It will allow me to deviate from our usual editorial style when it comes to hardware reviews on Gamereactor for a few reasons. The first is novelty: the titanium space version of this watch hit the market at the end of May for around €650, while I tested it for three weeks in August, and it is now available for over €500.

The second is related to the fact that although you may have read my reviews of gadgets of various kinds (speakers, headphones, computers and other devices), I am not a user of smartwatches. So, read other recent watch reviews from my colleagues at Gamereactor. I have never even worn a watch this century, so I considered this process as a personal interest and curiosity: let's see how attached I am to a high-end smartwatch on my wrist, how much it brings me and how much it annoys me. I think this perspective may be useful to more than one of you.

The first thing I have to say is that *deep breath*, the Huawei Watch 4 Pro Space Edition Titanium is no ordinary watch. It’s a elegant watchYou will be used to or accustomed to seeing sporty, rectangular, circular, and Velcro-enabled smartwatches offered by Apple Watch and its partners. They have become fashionable and are used by 80% of users.

propaganda:

While Huawei follows this approach in its Fit line, both the Watch 4 and the GT or Ultimate opt for the traditional circular sphere, to organize the elements on the screen in a three-dimensional, concentric way or to mimic analog hands. It is large in size and contains a 1.5-inch touchscreen surrounded by a red ceramic bezel, which contrasts with the metallic gray of the rest of the finish, which in this version features a titanium case.

Since the bracelet is made of metal links (in fact, I found it very easy to remove one to fit my slim wrist), the watch looks very elegant compared to sports watches, with a luxurious but not tacky feel. “The space version is a tribute to the bold machines that took humanity to new heights.” This, in addition to the mix of metals and colors, is also reflected in the thematic backgrounds and display layouts, with the day/night cycle on the planets of the solar system, lunar information or constellations, a delight for astronomy lovers.

As a regular smartwatch person and a total wristwatch enthusiast, I found it a bit cumbersome, and not just on day one. It weighs 65g for the dial plus strap, which is fine, but in my particular case I probably needed to take the middle step of the sports models, both in terms of lightness and fit. From there, I started to immerse myself in the Huawei smartwatch experience as much as possible.

propaganda:

Does it tell time? Of course, in every conceivable format, even in two time zones at once, which is great for us at Gamereactor when covering events in Los Angeles or Japan, but smartwatches are primarily focused on functionality and beyond notifications and other things a phone can do, on health and sports measurements. In that sense, I’ve been using a Polar armband for years to measure my heart rate in sports like running, kung fu, cycling, swimming, rowing or Pilates, so I’d use it as a comparison.

But smartwatches aren’t just about heart rate for specific actions. In addition to being worn all day (unlike instantaneous HR sensors), they also include functions to monitor stress, breathing, skin temperature, blood pressure, and blood oxygen. Most importantly for me, who suffers from insomnia, they serve as a continuous sleep quality monitor. I’d put it to several comparative uses.

All of these functions are recorded through the Huawei Health app on your smartphone when you sync it with your watch daily. Here I have to draw the first big conclusion based on my experience: while the hardware of the Huawei Watch 4 Pro Space Edition Titanium is impressive and I don’t have much to complain about, the software side needs to catch up.

The update process for the watch is very slow at first or when it takes a long time (more than an hour and you are asked not to use your phone), but it also needs to improve the daily synchronization. Each function requires a series of permissions to access personal biometric data, but this process could also be simplified. And then there is the elephant in the room: if you use it with an iPhone, as I do, rather than an Android or Huawei smartphone, you will have a very limited experience, in this case perhaps more so due to the restrictions Apple imposes on communicating with a watch that you do not have with your phones.

Understand me, I'm not one to put all notifications on my watch because I actually minimize them on my phone so they don't drive me crazy, but something like controlling music playback, seeing what song is playing, or clicking “like” is super useful on your wrist without having to pull out your phone. You can't do that with an iPhone.

I also had issues with some notifications constantly popping up even though I'd seen them before, occasional app glitches, poor translation in the app, or the on-screen keyboard not being the best for typing a text or jotting down a note. But that's all software because, again, the build quality, materials, and responsiveness of the device are top-notch almost all the time.

Almost, because it doesn't seem natural to me that water in the shower could activate and control the touchscreen so easily, when it's a submersible watch and generally very resistant. This is my only complaint about the tactile part, besides the caveat that, logically, given its weight and shape, it's not the best smartwatch if you want it primarily for sports use; the Huawei Watch 4 Pro is intended for all-day use and in all situations.

It's possible to answer a call directly on the watch, just like Michael Knight talks to KITT, and while the quality is as poor as you'd expect from a wrist-worn device with a small speaker, it can certainly handle a short conversation when you're, say, in the pool.

As for sleep, my main medical concern, I didn’t ask for it to be as accurate as a chart (a professional sleep tracker, for example), and while I found the recordings useful and interesting, I also noticed some glitches. As a general rule, it’s able to read the “REM, light and deep” sleep stages decently, and then make accurate analyses and comments (my deep sleep continuity is a disaster, for example), but it’s also true that it failed to detect several “wake-ups” where I woke up and walked around. I understand that, as in sports, it works more as a guide than as a super-precise dedicated tool to report to a doctor, but it should be taken into account.

Speaking of sports, I also saw some discrepancies between the watch’s BPM and the Polar OH1+, especially when I went over 140 in disciplines like rowing. At first I was more annoyed, but when comparing the total workout results – which are very close to the average – rather than the real-time measurement, I saw that the difference, which can be 5-7 beats (a big difference), could be bigger to do with the refresh rate of both devices than the actual accuracy.

Would I buy a smartwatch after my experience with the Huawei? That’s a trick question. I think it’s an exceptional and very stylish watch for those looking for general use and a traditional look, especially if your smartphone is running Android or Huawei. Its materials are premium, its build quality is excellent, and its screen is brighter than inferior models like the Fit. Its battery easily lasts a week, and the truth is that things like the morning alarm I ended up enjoying a lot more with a nice buzz on my wrist than the loud alarm on my iPhone.

The compass, GPS (though it takes a while to activate) and NFC payment would also make more sense on a wrist device and look great in a circular form factor, along with all the health and 24-hour sports functions. If you use a smartwatch less to use your cell phone less, this could be a winner, as long as you don’t end up stuck on notifications all the time, but that’s a subjective opinion. Keep in mind that this watch costs the same or nearly as much as a mid-range smartphone, so I’d recommend it to people with the needs mentioned in the previous paragraph who might be familiar with those watches and want to upgrade to a more premium device. I’ll stick with the bare wrist, but I know that the device itself impressed me and that with some software improvements, it would be at the top of its range.