Best Huawei Band 3 Pro Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020:

With its integrated GPS, its precise heart rate monitor and its Oled panel, the Band 3 Pro is positioned as a competitive and relevant activity sensor. A justified or overused ambition?

Presentation

Ever more present on the French and European markets, Huawei is increasing the number of wearables with a clear conducting line: offering terminals that are as competitive as they are efficient. And the Band 3 Pro is a very good example of this philosophy. Despite its low price, this sensor can carry a GPS, a heart rate monitor and an Oled panel. Strengths that could allow it to be among the essentials of the sector. Especially since it was launched at 99 €, an aggressive price which positions it well below the most serious competition, whether on the side of Fitbit and its Charge 3 or Withings Pulse HR . 

Best Huawei Band 3 Pro Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals & Sales 2020

1. Huawei Band 3 Pro All-in-One Fitness Activity Tracker, 5ATM Water Resistance for Swim. 24/7 Heart Rate Monitor, Built-in GPS, Multi-Sports Mode, Sleep Tracking, Black, One Size

2. Huawei Honor Band 4 6-Axis Inertial Heart Rate Monitor Infrared Light Wear Detection Sensor Full Touch AMOLED Color Screen Home Button All-in-One Activity Tracker 5ATM Waterproof (Black)

3. Huawei Honor Band 5 0.95″ Full Touch AMOLED Color Screen Smart Bracelet Heart Rate Monitor Sleep Monitor Blood Oxygen Monitor Home Button All-in-One Activity Tracker GPS 5ATM Waterproof

4. Huawei Honor Band 5 Fitness Tracker AMOLED Color Screen Blood Oxygen TruSleep Monitoring TruSeen 3.0 Real-TIME Heart Rate 50 Meters Waterproof Call Notification Up to 14 Days Battery Life

5. HUAWEI Honor Band 5i 0.96 inch Smart Bluetooth Bracelet SpO2 Blood Oxygen Detection 24-Hour Heart Rate Monitoring Huawei TruSleep 3.5 All-in-One Activity Tracker 5ATM Waterproof

Ergonomics and design

For its Band 3 Pro, Huawei has not revolutionized its recipe. The terminal looks like the Band 2 Pro  launched in late 2017. With a few adjustments of course. The most important concerns the screen. Because if the previous model had a Pmoled panel, it is now a 0.95 ” Amoled that adorns the Band 3 Pro. This allows the Chinese manufacturer to display more complex and colorful visuals. Another novelty, the screen of this new model is tactile. It is therefore possible to navigate with a finger movement. Finally, the Band 3 Pro offers a touch button, below the panel, offering the possibility of returning to the main screen. 

The main metal case is accompanied by a silicone bracelet that is very pleasant on the wrist. The latter is agile enough to be handled and tortured in peace. In no case does it irritate, even when wet. Also note that it offers enough notches to adapt to different wrist sizes. The heart rate monitor, positioned at the back of the case, is positioned in a slight protrusion, thin enough not to be noticed or felt. Finally, the Band 3 Pro is waterproof up to 5 ATM.

Interface

Thanks to its new Amoled panel, the Band 3 Pro offers a much more developed interface than its predecessor. Besides the colors, adding to the aesthetics, it is now possible to navigate the menu. Quite refined, the latter gives access to the daily activity target, heart rate, sleep-related data, parameters and notifications. It is obviously also possible to start monitoring physical activity directly from your wrist. 

In the parameters, it is possible to adjust the brightness, to choose the home screen (among three choices), but also to start a stopwatch or a timer. The Band 3 Pro allows you to activate “phone localization”, a function that is as practical as it is noisy. 

Managing Messenger, WhatsApp or Twitter notifications is pretty good. The display occupies the entire screen and the text can be scrolled through the touchscreen. So if the reading is not optimal – because of the small size of the screen – it still remains pleasant, especially since the Band 3 Pro records up to 10 messages on the sensor. It is therefore possible to drop a notification to discover it a little later. Convenient functionality.

Application

Like other Huawei bracelets and connected watches, the Band 3 Pro synchronizes with Huawei Health. No need to launch Huawei Wear, the application does not yet detect the Band 3 Pro. It should therefore be done exclusively with the application focused on health. Fortunately, the latter gives control over a few additional parameters to those already available on the wrist. It is thus possible to configure sleep monitoring, heart rate, applications eligible for notifications, lighting of the screen with wrist movements or the order of the menus.

Huawei Health also has the advantage of being intuitive and clear. Its synchronization, at launch, is also fast and almost invisible. It gives fairly easy access to all kinds of data collected, be it the number of steps, the history of sports sessions or sleep monitoring. The different graphs are detailed and offer a complete vision of physical activity.

Finally, it is possible to associate Huawei Health with Google Fit or MyFitnessPal.

Uses and precision

To measure the performance of the Band 3 Pro, we compared its results with those of the Polar H10 chest strap, which we consider to be very reliable in terms of measurements. We measured the running by linking the laps on a 1.9 km circuit. Regarding cycling, we had our typical 3.12 km circuit.

If there is a sub-part where the Band 3 Pro is expected at the turn, it is that of its performance. The box incorporates a GPS, something still too rare in the small world of activity sensors. Going on a run without your phone is therefore entirely possible. The Band 3 is therefore sufficient in itself. If we were in bad faith, we would regret the absence of internal memory and music player which would end up completing the usefulness of a smartphone. But this is not our genre. Especially since the integrated GPS is precise and sometimes provides more relevant data than that of a smartphone. However, the Band 3 Pro does not offer an altimeter or barometer; you will have to be content with an accelerometer.

The other special feature of the Band 3 Pro in the “uses and precision” section is the use of TrueSeen TM 3.0. This algorithm developed by Huawei allows the Watch GT to collect particularly precise heart rate curves. We were therefore longing to know whether it would be as effective. And that’s the case. Whether on a linear endurance exercise or during a interval training session, the Band 3 Pro heart rate monitor offers very relevant heart rate curves. Heart rate variations never stray from reality. Compared to the Polar H10 chest strap, the margin of error remains around 2%. Very satisfactory results therefore, especially for an activity sensor. 

Autonomy

On the issue of autonomy, the Band 3 Pro is the victim of a compromise. With its integrated GPS and its quality Oled panel, the sensor requires a lot of energy. So if it offers an accumulator of 100 mAh, slightly lower than that of the Mi Band 3 from Xiaomi, it achieves much lower performance. With sustained use (reading notifications, daily physical activity and sleep tracking), the Band 3 Pro lasted just over 3 days. We are far from the 10 days of Mi Band 3 from Xiaomi, much more minimalist. 

It takes about 2 hours to fully charge the Band 3 Pro with its proprietary charger.

CONCLUSION

Launched at an aggressive price, the Huawei Band 3 Pro manages to combine convincing performance and pleasant ergonomics. Equipped with a GPS and especially a very precise heart rate monitor, this activity sensor is an attractive ally for athletes on a limited budget, something which is still rare with activity sensors. Finally, it only sins on autonomy. And it’s a shame, because it was approaching flawless.

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