For several weeks now, the new fitness bracelet Honor Band 4 has been on my wrist. This is the third one in a row.
Review of Honor Band 4
I’ll start, as always, with the external component, sinceit is of paramount importance to many. It’s not for nothing that they say that you meet people by their clothes… I use the black version of the watch. The design is quite stylish, the screen fits directly into the strap. But there are some nuances. For example, I like the strap here less than on the Mi Band 3. Firstly, it is longer. And since my wrist is very narrow, there is a part of the strap that sticks out. Secondly, the holes in the strap for fastening do not look so aesthetically pleasing. They are very noticeable because they are too wide. Because of this, from the inside of the wrist the accessory looks overly sporty. The clasp itself is classic; to be honest, I liked it better on the Mi Band 3. But there is a textured coating on the strap, which looks very cool.
Display
I really liked the screen from the first time I saw it.Bright, big. And most importantly — he's colored! The display here contains all the relevant information: current time, battery charge, weather, Bluetooth connection status icon, date, day of the week, weather outside the window and even the number of steps taken. The information is placed on the display very comfortably, there is no feeling of porridge. By the way, there are several dial options in the settings.
At night I set the mode to turn on automatically«Do not disturb», otherwise the display glows very brightly and interferes. I would also note the beautiful touch button on the screen in a silver rim, which resembles a fingerprint scanner.
Notifications
Notifications about not only come to the braceletcalls, but also from other applications. In the settings of the application on the phone, you can adjust this moment, remove unnecessary ones, so that the bracelet will not disturb you once again. When the message arrives, the bracelet vibrates with a slight delay of 1-2 seconds. When you raise your wrist, the screen lights up and the text of the message appears in front of your eyes. In general, there is nothing fundamentally new here. But there are also some points worth mentioning.
In memory of the bracelet can hang much morenotifications. But when their number reaches 10, for example, the clock opens a menu with a 1-2 second delay. This is not critical, but noticeable to me. You just need to clean the notification folder and do not accumulate them.
Management and functions
I will talk a little about bracelet management. To activate the bracelet, you need to press the touch button. Or just lift the wrist (this option is adjustable in the settings). Access to the menu is a vertical swipe across the screen. By making the swipe up and down, you can navigate through the menu sections. By the way, their location can also be adjusted in the settings in the application on the mobile phone. Unnecessary in general can be removed. When you select the desired menu item, you need to click on the display to start it. If you want to return to the main screen, simply press the touch button on the display. By and large this is all control. Nothing complicated, but after Mi Band 3 I got used to it for 1-2 days.
Of the extra features, I like it here.Sleep monitoring option and activity analysis. For some reason I didn’t use these settings on the Mi Band, but here I constantly watch my activity. Pulse measurement here is more accurate. There are various fitness modes, but I have not had time to test them yet. I do not think that it will play a big role in the selection.
Battery
In a month of use, I have already charged the bracelettwice. This doesn’t bother me, considering that it constantly vibrates from incoming notifications. On average, with constant activity it lasts for a week, with moderate — for a couple of weeks. The charger is not very nice, for some reason the cable is white and everything else is black. It is not clear what the manufacturer was thinking when he packed a white wire into the box, which does not fit into the overall style at all. But this is not the main thing… And the charging station itself is kind of inconvenient, it constantly falls down.
Problems and Errors
The first problem I encountered duringusing Band 4 — inability to update software. As soon as I synchronized the bracelet with the phone, I was immediately prompted to do so. But the update always failed, or it was supposedly installed, but in fact it was the previous version of the software. Here I am sinning not on the bracelet, but on my OnePlus 5T phone, bought in China. Because after pairing the bracelet with the iPhone, I was immediately able to install new software without problems.
The second problem — these are frequent breaksBluetooth connections with your phone. Again, maybe my phone is to blame, but I'm not sure. It happens that I create a pairing with the bracelet through the application, and it does not connect for 10-15 minutes, even rebooting both does not help. But if you leave the watch and phone alone, after 10 minutes they will connect on their own. Otherwise no complaints.
The NFC module in Russia does not work, so far it’s impossible to pay with it in our country, just like with the help of Mi Band 3.
Comparison with Xiaomi Mi Band 3
Feels like there are strong differences between the twoI didn't notice the bracelets. The weight of the watches is approximately the same. For some reason my hand sweats more often under the Honor Band 4 strap, sometimes I even take it off. It's disappointing that you can't change the straps on the new watch, like on the Mi Band 3. Externally, they look different. Mi Band 3 is more streamlined, somewhat cosmic, while Honor Band 4 — more angular and strict.
The main difference I see is in the display.On the Honor Band 4 it is noticeably larger and brighter. If you place two bracelets side by side, the differences in screen brightness are very noticeable. Viewing notifications and messages on Honor Band 4 is much more convenient with vertical scrolling than with horizontal swipes on Xiaomi Mi Band 3.
The battery life of the watches is also different.The Xiaomi bracelet could last a month without recharging. I’m unlikely to achieve such a service life with the Honor Band 4: it’s all because of the color display, which consumes more energy. But for me it’s not critical to charge the bracelet for an hour and a half.
I also note that the new Honor Band 4 responds better to raising your wrist. With Xiaomi, sometimes you had to jerk your hand more actively to activate the screen.
Other notable differences — more brightlypronounced vibration on the Honor Band 4, because of this I wake up sharply and quickly from the alarm clock, I want to turn it off right away so as not to wake up the others. The charging substation of Mi Band 3 is much more convenient than that of Honor. But the latter menu is more convenient and the ability to store incoming messages is not so limited.
On the Xiaomi bracelet, my screen quickly got scratched — a few abrasions. Let's see what happens in the case of Honor.
If I had to choose what to buy— Honor Band 4 or Xiaomi Mi Band 3, I would focus on the external design, how the bracelet looks on the hand. By the way, about the price… I bought both of them in China at discounts that are no longer available. But according to the official price tag, Honor Band 4 now costs 4490 on the manufacturer’s website, and Xiaomi Mi Band 3 — 2990 rubles. The difference is quite noticeable — at 1500 rubles. I've also compiled a table of the pros and cons of each bracelet below.
Honor Band 4
Xiaomi Mi Band 3
pros
Large color display
You can change the straps
More notifications are stored in memory.
Holds a charge longer
Accurate pulse measurement
Low price
Convenient view messages
Convenient charging
Lungs
Convenient strap clasp
Minuses
Discharge quickly
Few notifications in memory
NFC does not work
NFC doesn't work