Huawei Band 4 Pro: Fitness tracker with GPS for $59.99

If we are honest, there is almost always only one option for us in the fitness tracker sector every year: the Xiaomi Mi Band. With such a band design, Honor is usually strong with the current band 5, but we have avoided the bigger (and more expensive) bands of Huawei until now. Why is that? Because the Huawei Band 4 Pro even integrates GPS.

Huawei Band 4 Pro at Geekbuying for $59.99

Technical data of the Huawei Band 4 Pro

New generation, old design

The design approach can be clearly recognized by the name alone: The Pro version of the fourth generation is also a band again. So it looks basically similar to Honor Band 5, the AMOLED panel also offers a 0.95″ diagonal. The resolution is also 240 x 120 pixels, so the aspect ratio is 2:1. There is a capacitive touch button under the screen, which is used for additional operation, as the display is of course a touchscreen.

At the actual tracker there is a band made of silicone rubber, which has a total length of 21,2 cm and a width of 16,5 mm. Huawei offers three colors for the pro version: Pink Gold, Cinnabar Red and Graphite Black. Combined with the tracker made of plastic and metal, it has a total weight of 25 g, which makes it minimally heavier than Honors version. Like the competition, the Huawei Band 4 Pro offers the water protection classification ATM 5, which makes it suitable for showering and swimming. But you should not go diving with it.

Range of functions

Of course Huawei also works here with its own “operating system” and no open WearOS. Therefore, the range of functions is of course limited from the beginning, but extensive and almost congruent with Honor Band 5, including a notification function for calls and apps, alarm clock, find his mobile phone, the weather display, music control (Android only) and also a remote shutter release for the camera.

It also includes sleep tracking based on Huaweiss TruSleep 2.0 algorithm, which divides your sleep into different phases and can even help you analyze sleep problems. As always, if you are suffering from real sleep problems, you should see a doctor instead of relying on a fitness tracker.

Sports Modes with GPS

The unique selling point of the Huawei Band 4 Pro is the integrated GPS. In this price range, the possibility of positioning is otherwise only available with an Amazfit Bip or the Verge Lite. This is especially cool for sports modes such as outdoor running and cycling as well as hiking. For indoor sports modes such as treadmill, crosstrainer, free training and swimming, however, the GPS is rather unnecessary. The only special sports mode that catches the eye is rowing, the remaining modes can also be found on the cheaper Xiaomi Mi Band 4.

The Huawei Band 4 Pro collects data with the Huawei TruSeen 3.5 heart rate monitor on the bottom and monitors the heart rate zone, the VOmax value (oxygen intake) and gives tips on recovery time. If you already have experience with the measurements at Huawei, please write this in the comments. We were more satisfied with the Honor Band 5 than with Xiaomi.

Does not last forever

The great strength of the competition between Xiaomi and Amazfit is the often very long running time. With the Bip you don’t have to go to the power outlet for a whole month. The fact that Huawei is not the favorite here can be seen from the fact that they don’t actively advertise the runtime on the product page. Depending on the settings, the 100 mAh capacity provides a runtime of up to 12 days, but almost all functions have to be disabled for this. More realistic is the runtime of 5 to 7 days, depending on how many notifications you receive and how often you activate the screen.

To connect to the smartphone, the Huawei Health app is required, which requires at least Android 4.4 or iOS 9. The connection is established via the unfortunately somewhat outdated Bluetooth 4.2 standard.

Evaluation

If you already have a Huawei Band 3 Pro, you will notice: Not much has changed. And that’s true, the main differences are almost only the colors and apparently also the hardware used, but unfortunately the manufacturer hides that. At around $60 the Band 4 Pro is not quite cheap, the Amazfit Bip S will be available in February for a similar price. Huawei, however, may have the somewhat more precise analysis and hopefully also the better GPS than Amazfit, but we still have to test that first.