Huawei Band 4 has finally landed in the Philippines, and I’m a little too lucky to be among the first ones to try it out. Does this PhP1890 smart band have all the essentials that lifestyle and fitness enthusiasts would need? Find out in this hands-on review.
Build: Honor Band strikes a more attractive looking smartbands in the market. The available colors to choose from are fairly more attractive than the ones offered by other brands. You’ve got Amber Sunrise (the one I currently have), Sakura Pink (a must-have colorway for ladies) and Graphite Black (for minimalists). If you’ve got a Huawei P30 Pro in Amber Sunrise, the one we’ve got would make a perfect pair for it.
It isn’t exactly the lightest in the market though. At 24g, it sits on top of Honor Band 5 and Mi Band 4 in terms of weight. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in my opinion, as I barely notice it on the go.
What makes the Huawei Band 4 very attractive is its chamfered square design. It’s definitely ergonomic and looks perfectly well regardless of your wrist size. Its minimalist ‘touch button’ – for the better term – matches its overall design.
Display: Huawei Band 4 has the biggest displays in the market, albeit being TFT display and having a small resolution.
The display projects fewer pixels thereby making icons appear more pixelated than the ones on Honor Band 5 and Mi Band 4. Despite this shortcoming, I still find the texts readable and the images/icons vibrant and colorful. It’s bright too; it has 5 brightness adjustment bars and even an option to automatically lower the brightness at night. Software-wise, I find this a very smart way of conserving battery life.
Battery: Battery life is Huawei Band 4’s weakest point. While connected and at full brightness, its 91mAh battery – at standby – lasted for only 9 days. At moderate to heavy usage while playing Ring Fit adventure, the battery discharge rate was at 4% per hour. Theoretically, if I continuously use this for a day at the same level of activity, its battery life will last for a little more than a day.
Thankfully, the smartband may be fully charged for less than two hours. Since the smartband also has TFT display, it – in a way – helps in conserving more battery to boot.
Features: Huawei Band 4 offers a decent number of workout presets and extra features like heart rate monitor and Find Phone. When a buying a smartband, the fitness features it offer should be considered as top priority.
It supports outdoor running, indoor cycling, rowing machine, free training, indoor walking, elliptical, etc. It is also able to measure activities like distance, steps, speed, calories, stride frequency and route.
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Paired with Huawei Health, which works in all Android smartphones (not just Huawei or Honor), you can easily gather information about your workout or simply your regular activities during the day. Huawei prepared various ways to encourage you to workout through its achievements and gamified content. Activity reports may also be viewed to see your daily, weekly and monthly report. I am hungry for data, so having something like this really gives me a lot of user satisfaction.
Plug-and-Charge: With this smartband, Huawei decided to cut off from using charging docks. This makes total sense as bringing along a separate charger for the watch can be a little cumbersome for some people. Thankfully, you can easily detach the strap and plug it to your smartphone charger or PC/Mac.
Price: Huawei Band 4 offers a fair amount of features at PhP1,890. I honestly wish that Huawei would consider tweaking its price a bit to make it even more competitive in the market.
Honor Hand 5 uses AMOLED display and includes an sP02 or blood oxygenation tracker at PhP1,699. Mi Band 5, on the other hand, has a bigger battery life and AMOLED display also at PhP1,699. If Huawei could bring this down to PhP1,499, then it is at a better position in the market.
How does it stack in the competition?
| Huawei Band 4 | Honor Band 5 | Mi Band 4 | |
| Weight | 24g | 22.7 | 22.1 |
| Display | .96″ TFT color screen, 80 x 160px RGB | 0.95” AMOLED Display, 120 x 240px RGB | 0.95″ AMOLED Display, 120 x 240 RGB |
| Dial Shape | Rectangle | Rectangle | Elliptical |
| Pre-installed Watch Faces | 3 | 8 | 4 |
| Supports Custom Watch Face | No | No | Yes |
| Charging time | 1.5 hours for 91mAh battery | 1 hour for 100 mAh battery | ≤ 2 hours for 135 mAh battery |
| Band material | TPU | TPU | TPU + TPE |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 4.0 | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, GLONASS, NFC | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, GLONASS, NFC |
| Heart Rate Monitor | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blood Oxygen detection | None | Yes | None |
| Sleep Tracker | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Workout Presets | 8 | 9 | 6 |
| Water Resistance | 5ATM | 5ATM | 5ATM |
| Music Control | No | Yes | Yes |
| Battery | 91mAh | 100 mAh | 135 mAh |
Should you buy it? I certainly think that it is still a good purchase. Huawei Band 4 has all the essentials needed for lifestyle and fitness enthusiasts albeit at a steeper price point. It also has better design and more color choices to choose from.
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
