off because the Watch GT 3 SE’s response speed when lifting hands is very fast.
Support a variety of physical activities
Besides indoor exercises, sports activities also take place in many harsh environments such as underwater, in the mountains, and even in the air. The Huawei Watch GT 3 SE is designed for all these training situations. As I mentioned, this device supports 5ATM water resistance according to ISO 22810:2010, allowing the watch to operate at a depth of 50 meters for 10 minutes so you can go swimming comfortably.
The watch uses a five-satellite system (GPS, BeiDou, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS) GNSS chip, providing precise location and minimal interference for all workouts. I tried jogging 5 km in the apartment complex I was in and saw that the Watch GT 3 SE recorded very accurately the distance ran. The Huawei Health app also creates a 3D video recording of the running process very vividly, and intuitively, suitable for sharing on social networks to show off to friends.
Similar to other Huawei Watch GT series, the Watch GT 3 SE also supports more than 100 sports modes, smart running planning, and the ability to create training plans based on Huawei’s self-developed TruSport technology. This technology evaluates the user’s training results based on a variety of data, thereby making recommendations to improve training performance. When finished running, Watch GT 3 SE provides a lot of diverse and detailed parameters such as running pace, running speed, stride, heart rate zone, running tempo area, etc.
Through exclusive health monitoring technologies such as Huawei TruSeen 5.0+, Huawei TruSleep 3.0 and many others, Huawei Watch GT 3 SE is capable of comprehensive health monitoring, from heart rate, sleep, SpO2, stress to the menstrual cycle. With Huawei TruSeen 5.0+, the device has anti-interference and noise reduction when the user moves, improving the accuracy of heart rate measurement during exercise.
Huawei TruSleep 3.0 is another part of the Huawei Tru-series technology series that uses infrared light for sleep monitoring. Accuracy is improved by more than 10% thanks to automatic sleep time detection, which summarizes sleep structure in phases from light sleep, deep sleep, REM, and wakefulness. Through the Huawei Health App, the watch supports sleep recording and snoring monitoring to provide users with useful information about their sleeping habits.
Many smart features, quick reply to Messenger messages, listening to Zalo, and Facebook calls, listen to music right on the watch
In terms of smart features, with Harmony OS 3.0 pre-installed, Watch GT 3 SE brings many rich features, well supporting both Android and iOS phones.
The most prominent is the ability to quickly reply to SMS messages or some chat applications like Facebook Messenger (only available on Android). You can reply to instant messages using preset templates like Ok, Yes, Thank you… or create your own replies. The device also allows replying to messages with emoji emoticons, providing great flexibility when quick interaction is required.
The Harmony OS 3.0 operating system also helps the Watch GT 3 SE work more smoothly in swipes and scrolls. Compared to the Watch GT 2E that I used to use, the Watch GT 3 SE is much smoother, like switching from a 30Hz screen to 120Hz.
Huawei Watch GT 3 SE allows users to make phone calls, view navigation information from maps, track physical activity, and many other features. For iOS users, you can also answer calls from Zalo or Facebook Messenger right on the watch.
Unfortunately, on Android, you can only listen to regular phone calls. The watch’s speakerphone is loud enough that you can hear it clearly when on the street, just bring the watch a little closer to your ear. The voice mic also catches the sound and filters out the noise well, I can talk comfortably even though the traffic around is quite noisy.
Watch GT 3 SE also offers Offline Map Navigation. This feature is extremely important when users go to unfamiliar places and do not have an Internet connection to look up information so that they can find their way back if they are unfortunately lost.
In the field of gaming and entertainment, you can install some more apps and games for Watch GT 3 SE through the Huawei App Gallery app store such as MyTuner Radio to listen to the radio, Infinity Loop for entertainment, eSound Music to listen to the radio, listen to music or a series of applications TickTick, Focus To-Do to support work, Home Workouts to enhance the practice experience. The app store of the Watch GT 3 SE does not have many applications, but it is enough to meet basic needs.
Watch GT 3 SE has 4GB of internal memory and allows you to copy music directly to the watch to listen to music without carrying your phone. You can listen to music using the watch’s speakerphone or connect it to a Bluetooth headset. However, the watch’s music app doesn’t show the song’s avatar, so it’s not very intuitive.
One note is that some applications like Zalo or Google Keep still do not display the correct icon, but only show generic icons like SMS messages, so it will be a bit inconvenient if you often chat via Zalo. At the same time, the reminder message on Google Keep, if you do not open it right away on your phone, will constantly show up and appear quite annoying. Hopefully Huawei will soon release an update to fix these issues.
Battery life is comfortable for all-week use with high intensity
The battery has always been the strength of Huawei wearables and is also the point that helps the company attract a large number of users. Huawei Watch GT 3 SE continues to uphold that tradition when Huawei claims that under normal conditions, the Watch GT 3 SE offers up to 14 days of battery life if used sparingly and 7 days with regular use.
In fact in my experience, when AOD is turned on, always receive notifications from Facebook, Messenger, Zalo, Gmail, and Google Keep continuously, run about 3 times 5Km a week, with GPS enabled, it will take about 6 days to finish from 100 % battery to 10%.
Charging the battery is also quite fast when it only takes about 2 hours to be full, the worthwhile point is that the Huawei Watch GT 3 SE is equipped with Qi wireless charging, so it is very convenient and can be used with wireless charging docks or supported phones reverse wireless charging.
Summary
Huawei Watch GT 3 SE is a fairly comprehensive smartwatch model because it has an eye-catching sporty design, spacious screen, thin and light design, and comfortable wearing, watch face. diverse, equipped with many features to support health, smart interaction, and battery life, and can be used even when swimming.
Compared to seniors like the Watch GT3, GT3 Pro, the point where the Watch GT 3 SE is cut is a “less expensive” material to get a sportier, thinner and more accessible price. This trade-off in my opinion is completely worth it.
Of course, there are still points that I see Huawei can improve in Watch GT 3 SE such as expanding interoperability, replying to instant messages, listening to calls, Messenger on Android or displaying standard icons of Zalo applications, and Google Keep. This is still a worthy smartwatch for you to “put in your cart”, especially for students and offices who like to exercise and improve their health and need a watch that is both smart, fashionable, and has comfortable battery life.