Polished enough to turn heads, affordable enough to fit most budgets
In the crowded middle tier of the smartwatch market, Honor's GS 3 arrives at £169 as a device that understands its own limitations — a polished, fitness-forward wearable that trades ecosystem depth and processing precision for battery endurance and accessible pricing. It is a product shaped by its lineage, carrying the DNA of Huawei's wearable philosophy into a new commercial identity, and asking buyers to weigh the value of longevity and breadth of tracking against the friction of software lag and a closed Android-only world. Like many middle children, it is capable and earnest, yet perpetually defined by what surrounds it.
- The GS 3 enters a fiercely contested price band alongside the Amazfit GTR4, Huawei Watch GT3, and Fitbit Versa, where every pound spent demands justification.
- Noticeable UI lag and GPS accuracy that falls short of Garmin rivals expose the gap between the watch's design ambitions and its underlying processing power.
- iOS users are left waiting on an unscheduled over-the-air update, and the absence of app ecosystems or mobile payments narrows the device's appeal considerably.
- Fitness tracking holds its ground — heart rate, sleep staging, swimming, and step counts all perform respectably, even if none quite match dedicated rivals like the Oura Ring 3 or a Garmin chest strap.
- Battery life of roughly one real-world week, backed by a 14-day lab claim, remains the watch's most compelling argument for value in a market where daily charging is the norm.
The Honor Watch GS 3 occupies an awkward but interesting position in the smartwatch landscape — attractive enough to draw attention at £169, yet constrained by decisions that prevent it from being the obvious choice for most buyers.
Designed as a departure from the rugged GS Pro, the GS 3 leans toward traditional timepiece aesthetics, particularly in its ocean blue and gold variants with Nappa leather bands. The tested midnight black model carried a less refined strap, though the 45.9mm metal-and-plastic case felt solid. A 1.43-inch AMOLED display with curved glass and 466x466 resolution sits at the center, and 5ATM water resistance makes it pool-safe. The software bears unmistakable Huawei DNA — a proprietary OS borrowing from HarmonyOS and LiteOS — but the familiar swipe-based interface runs with noticeable lag, suggesting the hardware struggles to match the design's ambitions. The watch is Android-only for now, with iOS support promised but undated. There's no app store or payment system, though notification handling, music controls, and a 4GB local music player offer reasonable connectivity.
Fitness tracking is where the GS 3 earns its keep. Over 100 workout modes, dual-frequency GPS positioning, an eight-channel heart rate AI engine, blood oxygen monitoring, and detailed sleep tracking form a genuinely comprehensive package. In practice, GPS accuracy fell slightly short of a Garmin Epix 2 in multiband mode, and heart rate ran 4–5 beats per minute off a chest strap during high-intensity intervals — respectable, not flawless. Swimming data proved more reliable, matching a Polar watch on distance and correctly identifying stroke types. Sleep tracking showed roughly a 30-minute discrepancy against the Oura Ring 3 and was slower to detect sleep onset, though deep and light sleep stages were handled reliably.
Battery life is the watch's strongest selling point. Real-world use with GPS, continuous heart rate monitoring, and frequent notifications yielded around one week — well below the 14-day lab claim, but still competitive. GPS consumption ran slightly higher than advertised, with an hour of running drawing about 5 percent of the battery.
The GS 3 is a watch that rewards patience and pragmatism — best suited to Android users who prioritize endurance and workout breadth over app variety, payment features, or cutting-edge tracking precision. It is a capable device shaped by compromise, and whether those compromises align with your needs is the only question that matters.
The Honor Watch GS 3 arrives as a curious middle child in the smartwatch market—polished enough to turn heads, affordable enough to fit most budgets, yet constrained by choices that keep it from being the obvious pick for everyone.
At £169, or roughly $195, Honor's latest watch sits in a crowded price band where the Amazfit GTR4, Huawei Watch GT3, and Fitbit Versa all compete for attention. The company, no longer tethered to Huawei but clearly shaped by its years under that roof, has pivoted away from the rugged outdoor focus of its previous GS Pro model. This time around, the design leans toward something closer to a traditional timepiece—at least if you're willing to spend the extra £10 for the ocean blue or gold versions with their Nappa leather bands. The midnight black model we tested came with a less refined fluroelastomer strap, though the 45.9mm case itself, a blend of metal and plastic at 10.5mm thick, feels solid in hand. Two crown-style buttons flank the face, and a 1.43-inch AMOLED display with curved glass sits at the center, offering 466 by 466 pixels of brightness that holds up reasonably well indoors and in most outdoor conditions. The watch is rated 5ATM for water resistance, meaning it's safe for pool and sea swimming but not diving.
The software experience reveals the Huawei DNA most clearly. The operating system is proprietary, but it borrows heavily from HarmonyOS and LiteOS, complete with a UI that will feel instantly familiar to anyone who's used a Huawei wearable. You swipe up for notifications, left and right for widgets, and the whole experience mirrors what Huawei built—except it doesn't move quite as smoothly. There's noticeable lag when swiping through screens, suggesting the GS 3 lacks the processing power to match its design ambitions. For now, the watch is Android-only; Honor promises iOS support via an over-the-air update but hasn't named a date. You'll need the Honor Health app to set it up, and you'll need to accept that this isn't a watch for app enthusiasts or mobile payment users. What it does offer is solid notification handling with quick-reply options, weather forecasts, music controls, and a local music player that holds 4GB of your own audio files—no streaming service integration.
Where the GS 3 genuinely shines is fitness tracking. Honor packed in over 100 workout modes, with 10 offering activity-specific metrics. The watch monitors heart rate, blood oxygen, outdoor exercise time, steps, and sleep. For running, it includes dual-frequency positioning technology designed to improve GPS accuracy in dense urban areas and forests—a feature that's trickled down from Huawei, Amazfit, and Coros watches. In our testing, though, this didn't deliver the accuracy gains Honor promised. When we compared an outdoor run against a Garmin Epix 2 in multiband mode, the GS 3's core metrics like average pace came up slightly short. The heart rate tracking, backed by what Honor calls an "8-channel heart rate AI engine," performed better. During high-intensity interval training, it ran 4 to 5 beats per minute off from a Garmin chest strap monitor—respectable, though not flawless. Indoor rowing and pool swimming data felt more reliable; the watch recorded the same distance as a Polar sports watch during swimming and correctly identified stroke types, though average pace over 100 meters read slightly slower than the Polar's.
Beyond structured workouts, the GS 3 functions as a capable fitness tracker. Step counts aligned closely with an Oura Ring 3 on most days. Sleep tracking offers a basic mode that logs deep and light sleep, or a more detailed mode that adds REM sleep, breathing quality, and sleep analysis—though enabling the latter drains the battery faster. When we compared sleep data to the Oura Ring 3, the GS 3 typically showed about a 30-minute difference in total duration and took longer to detect sleep onset. It recorded longer REM sleep than the Oura but handled deep and light sleep stages reliably. Heart rate readings stayed within 4 to 5 beats per minute of the Oura's, and blood oxygen measurements were sometimes spot-on and sometimes 4 percent off from a dedicated pulse oximeter. Neither metric is designed for serious medical use, but both provide useful daily context.
Battery life is where Honor makes a genuine claim to value. The company promises up to 14 days under typical usage—a lab scenario that includes 90 minutes of GPS tracking, 30 minutes of music playback, notifications, and 30 minutes of Bluetooth calls per week. In real-world testing with GPS regularly enabled, 24/7 heart rate monitoring, and frequent notifications, we saw the watch last about a week, which is still respectable. Honor also advertises 30 hours of GPS-only battery life, though our testing suggested that figure runs slightly optimistic; an hour of GPS running consumed roughly 5 percent of the battery.
The GS 3 is a watch that knows what it is: a fitness-focused device with enough smartwatch features to keep you connected, priced low enough to feel like a genuine bargain, yet held back by software lag, GPS accuracy that doesn't quite match its ambitions, and an ecosystem that remains Android-only for now. It's the kind of watch that rewards someone who values battery life and workout data over app variety and cutting-edge performance. Whether that's you depends on what you're willing to compromise on.
Citas Notables
Honor doesn't let you pair up external heart rate monitors, so if this is data you care about during exercise, then that's something to keep in mind.— Wareable review
There's definitely some noticeable lag when swiping through screens, which might suggest the GS 3 doesn't have the same level of processing power to deliver that slick UI experience.— Wareable review
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does a watch that looks this polished feel so sluggish when you're just swiping through screens?
It's the gap between design and silicon. Honor nailed the industrial design—the curved glass, the leather options, the overall aesthetic. But the processor underneath doesn't have the horsepower to match. You notice it immediately when you're moving between widgets.
So it's a case of ambition outpacing engineering?
Not quite. It's more like Honor made a choice about where to spend money. They invested in the look, the battery, the fitness sensors. The UI smoothness got less attention. For £169, that's a reasonable trade-off, but it's still a trade-off.
The GPS accuracy disappointed you. Why include the dual-frequency positioning if it doesn't actually work better?
That's the question. On paper, it should help in cities with tall buildings or dense trees. But when we ran the same route on the GS 3 and a Garmin Epix 2, the Garmin was more reliable. It's possible Honor's implementation just needs refinement, or the sensor quality isn't quite there yet.
What about the heart rate tracking? That seemed to hold up better.
It did. The 8-channel AI engine is doing real work. During intense intervals, it was only 4 or 5 beats off from a chest strap. That's good enough for most people's training. It's not medical-grade, but it's honest.
iOS support is coming but undated. How much does that matter?
Right now, it matters a lot. If you have an iPhone, this watch doesn't exist for you. But Honor's track record suggests they'll deliver on it eventually. When they do, this becomes a much broader product.
Two weeks of battery life is the headline. Did you actually get that?
In the lab scenario, maybe. In real life with GPS and constant heart rate monitoring, I got a week. Still excellent. The quick-charge feature—a day's use from five minutes—is genuinely useful when you're caught off guard.