Xiaomi Watch S4 41mm hands-on

Introduction

The Watch S4 may very well be Xiaomi's most popular watch yet. Our S4 review's popularity can attest to that. But while the full-sized S4 was focused on customizability, the Watch S4 41mm is locked in on being elegant.

It's also quite feminine in both design and size. The 41mm model isn't strictly speaking a women's watch, but it is close enough. We found the watch too small for even the most slender of male wrists here at GSMArena HQ.

Ours is the Sunset Gold model, and it's the most special of the Watch S4 41mm models. You also have a choice of Black, White, and Mint green, though the difference is mainly in the choice of strap and the special custom element that adorns the rotating crown.

The cases of the Black, White, and Mint green models are all glossy silver. The straps are either leather or fluororubber, though the Sunset Gold has a unique strap, which is a mesh of finely-woven steel wires.

Each color has a special accent embedded into the crown - the Sunset Gold has a "lab-grown" diamond, while the other three models have a color-matching center.

The Watch S4 41mm ships with the same proprietary puck-style wireless charger as the 47mm model (and indeed seemingly all of Xiaomi's watches). You need to match the two pins on the charger with their respective beds on the watch's rear. It's not ideal - we'd love a place-it-as-you-wish charger.

Build quality and features

The Xiaomi Watch S4 41mm isn't only smaller than the regular S4 but also has a slightly different design. The biggest difference is the flush watch bezel. The 47mm model has a screw-on bezel that protrudes over the glass, the 41mm model's bezel is flush with the glass and gives no protection.

The lugs are integrated into the body of the watch, and the strap attaches to them (and not the watch itself). In the case of our Gold unit, you'd find it hard to find a better-matching third-party strap.

There are two buttons on the Watch S4 41mm - the crown, which both rotates and acts as a pusher, and the power-slash-function button underneath. Push 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 toggles screen with a press and can quickly launch apps or settings with a long press.

The strap has a magnetic clasp, which is very convenient for quickly putting the watch on or taking it off.

But this type of clasp is not just a detriment to fitness and health tracking, but an impassable roadblock to it. I tried to track my sleep with the Watch S4 41mm for four different nights, only to wake up to find the watch had detached from my wrist and ended up somewhere under the sheets - not ideal.

And forget about fast-paced workouts like running, football, or basketball. The watch simply falls off after the first low-impact contact.

So a no-go on health tracking, despite the watch's excellent health suite. There are more than 150 sports modes, deep-insight sleep tracking, and even a skin temperature sensor for female cycle prediction. However, the strap clasp mechanism has proved a definite drawback in this regard, essentially forcing you to choose between style and health tracking.

Magnetic clasp

The display is excellent. It's 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, it's razor sharp, and is visible even in the harshest of light - top marks all around!

The display is flat, excellent

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 required some getting used to, but shouldn't be a problem for long-term users of the watch. Here, swiping from the right edge lets you change the watch face. It's faster than any other watch, where you'd need to tap and hold first.

Battery life

Xiaomi claims 8 days of battery life with light usage. That drops down to 4 days of normal usage, and up to 3 days of heavy usage. The heaviest usage scenario basically has everything on all the time - always on display, notifications, health tracking (including heart rate, SpO2, and stress), a few workouts, and sleep tracking.

There's a Xiaomi-developed T1 SoC to help with efficiency and eke out the most of the 320mAh power pack.

In our use, we had just started our fifth day when the watch died. That included three workouts, always on display enabled, notifications on, and all the health tracking features enabled throughout the day.

While it won't match the absolute best performers in the smart wearable space, like Huawei and Honor, it's still much better than what you'd 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-packed, has solid specs, a great display, is well-built, and what's key here, 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 over €100. That's a solid deal.

If you spend close to €200, you can get the Sunset Gold model we tested, which is all about looks and feel. It's exquisite, unique, and characterful in a way 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 the 8 days of projected battery!