I Tried This $40 Smartwatch: It Was Meh, but Not a Complete Waste of Time

CNET

6 days ago

I wasn't expecting much when I first strapped the WITHit Giga Smartwatch onto my wrist, and at least it delivered on that. This $40 smartwatch does the basics: shows notifications, counts your steps, tracks your heart rate (sort of) and lets you take calls from your wrist. But the execution of all these features is where it all starts to fall apart, and I found myself getting exactly what I paid for.
After spending a week testing it, I came away with this: If you just want a basic smartwatch that works with both Android and iPhone, tells the time, tracks your steps and surfaces notifications, this will get the job done, just don't expect accuracy. But if you can stretch your budget even a little, something like the $75 Amazfit Bip 6 offers more accurate tracking, a more refined design and more reliable performance.
The $40 WITHit Giga looks like an Apple Watch Ultra knock-off.
Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET
Design and UI: big, bulky, and basic
The WITHit Giga is about as no-frills as smartwatches come. It looks like an Apple Watch Ultra impersonator: metallic frame around a rectangular screen, rounded edges and even Apple Watch-like icons inside. But that's where the similarities end.
If your wrist is on the smaller side like mine (I have a 6-inch wrist), brace yourself because this is going to look huge. The Giga's 48.5mm case is overpowering, and there's no smaller size option. On my wrist, it felt bulky and out of place, and the thick, textured silicone bands definitely didn't help matters.
The 2.04-inch AMOLED display is decent with a 386x448 resolution, but the screen brightness isn't adaptive. You'll need to manually adjust it, which means it's almost too bright at night and borderline unreadable in direct sunlight unless you increase the brightness manually.
This watch runs its own proprietary system, syncs to the WITHit app and works with both Android and iOS. You'll get notifications, basic fitness tracking, an always-on display (which in my testing drained the battery fast) and a speaker/mic combo for answering calls.
The UI is straightforward but lacks polish. Swiping right opens your favorites and the side button lets you quickly launch a workout. Animations feel slow and longer text scrolls in awkwardly to fit the screen.
The non-adaptive screen on the WITHit Giga is nearly unreadable outdoors unless you manually crank it to full brightness.
Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET
Battery life: Not bad but there's a catch
Battery life is one of the few things that holds up well here. I got about three days of use with the raise-to-wake option, and roughly a day and a half with the always on display enabled. That's not bad for the price, and it's actually better than even some flagship smartwatches.
But the manual comes with a big red flag: "Avoid fast chargers" and don't overcharge. That's not something you want to see in 2025, especially because at this point in my smartwatch charger collection I don't know which one is fast, and which one is not, and the vague warning makes me think it's going to explode if I make the wrong choice. Charging from an empty battery to full takes about two hours with the included magnetic charger. But once I left it charging overnight and I approached it with terror the next morning thinking I'd broken the "don't overcharge" rule. Luckily, I came out unscathed.
Health and fitness tracking: lower your expectations
Workout tracking and wellness is where the cracks really show. Yes, the Giga technically tracks heart rate, blood oxygen (SpO2), sleep, stress and menstrual cycles. But the accuracy is questionable at best.
During workouts, heart rate measurements were consistently off when compared to a chest strap and even other wrist-based trackers. The post workout HR average was close enough, but the metrics during the workout were noticeably off. For example, as I was sitting on my Pilates reformer (completely sedentary) starting a workout on the watch, the screen already read "100bpm", while the chest strap and Apple Watch had me at 65 bpm. This made me skeptical of even the resting heart rate readings.
Sleep tracking only works between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., meaning night shift workers or anyone with an irregular schedule (like this late-night writer) is out of luck.
Sleep stats are also confusing; instead of clear sleep stages or hours of sleep, you get odd comparisons like "fewer than 26% of people in your age group go to sleep this late." Not exactly sure what I should do with this information.
Menstrual tracking is purely manual, based on averages, with no biological marker detection like temperature tracking. You can't even log a period directly from the watch and have to do it from the app.
Other smartwatch features
Calls: As long as your phone is within range, you can answer and make phone calls from the watch with its speaker and mic, but clarity is an issue.
Texting: You can see texts from messaging apps, but you can't reply or even send a prewritten response (when paired to an iPhone).
Voice Assistant: Technically available, but is basically just a shortcut to activate your own phone's assistant. You tap, and Siri or Google Assistant opens on your phone, not the watch. Not helpful.
Quick settings: Save your recently used apps in quick settings, which actually made flipping between features like workouts and music controls more convenient — this is a win.
Should you buy it?
The WITHit Giga does the bare minimum you'd expect from a smartwatch, but at the expense of accuracy and attention to detail. For $40, it's a functional notification mirror with step tracking, call support and a splash of health features (if you're looking for a general overview at best).
But if you can stretch your budget, something like the $80 Amazfit Bip 6 offers far better value, accurate health tracking, cleaner UI and better battery life.
Bottom line: If you keep your expectations low, and you're just dipping your toes in the smartwatch waters for the first time, this might suffice. Otherwise, it's worth paying more for something that feels less like a toy and more like a tool.