The Polar Ignite 3 is a follow up to the hugely impressive Polar Ignite 2, which emerged back in 2021. A couple of years is a long time in the fast-moving world of smartwatch tech, so Polar has revised the already excellent and undeniably attractive Ignite design to reflect as much.
The good news is that it still delivers the same value appeal, sitting nicely into the mid-range pricing category, which makes it an affordable option for those looking for one of the best running watches on a budget.
The vibrant AMOLED display is a definite highpoint, but there are also new features including multi-band GPS (which brings it up to par with other mid-range Garmins) and powerful statistics tools like SleepWise, which proves impressive at monitoring your levels of shut-eye. The svelte and very lightweight design means it sits easily on the wrist, even during sleep.
Unfortunately, the Polar Ignite 3 is also plagued by less than impressive battery life and a touchscreen interface that frequently feels sluggish, verging on buggy. If you can live with its frustrating edge, it can offer pretty good value for money, but there are better options at this price point.
Polar Ignite 3: Specifications
Polar Ignite 3: Price and availability
(Image credit: Rob Clymo)
$329.95 in the US
£289 in the UK
$428.67 in Australia
The Polar Ignite 3 is available now, directly from Polar itself or via many of the popular online outlets including Amazon. It has a current RRP of $329.95 in the US, £289 in the UK and $428.67 in Australia.
Polar Ignite 3: Design
Bright, bold AMOLED screen
Slimline form factor
Cool color choices
The Polar Ignite 3 looks very tempting on the box, but it’s not until you take the watch out of its packaging that you realise just how good this slender creation looks. It’s just 9.5mm thick, weighs only 35 grams but still has a spacious touchscreen to enjoy.
The 1.28-inch display is perhaps the highpoint of this model, which once powered up is gorgeous to look at with crisp, clear and very vibrant colours to enjoy. The edge of the bezel has a neat array of vertical grooves around its edge, although this does look and feel like it could be susceptible to marks and scratches over time.
It can be found in a number of colour options, including Night Black, Purple Dusk, Greige Sand and Brown Copper, so there’s a look that’ll suit just about any taste. Our review example was the Brown Copper model, which came with a spare strap in the box for when wear and tear gets the better of the original.
Also in the box is a selection of micro manuals for just about any language plus a USB charging cable, which mates to the watch via a magnetic clip on the back.
Meanwhile, the design of the supporting Polar Flow app is very respectable, with plenty of detailed metrics to get stuck into. It’s got comprehensive historic graphs of all your major data points with no additional subscription fees. It’s not quite as intuitive as it could be: it eschews nice well-rounded Sleep and Readiness scores in favor of complex graphs and data deep-dives, so it’s more for regular runners and data nerds rather than lifestyle and activity.
Nevertheless, once you’ve figured out where everything lives, it is pretty comprehensive on the data front.
Design Score: 4/5
Polar Ignite 3: Features
(Image credit: Rob Clymo)
SleepWise monitors shut-eye closely
Customizable widgets work well
Polar Flow app is nicely designed
While it’s undoubtedly a good-looking thing, the Polar Ignite is slightly less impressive on the typical smartwatch features front. At first glance, it has most things you need, with notification services for emails and messages, alarms, timers and the ability to control your music all housed inside the interface. Dig a little deeper though and there are omissions. There is no way to make contactless payments, which is increasingly appealing for folks at places like the gym or on a run, who don’t want to carry anything else with them.
Similarly missing is any way of answering calls, and you can’t ping off a text from the watch either, only receive one. In fact, if you want to get any real mileage from the Polar Ignite 3, you’ll most likely end up taking your phone with you, because you’ll need it to tap into your music collection due to limited storage on board the watch itself.
The GPS system can track your route on a localised run but, again, it feels like the features are a little underwhelming. It’s a shame to have the watch so tethered to your phone, especially when the UX promises so much on your first viewing.
SleepWise analyses your sleep patterns well enough as does Nightly Recharge, which reports back on how your body deals with stress. Polar’s FitSpark service offers up on-demand exercise suggestions should you need them, which also cleverly take into account your training load and recovery needs. For example, on the day after a hard run, it’ll recommend a less strenuous exercise than it might on a day which you’re fully recovered, and you have a better Nightly Recharge score. In-training voice guidance from the watch is another cool add-on.
Getting to the features and functions is where the frustration creeps in though: we found basic tasks, such as starting a cross-trainer session, erratic and less than user-friendly. People who are exercising want quick and easy access to simple Stop/Start controls, which just doesn’t seem to happen with the Polar Ignite 3. There’s too much fiddling around the watch face itself, not enough immediacy. No-one wants to waste time in the gym.
Features score: 3/5
Polar Ignite 3: Performance
(Image credit: Rob Clymo)
Dual-frequency GPS is solid
Latest processor is a step-up
Energy source breakdown is neat
While everything initially appears good in both the looks department and the feature setlist, it’s once you start using the Polar Ignite 3 that some holes start to appear. After installing the supporting Polar app, the setup process was okay – but not as seamless as some of its counterparts. The Polar Ignite 3 has subsequently seemed to be less than enthusiastic during syncing too, with often a few tries needed in order to get the process to kick into gear.
More annoying though is the less-than-simple way this watch works during everyday use. It frequently seems unresponsive, promoting confusion as to whether or not it’s doing anything. That means repeated interaction with the screen, or pressing of the back button on the left-hand side of the bezel.
This in itself feels quite stiff and unresponsive. It’s understandable to have a button that can’t be inadvertently pressed, thereby avoiding cancellation of workouts and suchlike, but it’s a bit too unforgiving for its own good.
Battery life isn’t too great either. Polar suggests that you’ll get up to five days in watch mode or up to 30 hours of continuous training using the GPS and heart rate monitoring features. That may well be right, but we found the watch battery ebbed away quite quickly during average everyday use, prompting you to feel like you need to charge it more frequently than the official figures suggest.
Overall, performance and usability shortcomings are perhaps the biggest weakness with the Polar Ignite 3, which is a shame given just how good it looks.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch: Two-minute review
I’ll be upfront about this: I’m not an entirely unbiased man when it comes to laptops. I reviewed the previous-generation Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro back in 2022, and I adored it - so I was pretty excited to get my hands on the new model. Don’t play favorites, I told myself when it arrived. Be impartial, I thought as I tore open the box.
Turns out, I didn’t need to worry. The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch is a wonderful little laptop, make no mistake, but it doesn’t reach quite the same heights as its predecessor - and I didn’t find myself nearly as enthralled as I had been last time around. It’s still one of the best ultrabooks money can buy right now, though, and its $1,449 / £1,349 price tag is a lot more attractive than that of the 14-inch MacBook Pro.
This is still a premium product, however, and it makes that immediately clear when you fire it up. The 3K AMOLED display is absolutely stunning, with excellent maximum brightness, deep contrast, and crystal-clear colors. It’s one of the best laptop displays I’ve seen in a while, frankly.
(Image credit: Future)
The overall design of the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro shouts ‘premium’, in truth. The brushed alloy exterior is clean and minimalist, with only the Samsung logo engraved in reflective metal on the lid. Opening it up, we’ve got a softly backlit keyboard and a pleasingly large trackpad.
To put it simply, the Book3 Pro just feels good to use. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, and the video-call experience is shockingly good thanks to a Full HD webcam and an impressive set of speakers and mic for such a compact laptop. It’s a bit heavier than the Book2 Pro was, but it does feel more durable and is not so weighty that it would be cumbersome to carry around with you.
It wasn’t until I started to put the Galaxy Book3 Pro through its paces that the facade began to crack a little. My review unit packs a 13th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, which itself performs great, but it’s backed up by just 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. For comparison, the similarly-priced M2 MacBook Air has 16GB of unified memory. 8GB is fine but means that this Book3 Pro could struggle with certain workloads (or if you like to have a lot of programs open at once).
The battery life also wasn’t particularly impressive, but I’ll get into that later. Luckily, the Galaxy Book3 Pro is also available in higher-powered configurations, which I’ll break down properly when I discuss the specs further down. Despite these small drawbacks, I still feel confident saying that the Book3 Pro is a strong choice of productivity laptop for office-bound professionals, able to hang with the best laptops, and offer great bang for your buck.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review: Price and availability
Starts at $1,499 / £1,349 / around AU$2,225
Variety of models configurable on the Samsung website
Not available in Australia at time of writing
While the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro obviously isn’t going to make it onto our best cheap laptops list, it’s still reasonably good value for money - which was a bit surprising, given that it looks and feels like such a premium piece of hardware. Those cutting-edge 13th Gen Intel CPUs aren’t cheap.
(Image credit: Future)
The configurations vary a lot from region to region, and the Galaxy Book3 line isn’t currently available in Oceania (sorry Aussies), but the starting price is $1,499 / £1,349 / around AU$2,225 and goes up from there. It’s worth noting that there’s no Intel Core i5 version available in the US right now as far as I could see, hence the lower UK pricing; that $1,499 price tag is for the base i7 model.
Speaking of that base model, it’s on sale in the US at the time of writing for just $949.99 - an absolute steal for this laptop, if I do so say so myself. If you buy one new from Samsung, it comes bundled with a variety of software trials, including a year of Microsoft 365 and two months of Adobe Lightroom.
Price score: 4 / 5
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review: Specs
As mentioned above, there are many configurations of the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro, which can be customized (to some degree) on Samsung's website. I've included spec lists for both my 14-inch i5 review model and the 16-inch i7 version below, for comparison, but bear in mind that other elements can be tweaked and screen size does not determine the processor.
The SSD is the main customizable element, which can be configured up to 1TB depending on your personal requirements. 5G LTE capabilities are also available on select models in select regions.
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review: Design
Full metal chassis, but still thin
Keyboard and touchpad are good
Decent port selection for a compact ultrabook
I’ve never had many complaints about the rebooted Samsung Galaxy Book line’s physical designs, and that hasn’t changed here: the Galaxy Book3 Pro looks fantastic and proves itself as a carefully-crafted piece of hardware at almost every turn.
The exterior chassis is, like previous Book Pro models, entirely made of brushed metal. This means it’s a little weightier than some ultrabooks at 1.17kg (slightly heavier than the 15.6-inch Book2 Pro, actually), but it also feels very durable and is still light enough to easily carry around with you.
The AMOLED display is available in 14- and 16-inch variants (ours is the 14-inch model), a shift from previous Book Pro laptops’ 13.3- and 15.6-inch screens. It’s got that sought-after 16:10 aspect ratio that is quickly becoming a staple of productivity notebooks, allowing you to fit more onto your screen when scrolling through web pages or documents. The resolution has also been cranked up to 3K for this model, and it makes a world of difference when watching video content.
As I mentioned higher up, the AMOLED screen is just gorgeous, packing 400 nits of brightness and fantastic color density. OLED panels are becoming a more common sight in ultrabooks and no longer the domain of prohibitively expensive hardware - as previously evidenced by the excellent Acer Swift 3 OLED.
The LED-backlit keys are nice and wide with good spacing, making the keyboard very comfortable for extended typing sessions. The 16-inch version of the Galaxy Book3 Pro also packs a numpad, which is absent in this model, but that’s fine - trying to cram in more keys would’ve made things crowded. The touchpad is similarly generous; in fact, it’s huge for a 14-inch laptop, with a decently firm click. There’s little to no flex in the chassis when using the keyboard and touchpad.
(Image credit: Future)
Considering the compact nature of the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch, it manages to pack plenty of physical ports onto its left and right edges. We’ve got two Thunderbolt 4-enabled USB-C ports along with a single USB-A, so it already beats the MacBook Air in my eyes - I’m not ready to give up conventional USB just yet, thank you very much.
These are joined by a headphone jack, HDMI port for connecting a second monitor, and a MicroSD card reader - the latter of which is slowly disappearing from modern laptops, so it’s nice to see it here. The Galaxy Book3 Pro charges via either of the Thunderbolt 4 ports, so bear in mind that you’ll only have one USB-C available when plugged in.
In terms of security features, Samsung hasn’t adopted the increasingly popular IR camera for Windows Hello logins using facial recognition, but there is a fingerprint scanner built into the power button. The webcam used here is a solid 1080p offering, great for video calls, and the microphone and dual Dolby speakers are surprisingly good for such a small laptop.
Ultimately, I have very little to criticize when it comes to the design of the Book3 Pro. The screen hinge perhaps isn’t as sturdy as I’d like, with a bit of wobble when adjusting the angle, but this was a problem shared by its predecessor. The metal finish is also a bit of a fingerprint magnet, but it’s nothing a microfiber cloth wouldn’t fix. Everyone’s tastes are different, but it’s hard to deny that this is one of the best-looking ultrabooks around right now.
Design score: 5 / 5
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review: Performance
13th-gen Intel CPU is powerful
Weaker in gaming and content creation
Galaxy Ecosystem is good for Samsung fans, bad for everyone else
Benchmarks
Here's how the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
After I finished benchmarking the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro, I did sit and wonder if it truly deserves the ‘Pro’ moniker. Professional ultrabooks can be different things to different people, sure. But in my experience, hardware bearing the ‘Pro’ title is generally well-suited for professional content creation, and that’s not the case here.
First things first: the Intel Core i5-1340P at the heart of this device is powerful. Intel’s 13th Gen laptop CPUs can pull their weight, with a split-core architecture that lets ‘performance’ cores handle primary processing while ‘efficiency’ cores take care of background tasks.
Raw CPU performance is strong across the board in office workloads, though not quite on the same level as the M2 Pro chip found in the (admittedly much more expensive) new MacBook Pro. Since this laptop bears the Intel ‘Evo’ badge, it wakes up from sleep near-instantaneously, letting you open the lid and get straight back to business.
Graphical performance doesn’t hold up to the same scrutiny, though. While Apple’s M2 silicon packs a very capable integrated GPU, the Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics found here simply aren’t as strong, hampering the Galaxy Book3 Pro in creative workloads such as 3D rendering or animation.
Gaming isn’t great, either. Playing Sid Meier's Civilization VI at the native 1800p resolution gave us a framerate of less than 30fps - and that’s a relatively undemanding game. Don’t expect to be doing anything more than the most casual gaming on this laptop. Valorant, a game specifically built to be played on low-end hardware, did secure more than 30fps but wasn’t exactly running ultra-smoothly.
(Image credit: Future)
Still, if ‘Pro’ means ‘office work’ to you, that’s not a problem: the i5-1340P can comfortably handle everyday computing tasks without breaking a sweat, with solid scores in the GeekBench and CrossMark tests. I imagine the i7-1360P found in the standard US configurations has a bit more grunt, however - and the aforementioned limiting of the i5 model to 8GB of RAM is a downer.
The Intel CPU can do a lot with a little, as it turns out, but opening 20+ Chrome tabs while running Spotify and Slack in the background (as I often do while working) did result in a little bit of latency when switching between programs. 16GB of RAM would’ve been nice to see here, although it’s consistent with previous models in the Galaxy Book Pro line. It’s far from ruinous but something to bear in mind if you plan on running lots of software simultaneously.
The fans also kick in noticeably quite often, but they’re thankfully not too noisy. My trusty old 2020 HP Spectre x360 probably spins up its fans less frequently than the Book3 Pro, though I do have to admit that it also tends to get quite a bit warmer than this laptop. Still, if you want something that will always run completely silent, consider the fanless MacBook Air instead.
Finally, there’s a bunch of pre-loaded software designed to be used within the ‘Galaxy Ecosystem’ - that’s a connected network of any other Samsung Galaxy hardware you have. So if you’ve got a pair of Galaxy Buds 2 or sprung for the new Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, know that you’ll have advanced interactivity between your devices close to the level offered by Apple’s own competing ecosystem. But if you don’t, those programs may as well be bloatware.
Performance score: 3.5 / 5
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review: Battery life
Can just about last a full work day
Doesn’t come close to the MacBook Air or Pro
Charges fast and charger is compact
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro’s battery life left me feeling thoroughly whelmed. It’s fine. It’s not great, and it really should be better in a third-generation AMOLED laptop, but it’s good enough. You’ll get between 6 and 8 hours of longevity for general use, more if you use Windows 11’s built-in eco features to stretch the battery life.
When compared to the likes of Apple’s latest MacBooks, it doesn’t even come close. Granted, those are heavier devices with bigger batteries and custom-tuned CPUs, but still: you can get better battery life for the same price elsewhere. While I don’t have the testing stats to properly comment on this, it’s possible that the bigger 16-inch model has a superior battery, although it also has a larger display to power.
The good news is that the Galaxy Book3 Pro does charge very fast via its Thunderbolt 4 ports, and the charger itself is a simple plug and cable - no chunky power brick to be found here, which means carrying the charger with you to top up your battery on the go is no trouble.
Battery life: 3.5 / 5
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch?
Buy it if...
You’re a Samsung fan
Simply put, this is the laptop for you if you’ve already got a Samsung phone, watch, tablet, whatever. The Galaxy Ecosystem is useful and you’re sure to appreciate the aesthetics of the Book3 Pro.
You’re an office worker
A 16:10 display, fingerprint scanner, and generally compact, lightweight design make the Galaxy Book3 Pro perfect for office-bound professionals with busy commutes.
You want a great screen
The 14-inch AMOLED panel is the absolute highlight of this ultrabook, with its 3K resolution offering excellent sharpness along with vibrant color.
Don't buy it if...
You’re a content creator
The Intel Core i5-1340P is a very capable CPU, but if you’re looking to do a lot of creative work, it may be wiser to invest in a laptop with a dedicated GPU.
You want long-lasting battery life
Although you should theoretically be able to make it through the average workday on a single charge, in practice the Book3 Pro doesn’t offer the same longevity as some of its competitors.
You’re on a tight budget
I’m happy to say that the Galaxy Book3 Pro actually offers a decent price-to-performance proposition, but it’s still undeniably a rather expensive product.
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review: Also consider
If our Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch review has you considering other options, here are two more laptops to consider...
How I tested the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch
(Image credit: Future)
Used for a week's everyday work
Watched Netflix in bed and on the couch
Took with me on a short trip
As has become my go-to approach for reviewing an ultrabook, I simply replaced my usual desktop PC and laptop with the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 14-inch for a few days.
This included using it for my day-to-day work (which is mostly composed of internet research, emails, and writing in Google Docs) as well as using it for video meetings and watching Netflix in bed in the evenings. For anyone wondering, I'm currently watching the rather excellent Korean fantasy drama Alchemy of Souls, which looked fantastic on the Book3 Pro's AMOLED screen.
I also took the Galaxy Book3 Pro with me for a day out to a nearby town, where it remained in my backpack until I found a dog-friendly cafe to stop for lunch and do a bit of personal work. While it's a little heavier than its precursor, it's still comfortably light enough that I barely noticed it was in my bag while walking my rescue pooch Lucy around town.
The Huawei Watch Buds is a smartwatch that wants to appeal to those people who never want to leave without their smartwatch and truly wireless earbuds. Instead of scrambling around looking for where you left those buds lying around outside of the case, Huawei wants to keep that case and buds where you can always find them - on your wrist.
Enter the Watch Buds, which becomes one of Huawei’s priciest smartwatches that in return for more of your money gives you a watch running on its HarmonyOS operating system and inside of the watch case lies a set of dinky truly wireless earbuds.
Do we need a smartwatch with earbuds inside? Huawei certainly thinks we do. Does it work? Surprisingly well is the answer to that question, but (and forgive us for sounding slightly dramatic) at what cost? What compromises has Huawei had to make to bring the two wearables closer together?
Despite the fact it works well, this is clearly an initial iteration of a unique idea. it's neither the best smartwatch, nor the best wireless earbuds, but a perfectly average attempt at both. These compromises might put some people off from grabbing the first-generation version of this inventive take on the smartwatch.
Huawei Watch Buds: Price and availability
The Huawei Watch Buds is available now and is priced at £449, or 499 Euros. It doesn't currently have any official pricing in the US and Australia, likely due to Huawei's ongoing disputes with the US government.
That price does mean it’s more expensive than Huawei’s Watch GT 3 Pro, so those added earbuds do come at a considerable extra cost.
(Image credit: Michael Sawh)
Huawei Watch Buds: Design and display
Watch case thickness isn’t overly chunky
Uses same AMOLED screen as Huawei Watch GT 3
Lower waterproof rating due to lid design
At first glance, the Huawei Watch Buds just looks like a very nice (albeit rather thick) smartwatch. It veers more on the side of a traditional watch look with a stainless steel case that comes in black or silver and a 22mm leather strap that can be removed if you’re not a fan of the leather.
Look at the watch from side-on and it’s surprising how passable the Watch Buds is for a regular-sized smartwatch. It is absolutely thicker than other Huawei Watches, but at 14.99 mm thick, it’s not a hulking beast that protrudes from your wrist as notably as, say, the Huawei Watch D is. Huawei has had to make the case thicker to accommodate those buds, but it’s a lot slimmer than we’d anticipated it would be.
Then we get to the 'buds' part, which you can locate by pressing a button at the front of the watch case, which then lifts like a lid to reveal a set of two, small black earbuds. They’re tiny little things that come with a set of small, medium, and large eartips. They magnetically snap into place inside the case, which is where the buds also get charged up. The lid design thankfully feels well-made rather than cheap, and hasn’t posed any issues opening and closing it throughout our testing.
As a result of hosting those buds inside the watch's casing, Huawei needed to change things on the durability front, specifically on how well it can deal with water. Unlike the 5 ATM protection used on most of Huawei’s watches, the Watch Buds is only IPX7 rated to guard against sweat and rain. The earbuds are IPX4 rated, making them fit for sweat mainly. If you want to take it swimming, or in the shower, don’t.
This is a real drawback to the watch, as many of the best running watches at this price point are fully water-resistant and can be taken surfing, swimming, showering, paddleboarding... basically, wherever your adventures will take you. The Watch Buds isn't an adventuring fitness watch – the gimmick simply doesn't allow for it.
Elsewhere it’s all a pretty familiar story. There’s the same colorful, vibrant 1.43-inch, 466 x 466 resolution AMOLED screen as found on the Huawei Watch GT 3 and a watch crown-style button to offer a way to physically interact with the watch. The result is an attractive smartwatch that doesn’t show any obvious sign that it’s hiding away some earbuds.
Design score: 3.5/5
(Image credit: Michael Sawh)
Huawei Watch Buds: Features
Harmony OS is nice and slick
Earbuds integration works well
Familiar sports and fitness tracking
If you’ve used a Huawei Watch, then using the Watch Buds will feel like a familiar experience. It uses basically the same version of HarmonyOS as the Watch GT series with a few features that are missing in action but are not hugely missed. There’s no temperature sensor or microphone or speaker, but in terms of the latter two things that’s where the earbuds come into play.
Those earbuds and how they work in conjunction with the watch is slick on the whole. You need to pair the watch to your phone if you want to listen to audio via your phone and they can be connected to other devices too. When you whip them out that opens up additional settings for the earbuds offering an EQ and both awareness and active noise cancellation modes.
The earbuds are small and we didn’t have an issue getting a good fit and when they’re in and your audio is playing, it does punch out very good audio quality for music and calls. There’s power, bass and there’s a good level of clarity and detail there too. Huawei has launched a fair few bright sounding truly wireless earbuds and these buds follow suit.
Using the awareness and active noise cancellation modes offer a good but not immaculate performance, particularly on the ANC side where it really depends on getting a good fit to block out that exterior sound. You’ll find earbuds that will deliver a more consistent ANC performance, but in the right environments it works well enough to make its inclusion useful.
While you can control the earbuds from the Watch you do also have some control on and around the buds as well. You can use a combination of taps on the buds on themselves or in specific areas around the ear to skip tracks, answer a call or enable one the ANC or Awareness modes. If you’re stationary, the responsiveness of those controls is very good, as soon as you introduce movement into the equation, things get a little trickier.
Outside of those buds, this is every bit a Huawei smartwatch. You’ve got that strong suite of sports tracking and activity tracking features. It doesn’t get the dual-band GPS mode featured on the GT Runner to improve outdoor tracking accuracy, but still gets good features like running courses and rich sleep tracking too. We found sports tracking in general to be good, though it doesn’t feel like the kind of watch you’d want to spend extended exercise time with unless you’ve got a more gym-friendly strap on it. You do get Huawei’s latest optical heart rate sensor here as well which is definitely a better fit for resting heart rate insights as opposed to exercise HR readings.
As a smartwatch, it handles notification support well, particularly when paired to an Android smartphone, which does also support sending quick replies. You can carry around music on it as well, but you’ll need to load your own purchased and downloaded files yourself as opposed to storing offline playlists from a third party streaming service. You’ve got well implemented music controls and scope to add payment cards as well to use it to pay your way.
Adding the buds into the mix doesn’t adversely change what the Watch Buds is like to use as a watch, but you do have to live without a few features that you will find on Huawei’s cheaper smartwatch options.
Features score: 4/5
(Image credit: Michael Sawh)
Huawei Watch Buds: Battery life
Less battery than Huawei Watch GT series smartwatches
Short 4 hour battery life for earbuds
Buds charge quickly inside case
Huawei has made big strides with smartwatch battery life in more recent years, but you’ll have to live with a smaller battery life on the Watch Buds.
When using both watch and buds regularly, you will get up to 3 days before both need charging. The watch part has the ability to go for 7 days in a power-saving mode, but that means turning off charging the buds each time you drop them back in the case.
The earbuds promise up to 4 hours of battery life or 2.5 hours of handling calls when you’re not using the active noise cancellation. When you enable ANC, then you can expect 3 hours of music streaming and 2 hours to make your calls.
We’d say those battery quotes in general are on the money, particularly when using the buds and watch each day. The earbud battery life feels a touch generous though, especially if you’re using them with ANC turned on and at louder volumes.
For the watch, there’s a pretty standard white Huawei charging cradle you need to drop it onto while the earbuds charge in the case hogging battery from the watch is why you’ll see a more severe drop-off compared to other Huawei smartwatches. Those buds do charge quickly and you can get back up to 100% in under an hour spent in that case.
Garmin introduced the new Forerunner 965 and Forerunner 265 smartwatches with one major improvement - the screens are now AMOLED, moving away from the transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) solution. According to the official numbers, the 900-series flagship could live 23 days on a single charge, while the 200-series should offer up to 15 days.
The Garmin Forerunner 965 is targeted toward elite athletes. The new type of display is just one of the changes; other features include a new titanium bezel, a slightly thinner body and a 1.4” (35.4 mm) screen. Standalone GPS, detailed heart rate...
Oppo is well-known for its smartphones which are usually on the cheaper end, and the Oppo Watch free follows suit. It positions itself as one of the best cheap fitness trackers a cost-effective alternative to some of the best Fitbit watches: a mix between a fitness tracker and a smartwatch, it’s a comfortable, streamlined fitness watch that shows your progress in multiple exercises including running and cycling.
Its main attraction is how light and easy the watch is to wear. I forgot I was wearing it when I slept with it on, which is rare. I also loved its battery life: most trackers at this price point need to be charged again after four-to-six days, but the Oppo lasted for a full two weeks, giving me one less thing to worry about.
The watch features a built-in six-axis motion and optical heart rate sensor, and you can get more detailed readouts of the data collected in the companion app, especially when it came to sleep. The data wasn’t as extensive as what we’re used to, nor quite as accurate as it should be. It's unfortunate, but it's a reminder that you’ve opted for a cheaper watch, so don't set too much store by it.
Other highlights include tracking your blood oxygen levels (if you dip below 95-90%, your heart, lungs, and circulatory systems aren't going to be at peak performance, so good to see the feature at this price point). It's also got a snore detector built into its sleep-tracking software, which is neat.
Oppo Watch Free: Price and release date
The Oppo Watch Free hasn't been officially released in the US, but it is available on third-party websites like eBay. It's available officially on the UK store at a cut price of just £49 (cheaper even than the Fitbit Inspire 3!) and on the AU store for AU$169.00
Oppo Watch Free: Design
1.64-inch smooth AMOLED screen
Clear and colorful
Breathable and comfortable strap
The slimline black watch, which I tested, fits well on our wrist, and can also be bought in a lighter-colored version, which has a cream strap and gold detail. A cross between a tracker and a smartwatch, the touchscreen watch has a long rectangle watch face, complete with black chrome details.
The large 2.5D curved watch face, along with a 1.64-inch AMOLED screen, gives you a clear and colorful picture when tracking your fitness goals, sleep, and heart rate. At 33 grams, it's featherlight, with its aluminum casing giving way to lighter plastic backing.
The watch face can thankfully be changed, via the app - I was originally presented with quite a basic look, which only showed the date and time. The seven playful designs only have two options which show steps and heart rate, and we settled for the activity circles watch face, which gave us the time and steps, calories burned and heart rate.
The breathable and comfortable silicone strap and clasp sat well on the wrist and looked attractive. The straps can be clipped on and off for cleaning, but they were a little niggly to get on and off so I wouldn’t recommend it. Overall, a classic, clean design, which is easy to use and read: it looked slick and we wore it regularly outside of the gym.
(Image credit: Oppo)
Design score: 4/5
Oppo Watch Free: Features
No physical button controls
100 sports profiles and lots of health metrics
No GPS
The watch was easy to set up and linked to its app, HeyTap Health, where you can see more detailed stats, change settings and find out more about your watch. I spent a couple of weeks trying the different functions, including the sleep and exercise functions to see how accurate they were.
Tracking your steps is easy on the OPPO watch as it automatically shows up on your home screen, along with heart rate and calories. If you swipe to the left you can select settings such as exercise, blood oxygen levels, and sleep. For a more detailed picture or to activate each setting you simply tap them on-face, where you can see more detailed metrics. It's all controlled via the touch screen, with no physical buttons.
The Exercise setting features 100 sports profiles (although a few key ones like Indoor Cycling are missing) and four are automatically recognized and logged: walking, running, rowing, and elliptical training. Workout metrics are well laid out, with heart rate zones and running 'courses'. They're not courses in the same sense as Garmin's generated running maps, as there's sadly no GPS, but rather it sorts your run into categories such as 'endurance' and 'interval' depending on your training goal.
One cool design feature is the customizable "AI outfit" watch face: if you take a photo of your outfit with your phone within the app, AI will customize the watch face to match the colors of your clothes. Neat!
Features score: 3/5
(Image credit: Sarah Finley)
Oppo Watch Free: Performance
Inaccurate calorie tracking
Lack of cycling options
Good sleep metrics
A big downside for me was the lack of an indoor cycling workout profile, and despite the lack of GPS, the cycling setting wouldn’t record my activity when I was stationary. I had to use the freestyle workout mode instead.
The app gives you a breakdown of your heart rate zones, from fat burning to threshold, for each exercise class you complete, along with calories burned and your real-time heart rate. I found some of this data less specific than other watches we’d tested: when I recorded a run with both the Oppo Watch Free and a control tracker from Fitbit, there was a clear calorie burn discrepancy. The lack of GPS also meant it didn’t track my routes either. However, the watch is 5ATM waterproof for swimmers.
If you want to improve your sleep you can set reminders, telling you when to go to bed, while it will record your sleep when you wear it and give you reports, via the watch and the app about your sleep health.
The app gives you a report by showing you your deep, light, and awake stages of sleep, which I thought was a good baseline, but other sleep trackers, such as the Oura ring Generation 3, give you more detailed information on how you can improve your sleep. If you’re a snorer, you can also monitor how much you snore – it measures your blood oxygen levels and combines them with your average heart rate.
Features score: 3/5
Oppo Watch Free: Battery life
Listed as lasting 14 days on a full charge
Lives up to expectations with moderate use
Charger doesn't always fit well
The battery life is very good for a watch at this price point, as it is listed at 14 days.
Charging is done via the back of the watch, by placing the charger on the top two magnetic strips – I found the charger quite sensitive though, and had to keep it as stable as possible while I charged it. However, the watch's charge, which took a couple of hours for a full charge, lasted for longer than some of the other smartwatches we’ve tested at higher price points, living up to its 14-day promise.
