Solid hardware crying out for better software.
The Honor Watch 5 Ultra is a surprisingly premium effort, boasting a high-end titanium design and exceptional battery life. However, it's severely hampered by limited software lacking key features and relatively unreliable health and sports tracking. It’s an ambitious step in the right direction for Honor—but, ultimately, still a flawed package crying out for support from a platform like Wear OS.
Pros
- Good features for the price
- Solid fitness and sleep tracker
- Wireless and reverse charging available
Cons
- ECG not available in all regions
- Doesn’t include LTE option
- User interface feels a bit cheap
Honor’s approach to launching smartwatches has often seemed half-hearted, following the broader industry trends but never truly looking to innovate. So, we were pleasantly surprised when we had a front-row seat to the launch of the Watch 5 Ultra—a new kind of device from the brand—in Barcelona back in March.
See, we’ve grown accustomed to not expecting much from Honor wearables over the years. While other Chinese brands have invested heavily in competing with industry giants Google and Apple, Honor has remained content to launch the occasional budget smartwatch.
As the ‘Ultra’ moniker suggests, however, this isn’t like the Honor devices that have come before. The brand doesn’t quite bill it as a genuine alternative to its Apple and Samsung namesakes, but this is still an ‘Ultra’ equivalent of what we’ve typically seen from the company.
It’s far from a perfect package, with the software undoubtedly holding this back from being a flat-out recommendation. Yet, there’s enough here to feel encouraged about Honor’s future in the space. Here’s our full review.
Price and competition
The Honor Watch 5 Ultra still hasn’t been given a US price, and it’s looking unlikely that it’ll launch stateside. That wouldn’t be a huge surprise, given previous watches have been tough to get hold of.
What we do know is the cost in Europe, which is €279. That converts to $317, edging it more into a premium price category.
If you were to compare it to other ‘Ultra’ smartwatches, it comes in considerably cheaper; the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is $799, and the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is $649.
As alluded to above, though, this is more of an ‘Ultra’ in Honor’s terms (i.e, only generally producing budget and entry-level devices). As such, a more accurate comparison in pricing would be a device like the Apple Watch Series 10 (starting at $399) or the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 (starting at $299).
Design and display
If you like the idea of a smartwatch made with high-quality materials, that’s exactly what the Watch 5 Ultra provides. It features an octagonal-shaped case crafted from a titanium alloy, offering durability while weighing only 53g, ensuring it doesn’t feel heavy on your wrist. There is just one 46mm case size available, so those hoping for a smaller watch option might feel a bit disappointed.
The titanium case features a 1.5-inch, 466 x 466 resolution AMOLED touchscreen display, protected by sapphire glass—a scratch-resistant material commonly used by Apple and Samsung on their Ultra watches. It’s a quality screen that’s colorful, if not the brightest AMOLED panel available on smartwatches right now.
On the right side of the case, there is a single button and a rotating crown, which is similar to the setup on the Honor Watch 4 Pro for when you prefer not to navigate using the touchscreen. At the back, you’ll find the optical sensor that tracks heart rate and monitors SpO2 levels. The leather strap that comes with our model certainly enhances its overall classy appearance and can be easily replaced with a more exercise-friendly fluoroelastomer band.
Honor ensures that ruggedness includes spending time in the water with a 5ATM water-resistant rating, providing a design that can withstand depths of up to 50 meters. It’s also suitable for free diving up to 40 meters, matching the same dive-proof credentials as the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Smartwatch features
Honor utilizes its own MagicOS, an operating system designed to be compatible with both Android phones and iPhones, giving it a competitive advantage over other Ultra smartwatches. To connect it to your phone and adjust settings, you’ll need Honor’s Health app, which still carries a distinctly Huawei feel. The experience off the watch isn’t the most visually appealing either.
Things are inherently much nicer on the watch, where the gesture-based interface draws inspiration from other Android-based smartwatches but appears somewhat immature compared to Google’s Wear OS and Apple’s watchOS.
As a smartwatch, you can view notifications, select from a nice range of watch faces, and access staples like weather forecasts and timers. Only Android users can utilize some of the 8GB storage available for syncing purchased music, as there’s no support for offline syncing from major third-party music streaming services.
There’s no app storefront, contactless payments, or eSIM functionality; however, you can take calls over Bluetooth, and the speaker and microphone perform well enough to make calling a more appealing option. This is a smartwatch in desperate need of better software; although it gets some things right, plenty still falls short of standard.
Health and sports tracking
Honor provides nearly everything you need for the Watch 5 Ultra to serve as your reliable sports watch, fitness tracker, and health monitor. However, those health features fall short of receiving any regulatory approval that would make them effective for detecting serious health conditions.
This includes the addition of an ECG sensor, which we weren’t able to test, and it’s still unclear when that added functionality will be activated. You get heart rate and SpO2 tracking, along with heart rate variability-powered stress monitoring, from the PPG optical sensor on the back of the watch.
It wasn’t a particularly impressive performer in this regard. Daily heart rate readings were higher compared to two other watches we know offer reliable heart rate data. As expected, it didn’t improve much during exercise, where heart rate data was noticeably higher than that from a heart rate monitor chest strap for higher intensity workouts.
It feels better equipped as a fitness tracker to monitor step counts, but it doesn’t really offer any notable features to encourage you to stay active and on the move.
Sleep monitoring was also good, with core stats like sleep duration and key sleep stages similar on most nights to those of two other sleep trackers we also took to bed. When you’re reviewing this data in the app, there’s some brief analysis to encourage you to change your bad sleep habits, with the presentation of those insights a bit on the clunky side.
GPS accuracy, sports modes, and training analysis
Honor addresses the essential features that make the Watch 5 Ultra a capable sports watch. It includes built-in GPS, though it lacks the latest dual-frequency GPS found in other Ultra and non-Ultra smartwatches.
Among the 100 available sports modes, options like running, swimming, and indoor workouts such as rowing offer activity-specific metrics. You can examine your VO2 max estimates, view your fitness age, and it will also interestingly inform you how much fat you’ve reduced during workouts.
While there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about the Ultra’s performance as a sports watch, GPS tracking worked adequately but tended to overreport distance and metrics such as average pace.
Some training analyses and insights, such as VO2 max estimates, were sufficient to provide useful guidance on your training progress. There are additional training plans available in the app, though one notable omission from this Ultra watch is the mapping and navigation support found on other outdoor-centric smartwatches.
Battery life
Unlike rival Ultras, Honor’s one can go a while longer before you need to drop it onto its proprietary charging cradle. You should be able to enjoy up to 15 days of watch time compared to 14 days on the Honor Watch 4 Pro.
Like most smartwatches, keeping the screen on at all times results in a more dramatic drop in battery life. In that scenario, it maxes out to around 5 days and can be less if you’re using all available smarts daily. If you can live without that display shining bright day and night, you can get over a week out of the Ultra and much closer to that maximum 15 days.
It’s nice to see that when it’s time to charge, you do have support for QI-certified wireless chargers as well as reverse charging, and had no problem dropping it on several wireless chargers and the back of a phone with reverse charging to power it up in a more convenient fashion.
