Here’s why the Huawei Watch GT 7 Pro might tempt me away from Android smartwatch rivals

Introduction

Huawei’s Watch GT range has sat at the cross section of sports, styling and stamina for a while now. The firm has focused on performance for its latest smartwatch iteration, bringing features that are sure to appeal to fans of two activities in particular – but everyone else should appreciate the Watch GT 7 Pro’s ultra-long endurance and comprehensive fitness tracking. It certainly doesn’t help that it’s also a rather gorgeous piece of wristwear.

Hardware changes between this and last year’s Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro are more minimal, but if you’re keeping score that model already had many rivals’ ultra-badged watches beaten for durability, luxurious materials and battery life. And yet, at £379/€399, it undercuts even the more mainstream versions.

Being cheaper than either the 45mm Google Pixel Watch 5 or 44mm Samsung Galaxy Watch9 in their Bluetooth-only guises is one thing. Is it any better? In a few key areas, I’d say it was.

Design & screen: all about the angles

Huawei’s suave smartwatch has done its own thing for a few generations now. With an eye-catching octagonal outer bezel sticking out from a very angular watch body, you’d never mistake the Watch GT 7 Pro for an Apple Watch wannabe or Samsung imitator. Things haven’t changed dramatically between generations, but some bold new colour choices still make it obvious you’re looking at the latest model.

My yellow review unit’s colourful inner bezel matches the strap, which gets a neat tuck-under buckle that keeps from flapping around during workouts. Go for the green version and it’s the outer bezel that matches the strap, while the black model is the more subtle choice. Each gets a titanium alloy case and nano-tech ceramic bezel that are impressively tough. The Watch has IP69 resistance, 5ATM waterproofing and is good for diving down to 40m, so other than charging there’ll rarely be an occasion you’ll have to take it off your wrist.

The strap is reasonably breathable, easily washed after a sweaty workout, and keeps the watch securely in place for accurate sensor readings. The mounting mechanism is proprietary again, just like last year, so your ability to mix things up on the style front is a little more limited than on smartwatches that uses standard lugs.

Weighing 55g and protruding some 11mm out from my arm, this is a sizeable smartwatch. I quite like a wearable with wrist presence, but for those who don’t the smaller 41mm Watch GT 7 could be an option. It has a near identical feature set, but a slightly different design and considerably smaller battery – though the price dips accordingly to an even more tempting £280/€299.

Not a whole lot of change on the screen side, but that’s nothing to grumble over as the Watch GT 6 Pro’s bright and expansive OLED was already very easy on the eyes. The 1.47in circular display has a sharp 466×466 resolution that makes even tiny fonts readable at arms’ length and there’s effectively zero visible bezel, the pixels going right up to the edge of the numerals that comprise the outer ring. The scratch-resistant sapphire glass has stayed entirely blemish-free after weeks of wear.

Colours are wonderfully punchy, black levels are outstanding and viewing angles are top tier. This is definitely a watch you’ll want to use the always-on screen mode for, even if it does leave a small dent in battery life. Raise to wake and tap to wake work just fine if you want to go that bit longer between refuels.

A 3000 nits peak brightness has quickly become the class norm rather than an exception, but that’s not to say the Watch GT 7 Pro looks at all dim in daylight. I had no problems with visibility while outdoors, even on the sunniest of days.

Interface: face the music

2026 wasn’t a year of huge change for HarmonyOS, which sticks to a largely familiar layout and brings only a few visual changes – but they’re ones that tinkerers will love. Version 6.1 adds a lot more customisation to watch face widgets, so you can squeeze every bit of info you want at a single glance. There’s no shortage of watch faces to pick from either, both on the watch and via the Huawei Health companion app.

Otherwise the UI follows the smartwatch norm. Swipe right from the main watch face for widgets; swipe up for unread notifications; swipe down for quick settings; and swipe left for a stack of quick cards showing weather, calendar appointments and music controls. It all works flawlessly, with smooth animations and zero stuttering.

The digital crown takes you to the app drawer with a squeeze. There’s a wide selection here, so a downward swipe to show and hide app names is very useful. It’s not like Huawei’s third-party app store has a huge selection to add more though.

The other side button can launch straight into a workout, activate voice commands with a press-and-hold, or open Huawei Wallet with a double-press. The latter now supports third-party NFC payments through third-party service Curve. It’s not quite as slick as either Google Wallet or Apple Pay, but does mean you won’t get caught out on a run if you’ve left your cash and cards at home.

All the usual smartwatch features make a return. I could answer incoming calls from my wrist, manage music playback and remotely control my phone’s camera shutter.I also like that the Watch GT 7 Pro doesn’t play favourites, working with both Android and Apple smartphones. Android owners still have to sideload the companion app and some phone brands make this harder than others – it’s enough to put off the truly tech illiterate, but everyone else should find it straightforward enough.

Health & fitness: I ski what you did there

Huawei’s tech team must really like their winter sports, as the Watch GT 7 Pro’s most significant workout mode upgrade has been to skiing. By fine-tuning the GPS location tracking algorithms, the firm says runs are now recorded accurately to match your carves through the white stuff, rather than just drawing a straight line down the mountainside.

With zero skiing experience I’m not the person to test this functionality, so can’t vouch for its effectiveness – but simply having resort maps baked in and an indoor mode could be enough to interest anyone that regularly takes to the slopes.

The cycling mode was more my speed. I loved the old Watch GT 6 Pro’s real-time functional threshold power (FTP) estimates so appreciated their return here, letting you get an impressively accurate measure of your effort without having to invest in a pair of costly power meter pedals. In my testing it got impressively close to a pair of Garmin pedals that cost almost double the price of the Watch.

Being able to plan longer, tougher ascents right down to the gear shift in route preview is new, as are audible pacing broadcasts to keep you on target during each climb and sharp turn warnings during descents to help you stay safe. Neither were game-changers on my lunchtime loop, but I’d be grateful for both for longer endurance efforts on unfamiliar roads.

Only the GT Watch 7 Pro gets a golf mode that can record shot distance, track a scorecard across an entire game, drop custom green pins and auto-rotate its course maps to match your position. The regular GT isn’t far behind, though. Both can record over 100 different activity and workout types, as well as the stretching mini-workouts first seen on the Watch Fit 5 Pro – cutesy animated characters included.

Continuous heart rate and SpO2 recording are both here, along with the ability to perform an ECG. Having to approve permissions for every individual feature is still a faff, but at least you only have to do it once.

If that all those metrics sound a little in depth, you’ll be more excited by the physical readiness score. These are are all the rage right now, with Samsung, Google and Apple all adopting what Whoop and Garmin first made popular with fitness fans. While each brand has its own algorithms, they all use a mix of heart rate, HRV, skin temperature and sleep tracking to calculate; the Huawei’s numbers were largely in line with the Garmin watch I usually wear and the FitBit Air I was also testing at the time, going up after rest days with long sleep sessions but plummeting during workout days, work travel and after evenings where I’d had a few drinks.

I can’t fault the Watch 7 GT Pro’s heart rate accuracy, which is up there with the best wrist-based HRMs I’ve tested. GPS accuracy is really rather good too, even if Huawei’s AI-XDR positioning algorithm can’t always accurately match below-ground segments of runs. Some were spot on, while others were more jagged than the Garmin I wear on my other wrist.

Battery life: goes the distance

Huawei smartwatches have long been stamina superstars and the Watch GT 7 Pro is no different. The comparatively huge 867mAh battery helps, of course, but the firm’s own-brand OS plays a part too. Huawei reckons you’ll get around twelve full days of typical use, or a whopping three weeks with a lighter workload.

That’s on par with the outgoing Watch GT 6 Pro and not far off the figures I experienced in testing, putting it leagues ahead of the Galaxy Watch Ultra2, larger Google Pixel Watch 5 and the newly-announced Apple Watch Ultra 4. A Garmin Fenix 8 Pro will go even longer, but it’s also nearly three times the price.

The one area this new watch exceeds the old one is trail running. In its dedicated activity mode, you’ll get as much as 51 hours out of a charge – some 11 hours more than before. If you’re into ultra-distance events, it could be a fantastic choice.

Quite why Huawei refuses to swap the ageing USB-A charging puck for one with a USB-C connector is a mystery to me, but at least it latches on confidently and charges fairly quickly too. A 20 minute stay while I got ready in the morning could comfortably get me through an extra day or two; give it an hour and you’ll get back a week of wear, if not more.

Should you buy the Huawei Watch GT 7 Pro in 2026?

Are you a regular on the ski slopes or spend more time on two wheels than your own two feet? Then the Watch GT 7 Pro could be well worth a look. There are features here you simply won’t find on any rival.

It’s also hard to deny you’re getting an awful lot of smartwatch for the money here, with accurate and in-depth activity tracking on top of all the health and wellness monitoring you’d expect from a top-tier wearable. This watch has been hewn from top-tier materials and can go for weeks at a time between charges as well.

That said, Huawei’s Health app isn’t quite as slick as the very best alternatives and other smartwatches still integrate better with Android and iOS. They also have more third-party apps to pick from and have a smother setup process – but those will ultimately be minor niggles for anyone wanting maximum bang per buck.

What are the Huawei Watch GT 7 Pro’s technical specifications?