At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Honor unveiled the Watch 5 Ultra — a titanium-clad smartwatch priced at €279 that marks the company's most earnest attempt yet to claim a seat at the premium wearable table. The device arrives with the physical credentials of a serious contender: sapphire glass, 15-day battery life, and water resistance rivaling Apple's Ultra line. Yet hardware alone cannot carry a product into relevance, and Honor's own MagicOS reminds us that ambition without ecosystem depth is a promise still waiting to be kept.
Honor Watch 5 Ultra: Premium hardware undermined by immature software
Hardware crying out for better software
Mark
Why does Honor keep stumbling with software when the hardware is clearly capable?
Mimi
Because software ecosystems take years to build, and Honor is trying to do it alone. They don't have Google's resources or Apple's vertical integration. MagicOS is their own bet, but it shows.
Mark
The heart rate readings being consistently high—is that a sensor problem or a calibration issue?
Mimi
Likely both. The optical sensor itself may be less sophisticated than competitors', but there's also probably tuning that hasn't happened. They're rushing features out before they're ready.
Mark
So the ECG sensor is there but not activated. That's strange. Why include hardware you can't use?
Mimi
Regulatory approval takes time. They probably built it in anticipation of getting clearance, but that hasn't happened everywhere. It's a bet that didn't pay off yet.
Mark
The battery life is genuinely impressive though—15 days is real.
Mimi
It is. That's where Honor's engineering actually shines. They've optimized the power management well. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to like this watch more than you actually can.
Mark
What would it take for this to be a real competitor?
Mimi
Wear OS. If Honor licensed Google's platform instead of building their own, this watch would be immediately competitive. The hardware is there. The software is what's holding it back.
Le Pouls
- Honor's Watch 5 Ultra enters a market long dominated by Apple and Samsung, carrying premium materials and a price tag that demands to be taken seriously.
- The software cracks quickly under scrutiny — no app store, no contactless payments, no eSIM, and a companion app that still feels like a hand-me-down from parent company Huawei.
- Health tracking, the core promise of any modern smartwatch, falters with heart rate readings that consistently overshoot competitors and an ECG sensor that sits dormant in most regions with no activation date in sight.
- Battery endurance and build quality give the watch a foothold, but GPS overreporting and absent navigation features undercut its credibility as an outdoor or fitness-first device.
- The Watch 5 Ultra lands as a device suspended between what it could be and what it currently is — compelling enough to notice, unfinished enough to hesitate.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Honor unveiled the Watch 5 Ultra — a titanium-clad smartwatch priced at €279 that marks the company's most earnest attempt yet to claim a seat at the premium wearable table. The device arrives with the physical credentials of a serious contender: sapphire glass, 15-day battery life, and water resistance rivaling Apple's Ultra line. Yet hardware alone cannot carry a product into relevance, and Honor's own MagicOS reminds us that ambition without ecosystem depth is a promise still waiting to be kept.
Honor arrived at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with something that felt genuinely different: a smartwatch that looked like it belonged in the premium tier. The Watch 5 Ultra, unveiled in March 2025, marked a clear departure from the company's long history of budget wearables. For years, Honor had watched Apple and Samsung dominate while occupying the low end of the market. This time, the hardware suggested the company was finally ready to compete.
The physical case makes a strong argument. A 53-gram titanium alloy body wraps a 1.5-inch AMOLED display protected by sapphire glass — material choices more typical of devices costing twice as much. The octagonal shape offers visual distinction without sacrificing comfort, and a rotating crown allows navigation without touching the screen. Water resistance reaches 5ATM, matching Apple's Ultra credentials. At €279 in Europe, it sits well below the Apple Watch Ultra 2 at $799 or Samsung's Galaxy Watch Ultra at $649, though it hasn't been confirmed for US release.
Battery life is a genuine highlight — up to 15 days in standard use, dropping to around five with the always-on display enabled. Flexible charging options, including wireless Qi and reverse charging from a compatible phone, add practical appeal.
But the software unravels much of that goodwill. Honor's MagicOS, built to work with both Android and iPhone, feels half-finished. The companion Health app still carries Huawei's aesthetic fingerprints, the interface looks crude beside Wear OS or watchOS, and there's no app store, no contactless payments, and no eSIM. Music storage is limited to Android users, with no offline streaming support.
Health tracking compounds the disappointment. The ECG sensor is present but inactive in most regions, with no clear timeline for enabling it. Heart rate readings ran consistently higher than comparison devices, a gap that widened during intense exercise. Sleep tracking was adequate but clumsily presented. Built-in GPS lacks dual-frequency technology, leading to overreported distance and pace, and mapping features standard on competing outdoor watches are absent entirely.
What remains is a device caught between ambition and execution. The titanium construction, battery endurance, and water resistance all signal that Honor finally took this category seriously. But the software feels rushed and stripped of features that have become table stakes at this price point. The Watch 5 Ultra hints at a better future for Honor in wearables — that future, however, has not yet arrived.
Honor showed up at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with something unexpected: a smartwatch that actually looked like it belonged in the premium tier. The Watch 5 Ultra, unveiled in March 2025, represents a genuine departure from the company's long history of releasing budget wearables that felt more like afterthoughts than serious products. For years, Honor had watched from the sidelines as Apple and Samsung dominated the space, content to occupy the low end of the market. This time felt different. The device sitting in our hands suggested the company was finally ready to compete.
The hardware tells a compelling story. A titanium alloy case, just 53 grams, wraps around a 1.5-inch AMOLED display with sapphire glass protection—the kind of material choices you'd expect from devices costing twice as much. The octagonal shape gives it visual distinction without sacrificing wearability. There's a rotating crown and a single button on the right side, borrowed from the company's earlier Watch 4 Pro, allowing you to navigate without touching the screen. At the back sits an optical sensor for heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring. The included leather strap feels genuinely premium, though it swaps easily for a more athletic fluoroelastomer band. Water resistance reaches 5ATM, meaning it can handle depths up to 50 meters and free diving to 40 meters—credentials matching Apple's Ultra offering.
The price, at least in Europe, sits at €279, roughly $317. That's considerably less than the Apple Watch Ultra 2 at $799 or Samsung's Galaxy Watch Ultra at $649, though it edges into premium territory when compared to the Apple Watch Series 10 or Samsung Galaxy Watch 7. Honor hasn't confirmed a US release, which wouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the company's difficulty gaining traction in American markets.
Battery life emerges as a genuine strength. The Watch 5 Ultra promises up to 15 days of standard use, a full day longer than its predecessor. With the always-on display enabled, that drops to around five days, but users willing to forgo constant screen illumination can stretch well past a week. The charging system offers flexibility too—both wireless charging via Qi-certified chargers and reverse charging, allowing the watch to draw power from a compatible phone.
Everything else crumbles under the weight of immature software. Honor built its own operating system, MagicOS, designed to work with both Android and iPhone, which should be an advantage. Instead, the experience feels half-baked. The companion Health app still carries the aesthetic fingerprints of Huawei, Honor's parent company, and the gesture-based interface on the watch itself looks crude compared to Google's Wear OS or Apple's watchOS. There's no app store, no contactless payments, no eSIM option. You can take calls over Bluetooth and the speaker-microphone combination handles voice reasonably well, but the watch lacks the ecosystem depth that makes competitors genuinely useful. Only Android users can store music on the 8GB of available storage, and even then, there's no offline syncing from major streaming services.
Health tracking reveals deeper problems. The watch includes an ECG sensor, but it remains inactive in most regions with no clear timeline for activation. Heart rate readings consistently ran higher than two comparison devices, a gap that widened during intense exercise when tested against a chest strap monitor. Sleep tracking performed adequately, with duration and stage data matching other trackers on most nights, though the app's presentation of sleep insights feels clunky. The watch includes 100 sports modes and built-in GPS, but that GPS lacks the dual-frequency technology found in competing Ultra watches. Distance and pace metrics tend toward overreporting. VO2 max estimates and fitness age calculations provide useful training guidance, but the watch omits mapping and navigation features standard on outdoor-focused competitors.
What emerges is a device caught between ambition and execution. The hardware is genuinely impressive—the titanium construction, the battery endurance, the water resistance all signal that Honor finally took this category seriously. But the software feels like it was rushed to market, stripped of features that have become standard, and lacking the polish that justifies the premium positioning. The watch works as a basic fitness tracker and sleep monitor, but it's desperate for the kind of software maturity that would make it a genuine alternative to what Apple and Samsung offer. Honor has built something that hints at a better future, but that future hasn't arrived yet.
Citations marquantes
This is a smartwatch in desperate need of better software; although it gets some things right, plenty still falls short of standard.— Wareable review
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