Not long ago, HUAWEI announced the latest addition to their family of wearables - the HUAWEI Watch Fit. Priced at RM499, it's a middle ground between the HUAWEI Watch GT Series and the HUAWEI Band series.
Aesthetics
Design-wise, the Watch Fit is pretty unremarkable, and could easily pass as a skinnier Apple Watch or pretty much any other fitness watch on the market. The matte polymer body and silicone strap are a good - if uninspired - match.
The unit we received was Sakura Pink; along with its slim and lightweight form factor, it looked pleasantly feminine.
You are able to detach the straps - however, the connecting mechanism is rather difficult to disengage. You'll have to use a finger to dig into a little niche to remove the rubber locking plug, then you'll have to pray you don't lose the plug because there doesn't seem to be a way to reattach the strap without it. I vastly prefer connecting mechanisms that are attached to the strap or body itself for this reason.
Battery and charging
On the back, you'll find the heart rate sensor next to 2 tiny charging ports on the back, where you'll be able to charge the Watch Fit via a proprietary magnetic charging port. Again, you'd better not lose the charger as you won't be able to replace it as easily as a standard USB-C cable.
Charging the Watch Fit up to full is a relatively quick affair - its 180mAh battery charged from 20% to full in roughly an hour or so (HUAWEI states 100 minutes from empty). When full, it lasts over a week, which matches HUAWEI's claim that the Watch Fit lasts 10 days on a single charge. This is great, as you can make it a habit to hook it up to the charger once a week and not have to worry about it again until the weekend.
Display
The rectangular 1.64-inch screen boasts a 456 x 280-pixel resolution (326ppi), which looks extremely great along with the Watch Fit's curved surface. It looks vibrant and crisp, and has good albeit unremarkable brightness.
In terms of interface, the Watch Fit does pretty well in terms of fitting all the information you need in an easily readable manner. Despite the display offering much less horizontal space than a round-faced smartwatch, the UI designers did a great job of arranging everything without making it look too cramped.
In case you want to use the Watch Fit as a fashion accessory, you'll be glad to discover a selection of pre-loaded watch faces, with more to be downloaded from the Huawei Health app to suit your daily mood or outfit.
User Experience
Using the Watch Fit is incredibly intuitive - the controls are simple and easy to remember once you know which gesture does what.
The singular physical button located on the right side of the watch face wakes the screen if pressed while asleep, and takes you to the app picker when pressed while the watch is awake.
Swiping from the top opens up the quick settings menu; swiping from the right edge cycles you through a number of apps, including the step counter and exercise tracker, the weather and music apps, as well as your heart rate and stress trackers. Do note that accessing each of the apps via the app picker will reveal more information - for example, the heart tracker will show heart rate zones when you swipe up when accessed from the app picker - it will not do so if accessed from the home screen.
Swiping from the left edge takes you back to the previous menu while swiping from the bottom reveals your notifications list. You can expand each notification by tapping on it, but you're limited to viewing only - sadly, you are unable to reply directly from the Watch Fit.
While navigating through the menus was simple and intuitive, the responsiveness of the screen was slightly less desirable. There's a minor but noticeable delay when swiping between screens or scrolling through the menu. While it isn't major enough to be a hindrance, it's definitely something to take note of if you enjoy buttery smooth interfaces.
Features and Capabilities
For workout junkies, the Watch Fit has a whopping total of 96 different activities, including mainstream ones like running, cycling, and swimming, as well as more niche ones such as fencing, kendo, darts, plaza dancing (whatever that is), and more.
You can add more activities to the quick access list by pressing the '+' at the bottom of the menu; similarly, you can remove unwanted activities by pressing the settings icon beside the name and pressing 'remove'.
An interesting addition to the Watch Fit are the animated quick-workouts, which saves you from having to lookup what certain exercises are - simply watch the looping animation on screen and you'll instantly know what to do. As a filthy casual, I found this a godsend cause otherwise how would I know what Superman stretches are?
If you enjoy having some hype beats to accompany your workout, unfortunately you'll have to bring your phone along with you as you are not able to store music on the Watch Fit. As such, there is no option to pair it to wireless earbuds either, which is a bummer.
However, you can take it on a swim if you want, as it has 5ATM water resistance. Do note that you shouldn't keep it submerged too long, however, as it is not completely waterproof.
If you intend on keeping the GPS on at all times, HUAWEI says you can expect up to 12 hours of continuous before the battery runs dry.
Buy or no buy?
The HUAWEI Watch Fit is definitely a likeable device, albeit with a rather generic design. The interface offers a lot of depth while remaining intuitive and easy to use, which is a great plus. Animated quick-workouts are another nice perk, especially for newbies who aren't as familiar with the fitness lifestyle.
At RM499, it's a great starter smartwatch with all the basic functions you need, plus a few neat extras that you'll appreciate. You'd have to take extra care not to lose the proprietary parts that come with it though, cause they'll be a pain in the ass to replace.
If you'd like to purchase one, you can head over here.
