The Huawei Band 7 and Xiaomi Mi Band 7 are two fitness trackers that won't burn a big hole in your bank balance – and offer a mix of fitness, health, and smartwatch features in a band form.
For the first time, two devices are much closer in price, so there's good reason to take a look at how they match up.
We've spent testing time with both the Mi Band 7 and the Huawei Band 7, so decided to give you a better sense of how these two fitness trackers compare.
And if neither fits the fill, check out our guide to the best fitness trackers from our reviews.
Tested: Xiaomi Mi Band 7 review | Huawei Band 7 review
Price and alternatives
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The Huawei Band 7 often comes in cheaper than the Mi Band 7 and we've already seen Huawei drop the price even lower, letting you pick it up for even less.
However, patchy availability in the US can see pricing fluctuate. Check above for the latest, best deals.
That pricing does still put both trackers below the Inspire 2 ($99/£89), Fitbit's cheapest fitness tracker.
Key specs compared
| Mi Band 7 | Huawei Band 7 | |
| Screen size | 1.62-inch | 1.47-inch |
| Screen resolution | 192 x 490 (AMOLED) | 194 x 368 (AMOLED) |
| Continuous and on-the-spot SpO2 tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Touchscreen | Yes | Yes |
| GPS | Connected | Connected |
| Heart rate monitoring | Yes | Yes |
| Battery life | 18 days | Up to 14 days |
Design and screen
Wareable
Huawei Band 7
The Xiaomi and Huawei Bands adopt similar band-style designs, with some key differences in size and fit.
The Mi Band 7 seems like a traditional activity band to wear and is lighter on the wrist. However, the Huawei Band 7 offers an experience much closer to that of a Huawei or Amazfit watch – but is very prominent and noticeable to wear.
The Huawei Band 7 has a 44mm polymer case the measures 9.9mm thick and without the strap, weighs in at 16g. It's more of a smartwatch hybrid, with the screen compressed into a long, thin, rectangle rather than a square or circle.
Xiaomi's latest Band has a 46.5mm polymer case that measures in at 12.5mm thick and weighs 13.5g.
If you're all about the colors, the Huawei comes in green, red, black, and pink shades while the Mi Band offers more with ivory, olive, orange, blue, black, and pink shades coming as standard.
There's also the option to pick up additional straps in neon green, orange, green and blue, giving you more official strap options to play with compared to Huawei's Band. Those straps are going to be easier to swap out on the Xiaomi as well.
Wareable
On the Huawei, you are getting a single physical button while Xiaomi sticks to touchscreen interactions.
The Huawei also has a touchscreen display, but if you like the idea of having a button to wake up and turn the screen off, then you can do that.
Onto those displays and you're getting the AMOLED kind on both with Xiaomi offering technically a larger, 1.62-inch, 192 x 490 resolution one compared to the 1.47-inch, 194 x 368 resolution display on the Huawei Band 7.
There's a lot more real estate on the Huawei Band 7, which is easy to use and read. On the Xiaomi Mi Band, 7 text feels compressed, and often has to scroll across to be read. However, we were very aware of the Huawei screen lighting up on our wrist during testing, and it's certainly not a subtle piece of technology to wear.
However, both offer a similar experience in terms of brightness, vibrancy, and visibility. They both offer support for an always-on display mode.
If you want to keep either of these bands on in the shower or take them for a dip in the pool, you can do that. You're getting the same 5ATM water resistance rating, letting you submerge them in water up to 50 meters in depth.
Fitness and health tracking features
Wareable
Fitness tracking is what these two devices are all about, and they'll give you the capability to track steps, and heart rate, monitor sleep and blood oxygen levels, and a bit more too.
On the Mi Band 7, you're getting something that holds well on that front. It'll count steps, and distance covered estimate calorie burn, and let you know when you've been inactive too long.
The Huawei Band 7 has a similar sensor setup and offers the same level of tracking but like the Xiaomi, it lacks an altimeter to track elevation when you're on the move.
Sleep tracking on both Bands with Xiaomi's tracking detail like sleep stages, generating sleep scores, and offering the ability to track heart rate, breathing quality, and SpO2 data at night.
Huawei also offers rich sleep data here too and will track naps during the day, and additionally promises to identify six major sleep-related issues and offer suggestions on how to improve things. If any of those things go awry, it will provide advice on how to improve.
In our testing, we found both trackers tended to overestimate sleep and there were some issues with sensitivity against the best in the business (Fitbit/Oura/Whoop) but generally both are useful for guidance of sleep trends and quality.
Wareable
Huawei Band 7
Heart rate accuracy
There are optical heart rate sensors on both of these trackers and they're capable of delivering continuous and resting heart rate data.
It's the same story for SpO2 sensors and both Huawei and Xiaomi offer the ability to set up high and low alerts for both SpO2 and heart rate readings.
The heart rate sensor on Xiaomi's Mi Band additionally powers its PAI score feature, which seeks to encourage users to raise their heart rate through the exercise regularly throughout the week. Huawei, on the other hand, uses active minutes, tracked on the watch using the ring shown above. PAI is a little more motivating, once you understand it.
Both devices offer decent analysis of heart rate data, but there are accuracy issues that mean that each device is suitable for a look at your health trends – but not for heart rate targeted workouts or medical purposes.
Both suffered large differences in max HR data during workouts in our testing while resting HR data was largely on point. Both were wide of the mark in terms of estimation of VO2 Max.
Both trackers offer stress monitoring powered by heart rate variability measurements and guided breathing exercises to get you back to a calmer state.
Xiaomi additionally offers female health tracking (just self-reporting of cycles), which you won't find supported on Huawei's device.
Both these two trackers are very similar in terms of the health and fitness tracking features they offer –bar some slight differences that likely won't be dealbreakers for most.
Sports tracking features
Wareable
Huawei Band 7
Yes, these might be fitness trackers, but they promise to track more vigorous exercise too, and do it with similar features and sensors.
The Huawei Band 7 offers 96 workout modes, which include cycling, running, and swimming. While there's no onboard GPS, you can use the connected kind via your phone. You can also track your heart rate during exercise here.
It's a similar story to the Xiaomi Mi Band 7, which offers 120 workout modes that includes tracking for activities like running, cycling, pool swimming, and indoor activities like rowing and skipping. It also lacks built-in GPS, but does offer connected GPS support and will let you monitor heart rate as well.
Something we didn't expect to find on either band was the kind of training insights you typically find on pricier sports watches – but both are surprisingly powerful running trackers. Both will track VO2 Max, as well as recovery analysis and advanced analysis of your sessions.
The Huawei Band grabs training analysis features from its smartwatches, letting you see training load information while runners can view a running ability index to understand just how good a runner you are compared to other Huawei users.
For the price, these trackers offer a surprising amount here, but you will always need to keep your expectations in check if you're expecting performance to rival a dedicated sports watch.
Smartwatch features
Wareable
Between sleep and exercise tracking, you can use these Bands like smartwatches and both offer a fair amount on that front.
Both work with Android phones and iPhones but in true Huawei fashion, some features are off-limits to iPhone owners.
On the Mi Band 7 pairing it up to either phone platform, you can expect to view notifications, weather forecasts, set alarms, and reminders and there are also music controls here as well.
Over to the Huawei Band 7 and you're also getting the ability to see phone notifications and send quick replies (Android only) view weather forecasts, control music playing on your phone (Android only), use the tracker as a smartphone camera remote (Huawei phones only) and there find my phone feature.
There are watch faces aplenty on both fronts that take full advantage of those AMOLED screens. If you like watch faces and like to switch things up regularly, you're going to be well served on both bands.
So you're going to get a more consistent smartwatch experience on the Mi Band 7 when using it with an iPhone or Android phone, while Huawei may offer some more desirable features like actionable notifications but fewer features for iPhone users.
Battery life
Wareable
Xiaomi has always sought to deliver big battery numbers from its Mi Band and it's no different with the 7.
Huawei has been delivering strong battery life from its wearables too and that looks to be maintained with the Band 7.
Huawei's tracker promises up to 14 days of battery with that number dropping to 10 days in heavy usage. That was borne out in our testing. If you turn on the always-on display, that drops by half.
It also includes a fast-charge feature that gives you 2 days of tracking time from a 5-minute charge.
The Mi Band 7 promises to deliver 14 days as well but dropped to a week in testing with continuous heart rate, SpO2, and stress monitoring turned on.
The Huawei Band 7 will give you more tracking with the bells and whistles turned on – and has that added fast charge feature support, which you don't get on the Xiaomi tracker.
Which should you buy?
So do you go with Xiaomi Mi Band 7 or Huawei Band 7? We feel the Huawei Band 7 edges things in our testing – but as ever, it's not the right one for everyone.
Buy the Huawei Band 7 if...you want the cheaper fitness tracker with extra smartwatch features (for Android users) and quick charging. For most people, it's a no-brainer.
Buy the Xiaomi Mi Band 7 if...is the slimmer, and slightly more discreet device. If you want a fitness tracker, this is the one to go for.
How we test
By Michael Sawh
Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.
He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.
Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech.
Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.