Huawei: Best-looking smartwatch available so far
THE OPERATING SYSTEM, WHICH IS SIMILAR TO ALL OTHER DEVICES, NEEDS MORE WORK
Huawei’s circular smartwatch is similar to LG’s G Watch R and Motorola’s Moto 360 second edition in appearance. The Huawei’s watch is slimmer and more stylish and it is one of the best smartwatches on the market.
Huawei has different versions of the watches but in the UAE only two models (black and steel) with different straps are available.
The materials used are great, such as cold-forged stainless steel and with a solid build and soft touch leather. The watch looks more like a traditional watch than a smartwatch. It weighs 62 grams.
The 42mm watch’s AMOLED display with sapphire crystal glass top, a first for an Android Wear watch, is the best in the industry at 400 x 400 pixels resolution (286 pixels per inch density) compared to Moto 360 2 LCD display’s 360 x 330 resolution (233 pixels per inch) and LG Plastic AMOLED display’s 320 x 320 resolution (246 pixels per inch). The colours are vibrant and they really pop out from the screen.
The Huawei watch comes only in one size. The crown button which is located at the 2 o’clock position acts a home button and also wakes up the screen. The watch is also dust resistant and will survive half an hour in up to one metre of water.
The 1.4-inch watch is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor, coupled with 512MB RAM and 4GB of internal storage capacity, which is similar to other Android watches. It runs on the latest version of Android Wear software. The straps can be changed and fit any regular watch straps.
Similar interface
Google does not allow manufacturers to customise its user interface, so all Android watch user interfaces look similar. Where vendors can stand out is with its custom apps and watch faces. Huawei has done a reasonably good job at this.
It connects to your phone via Bluetooth 4.1 and has heartrate monitor and six-axis motion sensors for fitness tracking but no ambient light sensor, which means the screen doesn’t automatically adjust its brightness depending on the environment, and GPS is not available.
So it’s not going to serve as a proper running watch due to lack of GPS. But it can still count your steps and monitor your heart rate and feed that data into Google Fit. It does not monitor the heart rate throughout the day like Apple or Fitbit does. The preinstalled Google apps are fairly standard like Calendar, Hangouts, Maps, and Google Fit.
The latest software is compatible with Android 4.3 or higher and iOS 8.2 or higher. The iOS compatibility is pretty limited at the moment, allowing you to receive notifications from any app, but not interact with them. The Android Wear interface is not perfect and more work is needed to improve it further. Android Wear has improved a lot recently, but it’s identical on all the devices.
It sports a microphone through which you can ask Google Now for directions and whatever tickles your fancy.
The call and message notifications are shown at the bottom of the screen and the calls can be rejected from the screen itself.
The messages can be replied by speaking to the phone, but it depends on the ascent. Some words are misspelled. Android Wear watches constantly listen for the command ‘OK Google’.
Huawei has 40 preloaded watch faces, mostly premium faces. The wrist gesture feature takes time to respond to the gesture and the accelerometer is not fast compared to other watches.
Power pack
The 300mAh power pack gives one full day of life with always-on screen option which is better than other watches. But without the always-on feature, the battery can last close to two days. Moto 2 has a 400mAh battery but still gives one day of use.
Charging the battery takes up to one hour from zero to full.
The device charges with a pogo pin magnetic charging plate and it is hard to get lined up. If the magnet is not properly aligned to the pin, it does not charge.
Regarding connectivity, it has Bluetooth 4.1 BLE (which stands for Bluetooth low energy) and WiFi. Should I buy one? If you already have an Android Wear watch, then there is no real need to upgrade, but if you are set on an Android Wear watch, then Huawei is the best in the market right now. It is priced at Dh1,299.