The original Huawei Watch was released in September 2015 and up until the release of Android Wear 2.0, it was one of the best Android Wear watches in the market. More than a year later, we get a successor, the Huawei Watch 2.
The Huawei Watch 2 should have been released last year if Google had not delayed the release of Android Wear 2.0. Although the new watch brings along a number of new features apart from the updated OS, fans of the original watch might not be too pleased with the design.
Huawei announced two variants of the watch: the Huawei Watch 2 Classic with leather straps and the Huawei Watch 2 which is a sport themed variant with rubber straps. Sadly, we won’t be getting the wire mesh strap of the original. For the hands-on, we were able to get our hands on the Huawei Watch 2 Classic.
The Huawei Watch 2 has a smaller screen than the first-generation Huawei Watch. Both versions have a 1.2-inch AMOLED display with a 390 x 390 resolution as against the 1.4-inch (400 x 400) of the original. The smaller screen is not the only change, the bezels are also thicker and are marked like a tachymeter.
The bezel is where the antenna of the watch is located which is a good thing as that means you can change the straps unlike the LG Watch Sport which has its antenna embedded in the straps.
Why Huawei decided to settle for this design is best known to them but some people say they might have had plans for a rotating bezel but later decided against it. The result is a chunky watch 12.6mm thick and weighing 47g (excluding the straps) with markings you probably might never find use for.
You’d think Huawei would have thought it wise to include a crown since the bezel wasn’t designed for navigating the watch. Sorry to burst your bubble. You will have to navigate through the watch with your finger which is pretty uncomfortable since the display is smaller. If you have thick fingers, you’d probably be covering a large chunk of the display while navigating.
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The Huawei Watch 2 has some new features. There is LTE but only available on select color options of the Huawei Watch 2 (Dynamic Orange and Carbon Black ) and not the Classic. The watch now has an IP68 rating, so you can immerse it in water up to 1.5m in depth for 30 minutes.
The Huawei Watch 2 has 4GB of storage like the original but a larger 768MB of RAM. There is a heart rate sensor, compass, gyroscope, and a barometer. Huawei has also put a larger 420mAh battery in it.
To sum it up, the Huawei Watch 2 is disappointing with respect to design. The situation is akin to a movie sequel with a bigger budget that fails to live up to the original.
