SMARTWATCHES Huawei Watch 2
Stuffed with features and has Android Wear 2 on board, but not the most beautiful watch
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE From €274 (€329 inc VAT) from huawei.com
Unlike most new smartwatches, the Huawei Watch 2 has some heritage to live up to. The original Watch was our A-List choice for months, and with the Watch 2 using the latest version of Android Wear I was optimistic as I slid it onto my wrist.
My first impressions, though, were that Huawei had taken a backwards step, at least in terms of looks. I tested the Sport version, which has a plastic strap and largely black plastic watch casing. (Note that, although it’s IP68 dust- and water-resistant, it isn’t swim-proof.)
It’s a chunky 12.6mm thick, but at only 40g feels comfortable on the wrist. I’m also a fan of the smoky, glossy ceramic bezel that surrounds the watch’s 1.2in, 390 x 390 AMOLED display. Huawei claims the bezel is six times harder than stainless steel and abrasion-resistant, so it should retain its looks over time.
Disappointingly, there’s no equivalent of the Apple Watch’s digital crown or the Samsung Gear S3’s rotating bezel for easy navigation. Instead, you get a pair of buttons on the right side. The top one is used as a shortcut to the watch’s app list and to quickly return home from anywhere in the UI, while the bottom button takes you to an app of your choice, the default being the Workout app.
I’m also a touch disappointed that there’s no automatic exercise detection to match the superb Samsung Gear S3 Frontier. You have to manually kick off fitness sessions from the Workout app.
Instead, the Watch 2’s big sell is its bank of features and sensors. As well as the smartwatch staples of an accelerometer and heart-rate monitor, there’s onboard GPS, an ambient light sensor, a barometer and NFC complete with Android Pay.
An extra €50 buys you 4G/LTE. That means you can receive texts and calls directly to your wrist. You can either use the scratchy built-in microphone and speaker, or (far preferably) hook up a Bluetooth headset. You can dial contacts directly, or tap out numbers using the fiddly onscreen number pad. During calls, you can adjust the volume and even put your caller on hold.
Thanks to Android Wear 2’s message reply features, it’s easy to respond to texts on the screen of the watch itself, using either the canned responses and emojis, or the effective Swype-style keyboard. Or you can use the voice-recognition system. Google Assistant is built in, and I found it far more responsive than on previous Android Wear watches I’ve tested.
While you can install Google Maps to the watch, you can’t yet listen to Spotify, or triage and reply to Gmail or Slack messages without having the watch connected to your phone. Even in this slick integration, Android Wear is still very much a companion system to full-blown Android.
“The Watch 2’s big sell is its bank of features and sensors: there’s onboard GPS, an ambient light sensor and optional 4G”
The Huawei Watch 2 is among the first to employ the new 1.1GHz Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset. Previously, most smartwatches employed the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, but this was a cut-down smartphone chip, and an ageing one at that. The Snapdragon Wear 2100 is optimised for efficiency. Here, it’s accompanied by 768MB of RAM, 4GB of storage and a 420mAh battery. The latter keeps the watch going for significantly longer than two days in normal mode, with Android Wear 2’s always-on-screen feature enabled. That isn’t quite as good as Samsung’s Gear S3 Frontier, but I’d expect it to last even longer with the always-on screen disabled. In any case, the Watch 2’s batterysaver “Watch mode” will get you to the end of the day in most circumstances. This disables all functions except the watch face and step-counting facility, and if you leave it in this mode all the time Huawei claims the watch will last up to 21 days on a single charge. Stamina takes a dive with 4G/LTE enabled. I’ve only been able to eke 24 hours out of it with a SIM card in the slot. If you’re running GPS at the same time, Huawei quotes ten hours’ continuous use. The Huawei Watch 2 is an impressive smartwatch in many regards. It’s packed with a wide array of sensors and features, offers full 4G connectivity, and if you don’t like the sporty looks, the toned-down Classic looks a touch more attractive. At €329 for the Sport, €379 if you want 4G and €399 for the Classic, prices are high for an Android Wear timepiece. I’d still recommend the Samsung Gear S3 for its superior exercise detection, fitness features and excellent battery life, but this is the best Android Wear watch yet.