There are a lot of gadgets out there.

So there's got to be a good reason to choose one over another.

Price is always a good reason... but there might be others...

 

The Huawei Fit looks a bit like a smartwatch, but acts more like an activity tracker... although it does have a few more functions than your average pedometer.

The design is very sleek, due to a total absence of physical buttons. While the Fit sits up off your wrist a little, it's very comfortable to wear - important when one of its stated functions is sleep monitoring.

The round casing is uniquely bowl shaped which I found caused a tendency to knock the edges of the bezel against things more than I would normally be aware of. Going by the odd nick and chip in that bezel when I received the Fit for review, I'd say I wasn't the first person to try this device out.

The bands are interchangeable, available in black, blue and orange, although you could replace them with any band of a similar size. I wouldn't describe them as stylish, more like sporty. Again, certainly comfortable enough to wear to bed and during extended workouts.

The screen is a conundrum.

As I mentioned, while the metal casing seems a little prone to knocks around the edges the display itself is made from Corning Gorilla 3 glass and appears to be extremely scratch resistant. The trouble is, given it's a touch screen, I found it to be a little touch resistant as well.

To control the Huawei Fit, you swipe up, down and sideways, occasionally pressing a virtual button on screen (to start/stop workouts etc). Two issues here; it was mostly guesswork and trial-and-error on my part to figure out how to access which functions with which gesture and secondly, even once I figured it out, the Fit didn't always respond first press which meant I assumed I'd used the wrong gesture. At that point I'd try a different gesture, which would be the wrong gesture, and I'd have to start all over again.

On the bright side (deliberate pun) the screen is spectacularly easy to read. No problems in bright sunshine through sunglasses. It also features a backlight which can be set to automatically activate in dark conditions. The Fit's ambient light sensor did a great job of keeping the display visible at all times.

On the downside, it's only black and white, with a limited number of fairly basic, always-on watch faces to choose from and no option to adjust text size.

In short; easy to read, but nothing much to see.

As the name suggests, the Fit's primary goal is to track your workouts and in many ways it does an excellent job of this. The heart-rate monitoring seems reliable, accurate and again, easy to see on screen. As for distance covered and steps taken, as usual, very difficult to comment on accuracy but like I always say, the main thing is a consistent reading from one workout to the next and I certainly found the Huawei Fit's figures to be within a margin of error with other trackers I have used.

Again, however, there's a down-side. While the Fit does an excellent job of tracking running, walking, biking and swimming... that's it. Apparently no other kind of exercise exists as far as Huawei is concerned. No treadmill option. No aerobics. No sport. Not even weights or circuit training. At least most other devices give you an "Other" option.

Speaking of "Other", the other major problem I had with the Fit was recording those workouts once completed. For some reason you need two separate apps to run this watch, Huawei Wear and Huawei Health. Huawei Wear is for controlling the settings on the Fit, while Huawei Health is where you set your fitness goals, create training plans and, in theory, record your results. I say, "in theory" because sometimes the workouts I recorded with the fit would sync with the app, but sometimes not. Sure I could have entered them manually but that's kind of not the point of the exercise. (That pun wasn't quite as deliberate, but still a goody)

This sync issue seemed weird to me, because the connectivity of the Fit with my phone was truly excellent. Any adjustments I made to alarms or notification settings applied themselves instantly - something I have found to be a bit sketchy on other devices I have tried. Let's talk alarms and notifications then.

A crucial advantage the Huawei Fit has over more basic trackers is the ability to show notifications - not just incoming calls and texts, but notifications from any app on your phone. While you can't reply to emails or Instagram posts using the Fit, it's handy to be able to read them on your wrist. This functionality is usually reserved for devices in a much higher price range, so that's a definite win for the Fit.

You can also set silent (vibrating) alarms which is useful for someone like me who gets up in the middle of the night to go to work and would prefer not to wake up the entire house with any kind of klaxon. What's more, due to the Fit's sleep monitoring ability, you can set a smart alarm which will wake you during light sleep close to your alarm time instead of wrenching you from the deepest slumber.

Believe it or not, this actually seemed to work. Bizarrely, the sleep tracking worked too - unlike my workouts, my sleeps synced across to the Huawei Health app no worries at all.

In case you missed it, one of four exercises the Huawei Fit does track is swimming. There aren't many devices I'm aware of that'll do this due to that whole not-working-underwater issue. Due mostly to its seamless, buttonless design, the Fit is IP68 certified and 5 ATM water resistant - that means it'll survive pools as well as bathtubs.

For me, battery life was a disappointment. Huawei's website makes asterixed claims about six days battery life and I've read other reviews that backed this up. Unfortunately, my actual experience was two full days at a stretch. I don't mind bunging it on a charger every second day, especially when  the Fit charges pretty quickly and the charging cradle magnetises into place very easily - just don't tell me six days and deliver two. I'm sure I could have squeezed more out of it if I'd made adjustments to heart-rate monitoring, backlight and connection settings, but that's not how most people would use this device.

So it's a good news/bad news story for the Huawei Fit. Definitely smarter than your average tracker, and pretty good value in its low-to-mid-range price bracket. Standout features like the easy-read screen, swim tracking and reliable heart-rate monitor are all great reasons to buy, as long as the things not to like, such as the tricky interface and exaggerated battery life aren't big issues for you.

Click here for more information on the Huawei Fit