Honor Choice Watch review: Fitness meets lifestyle with affordability
Rating — 3.5/5
Honor made a comeback in India under the HTech branding in 2023. This year the Madhav Sheth-led company launched its second smartphone, the Honor X9b 5G, and along with it, the company launched its first-ever smartwatch – Honor Choice Watch. Debuted at Rs 6,499, the smartwatch features an AMOLED display, runs Android and comes with all the bells and whistles typically found in mid-range smartwatches.
The watch supports lifestyle features like GPS, Bluetooth calling and a long-lasting battery and includes health and fitness features like SpO2, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, activity tracking and more. We have been using the White colour variant of the Honor Choice Watch for a few weeks and here’s what we think.
Design
The Honor Choice Watch has a rectangular dial with sleek bezels and a metallic texture offers it a premium look. Weighing 45 grams, the watch felt comfortable to wear throughout the day and we did not have a problem wearing it even while sleeping.
The smartwatch’s metallic-coloured edges also house a circular crown which offers limited functionality. It can only be used to switch between the main menu and the home screen.
The smartwatch’s silicone strap feels comfortable on the wrist as long as it’s not worn too tightly. Also, prolonged wearing of the watch (if worn too tight) can leave you with skin irritation and rashes. The straps can be removed and reattached to the dial without breaking a sweat.
The smartwatch comes with 5 ATM water resistance meaning that it can handle splashes and sweat during a workout session with ease. The Honor Choice Watch also boasts a vibration drainage feature that removes water droplets by shaking the device.
DisplayThe smartwatch has a rectangular 1.95-inch AMOLED display which shows sharp and colourful visuals and is bright enough for outdoor usage, even in bright sunlight. The display also felt smooth and snappy, thus offering a premium overall visual experience.
However, the Honor Choice Watch doesn’t support adaptive brightness and we had to adjust it under different light conditions, manually.
Keeping aside this minor inconvenience, navigating through the watch’s display felt smooth and we didn’t notice lag or any other display performance issues during our testing.
PerformanceJust like most other mid-range Android smartwatches, the Honor Choice Watch is unable to function independently as a standalone device and needs to be paired with a smartphone (via Bluetooth) to unleash its full potential.
Even to set up the device, users have to install the Honor Health companion app on their smartphones. The app is compatible with both iPhones and Android devices.
During our testing, the set-up process felt a bit time-consuming and the entire process took nearly 30 minutes. Once the watch was connected to the smartphone, both the app and the watch worked in sync.
It’s also important to note that we noticed an occasional lag in notification syncing, especially when the watch was at lower battery levels or when it was just switched on. Also, the data syncing took several minutes when the app installed a firmware update.
Talking about the lifestyle features, we were particularly impressed by the Bluetooth calling experience offered by the watch. When paired to a smartphone, the wearable allowed us to answer/reject calls directly from its display.
The speaker on the watch helped deliver clear audio, while the microphone also offered a hassle-free experience for the person on the other side.
Also, we didn’t face any connectivity issues while receiving calls on the watch, which also showed notifications from multiple apps but didn’t allow us to reply to any of them.
Moreover, the smartwatch’s health-tracking features like breathing exercises and stress management as well as sedentary reminders to keep hydrated also helped us to maintain a healthy routine. Other health-related features like sleep, heart rate and SpO2 monitoring were also somewhat accurate.
For fitness tracking, the Honor Choice Watch also supports a step counter as well as multiple workout modes. The step counting wasn’t very accurate but offered a decent average overview of the daily fitness activities.
Apart from this, the watch also includes other handy features like a built-in calculator, a compass, voice recording, a music player and more which adds to the user’s convenience.
The wearable comes with only a handful of default watch faces. However, using the companion app, users can select from hundreds of custom watch faces and sync them directly with the watch to have a new look every day.
Battery
The Honor Choice Watch lived up to the company’s claims regarding its battery life. The watch took less than two hours to get fully charged after which its battery lasted for nearly a week even with all the notifications, activity tracking and other features running in the background.
Verdict
Considering its price, the Honor Choice Watch struck a nice balance between lifestyle and fitness features. Keeping aside a few limitations, the smartwatch offered a decent overall performance.
The Honour Choice Watch is worth considering if you’re in the market for a mid-range Android smartwatch. The device has a premium build, a beautiful display, an easy-to-navigate UI, an impressive battery life and handy features like Bluetooth calling as well as health and fitness tracking.
Honor made a comeback in India under the HTech branding in 2023. This year the Madhav Sheth-led company launched its second smartphone, the Honor X9b 5G, and along with it, the company launched its first-ever smartwatch – Honor Choice Watch. Debuted at Rs 6,499, the smartwatch features an AMOLED display, runs Android and comes with all the bells and whistles typically found in mid-range smartwatches.
The watch supports lifestyle features like GPS, Bluetooth calling and a long-lasting battery and includes health and fitness features like SpO2, heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, activity tracking and more. We have been using the White colour variant of the Honor Choice Watch for a few weeks and here’s what we think.
Design
The Honor Choice Watch has a rectangular dial with sleek bezels and a metallic texture offers it a premium look. Weighing 45 grams, the watch felt comfortable to wear throughout the day and we did not have a problem wearing it even while sleeping.
The smartwatch’s metallic-coloured edges also house a circular crown which offers limited functionality. It can only be used to switch between the main menu and the home screen.
The smartwatch’s silicone strap feels comfortable on the wrist as long as it’s not worn too tightly. Also, prolonged wearing of the watch (if worn too tight) can leave you with skin irritation and rashes. The straps can be removed and reattached to the dial without breaking a sweat.
The smartwatch comes with 5 ATM water resistance meaning that it can handle splashes and sweat during a workout session with ease. The Honor Choice Watch also boasts a vibration drainage feature that removes water droplets by shaking the device.
Expand
DisplayThe smartwatch has a rectangular 1.95-inch AMOLED display which shows sharp and colourful visuals and is bright enough for outdoor usage, even in bright sunlight. The display also felt smooth and snappy, thus offering a premium overall visual experience.
However, the Honor Choice Watch doesn’t support adaptive brightness and we had to adjust it under different light conditions, manually.
Keeping aside this minor inconvenience, navigating through the watch’s display felt smooth and we didn’t notice lag or any other display performance issues during our testing.
PerformanceJust like most other mid-range Android smartwatches, the Honor Choice Watch is unable to function independently as a standalone device and needs to be paired with a smartphone (via Bluetooth) to unleash its full potential.
Even to set up the device, users have to install the Honor Health companion app on their smartphones. The app is compatible with both iPhones and Android devices.
During our testing, the set-up process felt a bit time-consuming and the entire process took nearly 30 minutes. Once the watch was connected to the smartphone, both the app and the watch worked in sync.
It’s also important to note that we noticed an occasional lag in notification syncing, especially when the watch was at lower battery levels or when it was just switched on. Also, the data syncing took several minutes when the app installed a firmware update.
Talking about the lifestyle features, we were particularly impressed by the Bluetooth calling experience offered by the watch. When paired to a smartphone, the wearable allowed us to answer/reject calls directly from its display.
The speaker on the watch helped deliver clear audio, while the microphone also offered a hassle-free experience for the person on the other side.
Also, we didn’t face any connectivity issues while receiving calls on the watch, which also showed notifications from multiple apps but didn’t allow us to reply to any of them.
Moreover, the smartwatch’s health-tracking features like breathing exercises and stress management as well as sedentary reminders to keep hydrated also helped us to maintain a healthy routine. Other health-related features like sleep, heart rate and SpO2 monitoring were also somewhat accurate.
For fitness tracking, the Honor Choice Watch also supports a step counter as well as multiple workout modes. The step counting wasn’t very accurate but offered a decent average overview of the daily fitness activities.
Apart from this, the watch also includes other handy features like a built-in calculator, a compass, voice recording, a music player and more which adds to the user’s convenience.
The wearable comes with only a handful of default watch faces. However, using the companion app, users can select from hundreds of custom watch faces and sync them directly with the watch to have a new look every day.
Battery
The Honor Choice Watch lived up to the company’s claims regarding its battery life. The watch took less than two hours to get fully charged after which its battery lasted for nearly a week even with all the notifications, activity tracking and other features running in the background.
Verdict
Considering its price, the Honor Choice Watch struck a nice balance between lifestyle and fitness features. Keeping aside a few limitations, the smartwatch offered a decent overall performance.
The Honour Choice Watch is worth considering if you’re in the market for a mid-range Android smartwatch. The device has a premium build, a beautiful display, an easy-to-navigate UI, an impressive battery life and handy features like Bluetooth calling as well as health and fitness tracking.