Before we dive in, let's judge this book by its cover just a little:

1.43 inch circular AMOLED touch display with 466 x 466 pixels (326 ppi) and a 60 Hz refresh rate

2 GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage

Updated sensor array with newly included temperature sensor

10 W wireless charging

5 ATM water resistance (50 meters)

So far so good—let's dig deeper!

Looking at this huge box, we'd expect the Huawei Watch 3 to be a little bit bigger—or at least to find a couple more watches.

This model goes by the the name GLL-AL04 and sports a digital crown and a side button.

On the rear we can already spot four screws securing the back cover (a good sign!) but the tiny notch behind the top band indicates a slightly more... complex opening procedure.

The Watch 3 has some stiff competition. From left to right: Huawei Watch 2, Huawei Watch 3, and the Galaxy Watch3.

We see an increased display size compared to its predecessor, courtesy of the smaller bezel.

Where the Galaxy Watch3 puts that bezel to work navigating menus and scrolling, the Huawei Watch 3 delegates those tasks to its digital crown.

On the back, we see Huawei doubled down on the optical sensors—and switched to wireless charging, as the contact pads of yesteryear are no more.

With the four rear Torx screws out of the way we'd hoped to get in with just an opening tool, but this year's Huawei timepiece needs a little more force.

Some heat and a Jimmy finally crack our clam open to reveal adhesive instead of a repair-friendly rubber gasket keeping the watch watertight.

Moving that cable out of harm's way and opting for a reusable rubber gasket would simplify the procedure.

After popping the watch open, the Jimmy returns for some more heavy-duty prying.

Most of the components in the sensor assembly are held in place by Phillips screws or brackets, and a couple rivets. Riveting! Regardless of fastener, the components are stuck on non-removable flex cables, hampering repairs. Not to mention the sensor array itself which is heavily secured to the back cover.

All our hard work yields only one replaceable part on the back cover—the loudspeaker. At least we got something.

With one more small bracket out of the way we have full access to the battery. A little spudgering here, a little sputtering there, and the battery's free from its adhesive.

This powerhouse is rated at 1.78 Wh (460 mAh @ 3.87 V) and is supposed to offer you 3 days of fun with your smartwatch—or up to 14 in "ultra-long battery life mode!"

The battery, like many others, uses a classic soft-shell design. It makes us wonder why Apple seems to be the only manufacturer experimenting with metal pouch batteries.

The motherboard finally grants us a break from prying—a Phillips driver is all we need to free this board.

Motherboard out of the way, we turn to the 1.43-inch AMOLED screen and it's back to adhesive. That display is firmly adhered.

Since this watch is already in its third generation with a variety of offshoots, we'd hope for a more repair-friendly solution by now. Maybe Huawei could take a page from Samsung's Galaxy Watch book?

With the motherboard out, we find the bottom of it rather… unspectacular at first sight. A big battery recess and all of the cable connectors set up camp here, but deeper down we spot some hidden chips:

CMJRD11G04G 16 GB NAND flash storage (likely) layered above maybe a WiFi processor

Ambiq Micro AMAP42 Apollo4 SoC

Runic RS7222 USB 2.0 DPDT analog switch (likely)

We're not in the mood to camp here with them for long, so we hurry over to more important sightseeing. Onward!

The top of the motherboard offers the following important-looking silicon:

GF2EE1-16G-X 2 GB SDRAM (likely) with a HiSilicon Hi6262 Kirin 710 layered underneath

HiSilicon Hi6556 GFCV100 Power IC

HiSilicon Hi6D05 Power Amplifier Module

Airoha AG3335SD RFSoC GPS receiver

HiSilicon Hi1132—which is basically the Kirin A1 (running an ARM Cortex-M7 SoC) w/ Bluetooth controller

Texas Instruments BQ25601 Single Cell Battery Charger

HiSilicon Hi6353 RF transceiver (likely)

Smaller (and still important!) bits and pieces:

STMicroelectronics 54HJJ9 NFC controller

HiSilicon 6H03S LNA/RF switch (likely)

85G1 AAAC, likely an antenna switch module

HiSilicon 656211 power management IC

Cirrus Logic 35L36A audio amplifier

X-Powers AC107 2-channel audio capture A/D converter

Omnivision Group (formerly Will Semiconductor) WAS4646C 2:1 SPDT analog switch

With that, the Huawei Watch 3's time with us is over. All these glued and connected parts means we're left with a lot of big pieces, but at least the battery—which is guaranteed to eventually fail—is out of the watch.

Unfortunately we don't see that much evolution repair-wise from this series. Quite the opposite: more components crammed in and fewer that are independently replaceable.

The Huawei Watch 3 earns a 5 out of 10 on our repairability scale (10 is the easiest to repair):

Only press fit connectors are used with no overlapping cables.

Once the watch is open, the battery is easy to access and replace.

Opening the watch is doable, but not easy, due to the back cover's tight fit and use of adhesive instead of gaskets.

The only separately-accessible part on the back cover (the loudspeaker) requires some digging, and is glued into a tight recess.

A broken display requires replacing the main watch case which houses the screen.

The back cover and attached sensors requires a complete replacement if any of its components fails.