HUAWEI Watch Fit 5 Pro Review: long battery life in a slim, square body

I’ve been using the HUAWEI Watch Fit 5 Pro as my daily watch for a bit now, coming from a Wear OS watch that I had to charge basically every night. I wanted something that still looked like a small smartwatch, not a chunky sports brick, but that didn’t die halfway through day two. This one caught my eye because of the square screen, the GPS, and all the health stuff (HR, SpO₂, ECG), plus the promise of around a week or more of battery.

In everyday use, I’ve mostly focused on notifications, calls, step tracking, sleep tracking and a few GPS workouts. I didn’t buy it to install tons of apps or talk to a voice assistant, so I came in with the mindset that it’s more of a fitness-focused watch with some smart features, not a mini smartphone on the wrist. That helps set expectations, because compared to something like a Galaxy Watch or Pixel Watch, the approach is different.

What stood out right away is how light and comfortable it is for the size of the screen. I was expecting it to feel more like a small Apple Watch Ultra clone on the wrist, but it’s actually pretty easy to forget you’re wearing it. The AMOLED display is bright enough outside, and the auto-brightness is decent so you’re not constantly fiddling with it.

It’s not perfect though. The software has its quirks, the Huawei Health app isn’t the most intuitive thing on Android, and if you’re the type who wants full app stores and voice assistants on your watch, you’ll probably be annoyed. But if you mainly want strong battery, reliable tracking, NFC payments via Curve, and a solid screen, it gets the job done pretty well overall.

Looking at the price versus what you get, I’d say the HUAWEI Watch Fit 5 Pro sits in a pretty good spot. The hardware is clearly the strong side: sapphire glass, titanium alloy bezel, bright AMOLED screen, long battery life, full set of sensors (HR, SpO₂, ECG), GPS, NFC payments via Curve, and actual outdoor features like offline maps. On pure specs and materials, a lot of competitors in this range cut corners where this one doesn’t.

The trade-off is mostly on the software and ecosystem. On Android, you need to sideload the Huawei app gallery to get Huawei Health, which is a bit annoying. Once installed, the app is powerful but not very intuitive. You also don’t get a big app store on the watch, no WhatsApp installed directly, no Google Assistant, and no deep integration with popular third-party services. If you want a mini smartphone on your wrist, this is not that.

If your priorities are long battery, solid tracking, good screen, and durable build, then the value is pretty solid. You’re paying for a fitness-focused smartwatch that does the basics well and lasts a long time between charges. The Amazon rating around 4.2/5 matches my impression: it’s good, with some compromises mainly on the software side.

So in terms of value, I’d put it like this: if you’re a feature-hungry smartwatch nerd, you might feel limited and prefer to pay more for a Galaxy/Pixel/Apple Watch. If you’re okay with fewer smart gimmicks and care more about battery, durability, and fitness tracking, this watch gives you a lot of hardware for the money and feels like a sensible buy rather than a flashy toy.

Design-wise, this thing is clearly going after people who like the square Apple Watch style but want it on Android (or don’t want to pay Apple money). The 1.92" rectangular screen gives you a decent amount of space for notifications and stats, without feeling like you’ve strapped a tiny tablet to your wrist. On my average wrist, it looks noticeable but not cartoonish. People did ask me what watch it was, so it doesn’t exactly disappear visually.

The bezels are reasonably thin, and with dark watch faces they blend in well. The crown on the side feels fine to use, with a decent click, but one annoyance for left-handed users: you can’t flip the screen 180° in software. That means if you wear it on the right wrist, the crown ends up on the wrong side and is awkward to use. It’s a small thing Huawei could fix with an update, but for now it’s just not there.

In terms of everyday practicality, the rectangular shape works well for reading messages. Long WhatsApp messages are easier to scroll than on some small round screens I’ve used before. Swipes and taps are responsive, and the watch faces are varied enough, though the store and app situation is clearly not on the same level as Apple or Google. Still, for the basics (time, fitness, simple complications), it’s fine.

Overall, the design feels more high-end than the usual plastic fitness trackers, without being a tank. The square look won’t please everyone, but if you’re into that style and don’t want something super thick or heavy, it’s a pretty solid compromise. Just be aware of the left-handed crown issue if that’s you.

Battery life is where this watch stands out the most for me. With heart rate, SpO₂, sleep tracking, notifications, and always-on display enabled, I was easily getting around 7–8 days before I felt like I had to charge. When I turned off always-on display and reduced some background tracking, I could push closer to the advertised 10 days. That’s with medium use: a few workouts with GPS, a decent number of notifications, and calls here and there.

Compared to my old Wear OS watch, which barely survived a day and a half, this is a big quality of life improvement. I no longer have to plan charges around my sleep schedule to keep sleep tracking going. I just throw it on the charger for a bit when I’m at my desk or in the shower every week, and that’s enough. Huawei’s fast wireless charging also helps: a short top-up gives you a good chunk of battery back, so you don’t feel as tied to the cable.

If you absolutely hammer it with GPS workouts every day and keep everything on max, you’ll drop below a week, but you’re still looking at multiple days, not hours. For most people who do a few workouts per week and use it for notifications and tracking, it’s very comfortable. I didn’t experience any weird rapid drains or bugs after the first setup; things stayed pretty stable after a couple of charge cycles.

For me, this battery profile is the main reason to pick this watch over more "smart" alternatives that need daily charging. If your priority is apps and assistants, you’ll have to accept worse battery elsewhere. If your priority is a watch you can forget about for days, this one handles that part very well.

Comfort was one of my worries before buying, because the screen size is big on paper, and I don’t have huge wrists. In reality, it’s lighter and thinner than it looks in product photos. After a couple of days, I stopped noticing it most of the time, which for me is the main test for a watch I’m supposed to wear 24/7 for sleep and fitness tracking.

The strap is soft enough and doesn’t dig into the skin, even when you tighten it a bit for heart-rate accuracy during workouts. The buckle system is old-school but it works, and I actually prefer it over some of the loop-style straps that are annoying to adjust. I wore it during long work days at a desk, walks, workouts, and overnight, and I never felt like I urgently needed to take it off to give my wrist a break.

For sleep tracking, the light weight helps a lot. Some round metal watches feel like a metal puck strapped to your arm in bed; this one is flatter, so it sits closer to the wrist and doesn’t twist as much when you move around. I did notice that in really hot weather, the underside can get a bit sweaty under the sensors, but that’s true for pretty much every smartwatch I’ve owned.

The only comfort downside is again for left-handed users or people who wear watches on the right wrist: with no option to rotate the screen, the crown can end up in a spot where it rubs or is easy to press by mistake when you bend your wrist. If you’re right-handed and wear it on the left wrist, you’re fine. Overall, for most people, comfort is a strong point and makes it easy to keep the watch on all day and night.

The big plus in terms of materials is the sapphire glass and the titanium alloy bezel. In normal, clumsy-person life, that matters more than it sounds. I’ve knocked this watch against door frames, desk edges and gym machines more times than I’d like to admit, and so far I can’t see any obvious scratches on the screen. With previous watches, after a couple of weeks I’d already see micro-scratches or one ugly mark that annoyed me every time I looked at it.

The titanium alloy frame keeps things light but still feels firm. It doesn’t have that cheap, hollow feel some budget smartwatches have. The back is your usual smooth sensor area, nothing special, but it doesn’t irritate the skin. The strap is where things are more basic: it’s functional and comfortable, but it doesn’t scream luxury. It’s a standard band that gets the job done, easy to clean after workouts, and the classic buckle-style closure is straightforward.

Water resistance is rated to 50 metres with IP67, and there’s even a depth sensor for snorkelling and recreational diving up to around 40m. I only used it for swimming and showers, but it handled that with no problem. Compared to other watches where the warranty gets weird around water use, here it feels a bit more reassuring that the watch is designed to be actually used in the pool or sea, not just in marketing slides.

In short, the materials are probably one of the strongest points for the price bracket. Sapphire glass plus a metal frame at this price is pretty solid value. The strap is fine but nothing special; if you care about looks, you’ll probably end up buying a nicer third-party band. For durability and day-to-day abuse though, the hardware feels like it can take it.

In terms of durability, the Watch Fit 5 Pro has held up well to what I’d call normal careless user behaviour. I’ve worn it in the shower, in the rain, during sweaty gym sessions, and on a few swims. No fogging, no weird behaviour, and the buttons and crown still feel the same. The 50m water resistance and IP67 rating seem to be more than just marketing, at least for normal use and light water sports.

The sapphire glass is the big win for durability. After knocking it around quite a bit, I still can’t see visible scratches on the display. On previous watches with regular glass, little scratches appeared very quickly. That alone makes this feel more long-term. The titanium alloy bezel also helps against dings, though obviously if you really smash it on something sharp, it’s not magic armor.

There was one mention in user reviews about a bug where Dive Mode triggered randomly, but it sounds like that was fixed with a software update and a reset. I didn’t run into that issue myself, so either I got a newer firmware or it’s rare. In general, the software has been stable for me: no random reboots, no massive battery bugs, and syncing with the phone stayed consistent.

Overall, for a watch at this price, durability feels above average: good materials, proper water resistance, and stable enough software. The strap will probably be the first thing to show wear over time, but that’s easy to replace. If you want something that can handle daily wear, occasional swims, and the odd knock without looking destroyed in a month, this one seems to cope just fine.

Day-to-day performance is decent: menus scroll smoothly, apps open fast enough, and I didn’t run into major lag. It’s not on the level of a top-end Wear OS watch in terms of pure speed, but for checking notifications, starting workouts, and browsing stats, it’s more than fine. The interface has a few weird design choices, but once you get used to the layout, it does the job.

GPS performance is one of the positives. Compared to my previous watch, which sometimes took ages to lock on, the Watch Fit 5 Pro usually grabs GPS in a few seconds. Distance tracking on runs and walks matched pretty closely with my phone and with known routes. No obvious shortcuts or huge distance errors, which is what I care about. For everyday runners and walkers, it’s accurate enough.

Health tracking is also fairly solid. Heart rate reacts quickly to spikes during workouts, and resting heart rate numbers matched what I saw on other devices. SpO₂ is there, but like always, I treat it as a rough indicator, not medical data. Sleep tracking is more detailed than on many budget watches. It picks up wake-ups during the night better than some devices I’ve tried, especially when I was ill and had a broken night. The ECG feature is simple to use: touch the sensor for 30 seconds, and you get a reading with basic info about rhythm and potential a-fib risk.

The main downside in performance is more about software experience than raw speed. The Huawei Health app has tons of options, but the layout can be confusing. You sometimes need too many taps to reach certain stats or settings. Also, because you can’t add many third-party apps, you’re stuck with what Huawei gives you. If you’re okay with that, the performance and tracking side is pretty solid for fitness and daily use.

On paper, the HUAWEI Watch Fit 5 Pro is loaded: 1.92" AMOLED LTPO screen, GPS, HR, SpO₂, ECG, sleep tracking, Bluetooth calling, NFC payments via Curve, and up to 10 days of battery. It works with both Android and iOS, which is nice if you tend to swap phones. In practice though, it behaves more like a very capable fitness tracker in a smartwatch form factor than a full-blown smartwatch with an app store.

Daily basics are covered: you get notifications from your phone (WhatsApp, SMS, email, apps), you can answer calls via Bluetooth, and you can send quick replies or tap out short messages on the tiny keyboard. That’s honestly enough for me, since I don’t want to type essays on my wrist. You also get a bunch of workout modes, GPS tracking for runs and walks, and the usual heart rate, stress, and SpO₂ stuff running in the background.

Where it clearly leans toward the “fitness device” side is in the extras: mini-workout modes, training plans, detailed sleep analysis, ECG for a-fib risk alerts, and outdoor features like offline colour maps and the Sunflower Positioning System. If you like data, the watch and Huawei Health throw a lot at you: VO₂ max estimations, training load, recovery suggestions, etc. Whether you use all of that is another story, but it’s there.

On the downside, you can’t install popular third-party apps like WhatsApp directly on the watch, there’s no Google Assistant/Siri/Alexa, and no full-blown LTE on this specific model. So if you’re coming from a Pixel or Galaxy Watch expecting the same level of “smart”, you’ll feel limited. For me, it hits a decent middle ground: it covers the basics well, plus pretty detailed fitness tracking, but doesn’t try to replace the phone.