Introduction
The Watch S4 might just be Xiaomi’s most popular watch to date. The popularity of our S4 review can attest to this. But where the full-size S4 focused on customizability, the Watch S4 41mm focuses on being elegant.
It is quite feminine in both design and shape. The 41mm model isn’t exactly a women’s watch, but it’s close enough. Here at GSMArena HQ we found this watch to be too small for even the slimmest men’s wrists.
Ours is the Sunset Gold model, and this watch is the most exclusive of the S4 41mm models. You also have the option of black, white and mint green, although the difference is mainly in the choice of strap and the special custom element decorating the rotating crown.
The black, white and mint green models all have shiny silver cases. Straps are either leather or fluororubber, although the Sunset Gold has a unique strap, which is a mesh of finely woven steel wires.
Each color has a special accent built into the crown – the Sunset Gold features a “lab-grown” diamond, while the other three models have a color-matching center.
The Watch S4 41mm comes with the same proprietary puck-style wireless charger as the 47mm models (and all of Xiaomi’s watches, really). You need to match the two pins on the charger to their respective beds on the back of the watch. This is not ideal – we would prefer a charger with the space you want.
Build quality and features
The Xiaomi Watch S4 41mm is not only smaller than the regular S4, but it also has a slightly different design. The biggest difference is the flush watch bezel. The 47 mm model has a screw-on bezel that extends over the glass, the 41 mm model’s bezel is flush with the glass and offers no protection.
The lugs are integrated into the body of the watch, and the strap attaches to them (and not to the watch). In the case of our Gold unit, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better matching third-party strap.
There are two buttons on the Watch S4 41mm – the crown, which rotates and acts as a pusher, and the power-slash-function button at the bottom. Press the crown to open the apps list, and rotate it to scroll through the different widgets on the homescreen.
The function button will open the toggle screen with a single press and can quickly launch apps or settings with a long press.
The strap has a magnetic clasp, which is very convenient to quickly put on or take off the watch.
But this type of grip is not only detrimental to fitness and health tracking, it also poses an impassable barrier. I tried tracking my sleep with the Watch S4 41mm for four separate nights, only to wake up to find that the watch had detached from my wrist and ended up somewhere under the sheets – not ideal.
And forget about fast-paced workouts like running, soccer or basketball. The watch falls apart easily after the first low-impact contact.
So, despite the watch’s excellent health suite, there are no restrictions on health tracking. It has over 150 sports modes, deep-insight sleep tracking, and even a skin temperature sensor for female cycle prediction. However, the strap clasp mechanism has proven to be a definite shortcoming in this regard, essentially forcing you to choose between style and health tracking.
magnetic clasp
The display is excellent. It is a 1.32-inch 466x466px AMOLED panel with a 60Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1,500 nits. The panel has excellent contrast, is very sharp, and is visible even in the harshest lighting – top marks all around!
The display is flat, great
Unlike most other smartwatches, which have a side-scrollable Rolodex of widgets and apps, the Xiaomi Watch S4 shows them in a vertical list. This change may take some getting used to, but it shouldn’t be a problem for long-term users of the watch. Here, swiping in from the right edge lets you change the watch face. This is faster than any other watch, where you have to tap and hold first.
battery life
Xiaomi claims that it provides 8 days of battery life with low usage. This reduces to 4 days of normal use and 3 days of heavy use. The heaviest usage scenario basically has everything on all the time – always on display, notifications, health tracking (including heart rate, SpO2 and stress), some workouts and sleep tracking.
To help efficiency and make the most of the 320mAh power pack is the Xiaomi-developed T1 SoC.
In our experiment, we had just started our fifth day when the clock ran out. This included three workouts, always on display enabled, notifications turned on, and all health tracking features enabled throughout the day.
While it won’t match the best performers in the smart wearables space like Huawei and Honor, it’s still much better than what you’ll get from most WearOS smart watches or the Apple Watch.
conclusion
The Xiaomi Watch S4 41mm is great at what it does. It’s feature-rich, has solid features, a great display, is well built, and the important thing here is that it’s stylish and fun to own and use. Get one of the FluoroRubber strap units, and you’ll get a comprehensive health and fitness tracker for a little more than €100. This is a solid deal.
If you spend closer to €200, you can get the Sunset Gold model we tested, which is purely on looks and feel. It is exquisite, unique and distinctive in a way that is usually reserved for dedicated watches. It’s not really meant to be used as a fitness-oriented watch, and that’s understandable. On the plus side, using it as a simple watch and not an all-out tracker means you’ll get closer to 8 days of estimated battery!
Xiaomi Watch S4 41mm
| unspecified | $191.35 |
€125.33 |
| Show all prices | ||