I wasn’t in the market for a new watch when the Honor Watch 6 landed on my desk. My Garmin Instinct Solar has served me well for more than three years, and its exceptional battery life and solid, simple interface still do what I need them to. Nonetheless, Honor’s latest product is unusual in that it might actually understand what I want from a device of this type to the extent that it could unseat (or unbuckle) my Garmin permanently.
I am in the small minority of people who prioritise something that most manufacturers still treat as optional — proper battery life. I have literally no interest in a watch that I need to charge daily, every few days or even weekly if I can avoid it. Coming from the Garmin Instinct Solar, that’s a very tough ask for most watches, especially those featuring advanced features and an AMOLED display. The Instinct isn’t the prettiest watch I’ve ever owned, and sometimes I sit in business meetings wishing that it was a bit less “rugged” but the battery life and reliability meant that I never had to think too much about it.
Switching to the Honor Watch 6, then, was always going to be a test of patience and expectation. I wasn’t looking for something flashy or ostentatious, I wanted a watch that could match the Instinct’s stamina while giving me a more modern screen, better (or at least equivalent) health tracking and a smoother everyday experience. Honestly, in many ways, the Honor Watch 6 has surprised me. This is not just because of its excellent battery (considering it doesn’t receive a trickle of power from the sun like the Garmin does), but also because it comes with a few mod cons that I never knew I needed.
The first thing you notice on the Honor Watch 6 is the display. The Honor Watch 6’s large AMOLED screen is bright, crisp and responsive, a world away from the monochrome pixel-panel I’m used to. It makes everything feel more immediate: notifications, heart rate and exercise data and even simple menus. Honor’s UI is clean and fluid, and the Honor Watch 6 rarely stutters. The touchscreen is responsive, and the physical button layout is intuitive enough that it only took a few hours for me to feel completely at home using it.
But the real surprise, and perhaps what matters most to me, is the battery life. For a watch with a full‑colour AMOLED display, continuous health tracking, GPS, sleep monitoring and a suite of smart features (which do boil down to being fairly similar to the Garmin) the Honor Watch 6’s endurance is genuinely impressive. The Honor Watch 6 can last well beyond a week on a single charge with moderate use, and even with GPS workouts and notifications enabled, it comfortably clears the five‑to‑seven‑day mark. When compared to an Apple Watch (which I assume is the more natural comparison for Honor Watch 6 than my old Garmin) that’s easily four or five days more life between charges, if not more.
Technically, the Honor Watch 6 is well equipped. Its GPS performance is accurate and fast to lock on, requiring little input from me after I start a tracking exercise. Health tracking — heart rate, sleep, stress, Vo2 max — is consistent and detailed with good support from the Honor Health app. The workout modes are varied and you can add or remove different exercises as you need to. The sensors feel reliable, and the data they produce is easy to interpret. The Honor Watch 6 also includes features like Bluetooth calling, music control, weather, alarms, timers and a surprisingly robust suite of fitness metrics.
That said, the Honor Watch 6 isn’t perfect, and my experience pairing it with an iPhone highlights a few rough edges. Honor’s ecosystem is still primarily tuned for Android, and while the Honor Watch 6 works with iOS, it doesn’t always behave. The most frustrating issue is the random start‑and‑stop behaviour when listening to music or podcasts. Unless I fully close the app on my phone, the watch occasionally decides to pause or resume playback on its own. Additionally, I’ve found the notifications feature highly inconsistent, and believe me I’ve tried everything to fix both these relatively small issues.
The fitness app is another small issue. The watch’s hardware and sensors are excellent, but the workout app can feel fiddly compared to Garmin’s, especially when starting workouts or navigating deeper menus. It’s not that the app is bad, but it lacks the intuitive flow of Garmin’s “one touch” workouts and occasionally requires a few presses to navigate. I don’t see this being a major long term issue, and it might be a much easier transition for someone coming from a smarter watch than my Garmin is in the first place.
Despite these issues, the Honor Watch 6 succeeds because it delivers on the fundamentals that I require. It’s comfortable to wear, the screen is excellent, the performance is smooth, and the battery life is genuinely outstanding. It feels like a watch designed for people who want modern features without the constant anxiety of daily charging. For me — a business professional in the IT industry — it’s a much better looking and more professional watch than my Garmin was, but it doesn’t introduce the same reliance on a daily charge that most of its peers might.
Ultimately, the Honor Watch 6 has earned my trust and it remains on my arm even as I write this review. It doesn’t replace the Instinct Solar’s rugged charm or its solar‑powered smugness, but it offers something very different that I was perhaps denying myself for the last few years: a modern, feature‑rich smartwatch that respects your time, your battery expectations and your desire for a device that shares Garmin’s simple “it just works” philosophy. Yes, the iPhone quirks are annoying, and yes, the fitness app needs refinement, but the core experience — the battery life, the display, the tracking, the comfort — is strong enough that you feel confident wearing it every day, and I think these things will be sorted with updates over time.
You can find out more about the Honor Watch 6 on the Honor Website.
