The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is here, and it brings most everything we loved about its big brother into a smaller case, a smaller price, but with massive value. Yes, there are several things left out of this version, most of that happens to be fitness and sensor options. But, we think most users won’t even notice, and many users don’t even use some of those missing fitness options.
Estimated reading time: 17 minutes
OnePlus has done a remarkable job with the Watch 3 and this follow up is aimed at users who don’t need every bell and whistle but still want the quality and look of the big brother. Let’s get into the full review of the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm.
The Quick Take
My last and only experience with a OnePlus watch was the Watch 3. I had heard great things about the previous watches, but never had the opportunity to use them. The Watch 3 has a ton of features and sensors that I don’t even use, but I do prefer the larger case on the Watch 3. That said, I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the look of the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm. I thought the smaller case would make it look silly on my wrist, but I was wrong.
Yes, it does look smaller, but it fits my wrist just fine. One of the benefits I found was that the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is lighter. The Watch 3 is bulkier and heavier, and it was nice to have the option to wear a lighter and thinner watch when I didn’t feel like a bigger watch. Overall, I think most users will enjoy the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm and even with some of the sensors and health features missing, that won’t affect the majority of users.
Score and Bottom Line
OnePlus Watch 3 43mm
$299.99
Nailed it
- Sleek design that at first glance I did not like but upon wearing it, it is fantastic
- Very good build quality
- Easy to setup and use
- Very nice display
- Performance is very good
- Battery life is outstanding
- Price point is spot on
Needs work
- Some health features from the larger Watch 3 are missing
- Build materials aren’t as robust as Watch 3, but that makes sense due to the price
I have to admit, when I first saw the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm in the press materials, I thought it looked too much like the Pixel Watch. There is some resemblance, but once you get your eyes on it closer, it takes on a life of its own. This made me happy because I’m not much of a Pixel watch fan.
So the front of the watch looks as if it slopes off, and it does ever so slightly. But there is an edge around it that gives it a nicer look than the Pixel watch. So I love the design, it’s sleek and minimal. It gives a sense of two designs in one. If that makes sense, probably doesn’t when reading, but let’s move on.
The build quality is very nice, yes it lacks some of the nicer materials of the Watch 3, but this is still a great build and the materials are inline with the cost. The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is also simple to set up, especially if you’re using a OnePlus device. Like my OnePlus 13R.
The display is vibrant and bright, and pretty much the same as you get on the more expensive Watch 3. Performance is excellent, and battery life is outstanding, just like its big brother. The price point of $299 is fantastic for what you’re getting here.
Overall, I, personally, prefer the Watch 3, but I still love the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm for different reasons. I prefer the more expensive watch due to its larger size, I just like bigger watches. But I enjoyed the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm because it is lighter and actually works better for some occasions. I think users who don’t want to spend more than $300 are going to love this watch. It has most everything the typical user wants and needs, but not every bell and whistle. The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is the best sub $300 Android watch you can buy.
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OnePlus Watch 3 43mm Specifications
- Material and Finish:
- Bezel:
- Case: Stainless steel
- Cover glass: 2.5D Glass
- Size and Weight:
- Approximately 43.2mm x 43.2mm x 11mm（excluding PPG）
- 37.8g (excluding wrist strap)
- 59g (including the wrist strap)
- Battery: 354mAh
- Display:
- 1.32 inches
- 466*466
- AMOLED
- 352 PPI
- Default max brightness is 600 nits
- High brightness mode 1,000 nits
- Chip:
- Processor: Snapdragon W5 Gen 1
- MCU: BES2800BP
- Memory: 32GB
- RAM: 2GB
- 4GB EMMC FOR RTOS
- Operating System: Wear OS by Google + RTOS
- Sensors:
- Optical heart rate sensor
- Optical pulse oximeter sensor
- Geomagnetic sensor
- Light sensor
- Barometer
- Acceleration sensor
- Gyroscope sensor
- Health:
- Mind and Body Breathing
- Sleep monitoring
- Heart rate monitoring
- OHealth application with Health Insights, Support Google Health Connect service; Strava; Health journey
- Workouts:
- 11 Professional sports modes
- Skiing (speed, drop, slope, number of trips, full and single trip distance, etc.)
- Running (cadence, stride length, ground contact time, vertical amplitude, vertical stride ratio, left and right ground contact balance, running power)
- Tennis (swing speed, total strokes, serve, forehand, backhand)
- Badminton (swing speed, number of swings, longest continuous shot, forehand, backhand, overhand, underhand)
- Swimming (100-meter pace, number of laps, distance, number of strokes, swolf)
- Rope skipping (number of times, speed)
- Mountain climbing (distance, altitude, cumulative climb, cumulative descent)
- Walking (distance, number of steps, cadence)
- Cycling (distance, speed)
- Elliptical machine (cadence, number of steps)
- Rowing machine (paddle frequency, number of strokes)
- Connectivity:
- Bluetooth calling
- Support NFC
- WLAN 5G/2.4G, 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Bluetooth 5.2
- Durability:
What’s In The Box
- OnePlus Watch 3 43mm
- Charging Puck
- Charging Cable
- Strap
- Manual and Documentation
Design
When I first saw the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm in the press materials. I thought it was going to have a sloping front face where the glass sort of falls over into the casing. But this is not what it looks like. It does have a distinct bezel that has an angle to it, and I much prefer this over the Skittle shaped face of the Pixel Watch.
What’s less noticeable are the little hashes all around the bezel, just under the glass. I like the look of this but do wish they stood out more. The case is made of stainless steel and my unit is very glossy. The Watch 3 is a little less shiny.
The strap on the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is much thinner than the one on the Watch 3 and a little shorter. It fits fine, but I would have liked a little bit longer of a strap for my meaty wrists. I was worried that the size of this watch would look silly on my wrist, but it looked great. As a matter of fact, I like this watch for more formal occasions. It looks less sporty and more casual/dress orientated.
It’s also lighter than its bigger brother, and that was nice as well. Not that the Watch 3 is heavy, but the size and weight difference is noticeable. I think because of the slimmer design and look, it lends itself nicely to more than just jeans and t-shirts.
The bottom of the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm houses all the sensors and tech bits. This looks basically the same as the Watch 3 and many other smartwatches.
One of the design cues I love about the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm and its big brother is the placement of the digital crown. It’s set up towards the top instead of on the side. This helps to minimize accidental pushes when I am moving around and my wrist bends. Other watches, including the Apple Watch Ultra, have the crown on the side. I often accidentally push the crown when bending my hand and wrist. The OnePlus Watch 3 does not have this issue nearly as often. Sometimes it does happen, but far less, and I appreciate that.
Overall, the design of the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm was a surprise to me. I thought I wasn’t going to like the look, but it turned out to be my 2nd favorite looking smartwatch, the Watch 3 being my first. The Apple Watch Ultra comes in 3rd in terms of looks. This is a nice-looking piece of kit.
Setup and Ease of Use
I set the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm up with my OnePlus 13R, yes I wish I had the 13 but OnePlus has not sent me that just yet, but I digress. The set-up was a breeze and worked almost the same as setting up an Apple Watch. The phone recognized that there was a watch in the area that needed to be paired, and a notification asked if I wanted to pair it. A very nicely designed notification, I might add.
Once you get into the pairing stage, it’s just a matter of following the prompts on your phone and pairing with the OnePlus OHealth app. I believe you can use the Wear OS app too, but you may lose some of the OnePlus functions. So I went with the OHealth app. Once you have that all set up, you can finish setting up on the watch. Oh, yes, you can set this up on any Android smartphone, and you can install the OHealth app on any smartphone. No worries there!
There’s not much to that, again, it’s just a series of prompts that show you the basic functionality of the watch and how to perform them. Once you get through all of those set-ups. You can start using the watch. Overall, if you’re familiar with a smartwatch, this is simple and easy to use, and the app interface is simple as well.
Display
The 1.32″ AMOLED display on the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm gets to a decent peak brightness of 1,000 nits, and it looks damn good. It does an impressive job in bright conditions, including direct sunlight. This being an AMOLED display, the colors are vibrant and punchy and the blacks are deep and inky. I will say, the bigger brother does perform better in the brightness category, but this is one of the cost-cutting measures I’m sure.
The front glass is made of 2.5D glass, not sapphire like the Watch 3, but it’s still good. I would certainly be more careful with the 43mm than the bigger brother. Keep an eye out for screen protectors, maybe a third party will make some for the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm.
The always-on display is great and easy to see at a glance without having to lift the watch up. Overall, this is a worthy display for the price point. It’s vibrant and colorful, has deep blacks, is bright and easy to read.
Software
Like the Watch 3, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is running two different operating systems that are responsible for different portions of the software experience. More on the chip that runs this, all in performance.
But essentially, we are running Wear OS alongside RTOS, or Real-Time Operating System. Wear OS is responsible for the heavy lifting parts of the system, while RTOS does the lighter weight stuff. Here’s what RTOS is partially responsible for and what it does.
- The RTOS handles essential, background, and power-efficient tasks. This includes basic watch functions, health tracking, and other core operations.
- By offloading these tasks to the RTOS, OnePlus aims to improve battery life significantly, and it does that.
- The RTOS is there to handle the basic functions of the watch, in a very efficient manner.
- So, as for the software experience, nothing is that much different from any other Wear OS watch. Except maybe the OHealth app is being used instead of Wear OS. I actually preferred the OHealth app over Wear OS, and in the app you can adjust everything and anything on your watch, including watch faces.
As for the health bits of the OHealth software and app, they work really nicely, at least the ones I used. I can’t say a lot about accuracy, I think the jury is still out on just how accurate these health watches are. Results may vary from one user to another, and all I can say is, that the results from the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm are similar to the Watch 3 and pretty close to the results from my Apple Watch Ultra 2.
One other nice software touch here is the variety of really nice-looking watch faces. OnePlus makes it so you don’t even need to look in the Play Store for new faces. Unless you want to find a 3rd party face and install it, you can do that. But the ones OnePlus has here are very nice, and I was happy with using the provided faces.
The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm has a bevy of watch faces available, but you can also use 3rd party watch faces. I was delighted with the watch face seen in the photos in this review. Overall, the software experience was excellent and the OHealth app is simple to use and navigate. I like that the watch faces and health bits are all in the same app. I did not use the Wear OS app with this watch, I feel the best experience will be with the OnePlus app.
Performance
Powering the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 paired with 2GB of RAM. The way OnePlus has this set up, is for the two installed operating systems to work together but separate. As explained, Wear OS and RTOS are responsible for different operations and this increases performance and battery life. It’s not unlike Intel’s new Arrow and Lunar Lake chips having a CPU, GPU, and NPU. The Neural Processor in those new chips helps increase the performance of the system overall. Same concept here.
This dual-OS setup allows for a balance between the versatility of Wear OS and the efficiency of the RTOS addition. The result is a smartwatch that offers a robust app ecosystem while also providing long-lasting battery performance and overall app performance. This means your watch knows when to use the different operating systems for what you need it to do. So there is no wasted energy with one doing unnecessary tasks that the other is assigned to do.
The One Plus Watch 3 43mm using RTOS is a key component of its architecture, and it is brilliantly designed to optimize power consumption and ensure smooth, reliable performance for core watch functions. Overall, this is hands down the best performing Android watch ecosystem on the market right now. OnePlus is really in the game with both of these watches.
Battery Life
The advertised battery life of the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is 60-hours in Smart Mode and up to 7-days in Power Save Mode. Battery life is subjective, and each person will use the watch differently. So it’s difficult to accurately measure what everyone should expect from a battery-powered device.
That said, I don’t work out very much, other than walking and working around the yard and house. So I’m not consistently using the tracking features. I will say that the battery life on the larger Watch 3 is better, but it is bigger.
Still, I was able to pull 4-days of battery life out of the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm, using the watch the way I normally would. I did let it sit without wearing it for a bit, and the battery lasted longer when in Power Save Mode. OnePlus has done a fantastic job with battery, both the Watch 3 and Watch 3 43mm beat my Apple Watch Ultra in battery life.
If you’re using all the sensors and really pushing the watch to its limits, you’re probably going to get less battery life but even then, I do think that you can get 2-days with a heavy use case. Overall, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is excellent when it comes to battery life.
Price/Value
Like its big brother, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm has an enticing price. For just around three-hundred dollars, you’re getting a lot of gear here. You get a slick look and design, the essential health tracking features, fantastic battery life, and more. I think the value is here, undoubtedly. Though I would say that the larger Watch 3 is better and only fifty dollars more. They’re both remarkable watches, and it will come down to the size for most. At least, I think that’ll be the deciding factor for most.
Wrap Up
I have to admit, when I first saw the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm in the press materials, I thought it looked too much like the Pixel Watch. There is some resemblance, but once you get your eyes on it closer, it takes on a life of its own. This made me happy because I’m not much of a Pixel watch fan.
So the front of the watch looks as if it slopes off, and it does ever so slightly. But there is an edge around it that gives it a nicer look than the Pixel watch. So I love the design, it’s sleek and minimal. It gives a sense of two designs in one. If that makes sense, probably doesn’t when reading, but let’s move on.
The build quality is very nice, yes it lacks some of the nicer materials of the Watch 3, but this is still a great build and the materials are inline with the cost. The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is also simple to set up, especially if you’re using a OnePlus device. Like my OnePlus 13R.
The display is vibrant and bright, and pretty much the same as you get on the more expensive Watch 3. Performance is excellent, and battery life is outstanding, just like its big brother. The price point of $299 is fantastic for what you’re getting here.
Overall, I, personally, prefer the Watch 3, but I still love the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm for different reasons. I prefer the more expensive watch due to its larger size, I just like bigger watches. But I enjoyed the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm because it is lighter and actually works better for some occasions. I think users who don’t want to spend more than $300 are going to love this watch. It has most everything the typical user wants and needs, but not every bell and whistle. The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is the best sub $300 Android watch you can buy.
