Latest smartwatch is Huawei’s best entry yet 4.5/5
We’re now a few generations into the Huawei wearables and the Chinese vendor’s venture into smartwatches has brought about great results for the company.
Yet as the smartwatch market becomes more saturated than ever, Huawei continues to deliver in the field with a consistent set of watches that deliver sleek designs and impressive performance.
Huawei’s latest high-end smartwatch is no different, packing some seriously impressive features particularly when it comes to its fitness tracking data.
Specifications
- Processor: Huawei Kirin A1 1 x 0.2 GHz, ARM Cortex-M7
- Memory: 32 MB
- Display: 1.39 inch , 454 x 454 pixel 326 PPI, Full-Touchscreen, OLED
- Storage: 4 GB Flash, 4 GB
- Weight: 52 g
Design and unboxing
The Huawei GT 2 Pro features a titanium body, sapphire glass, and ceramic making it one of the high-end watches in the market. In that way, it instantly differentiates itself from the cheaper Honor watches.
The classic circular watch head works surprisingly well for a fitness watch.
The circular head gives it the look and feel of a traditional watch and I preferred this head to the rectangular design used by the Apple Watch Series but it does depend mostly on personal preference.
There are two buttons on the right side of the watch with the second button not necessarily performing anything of note.
The box comes with a wireless charging port, an extra watch strap, the watch itself, and a warranty card.
The GT 2 Pro comes in Night Black and Nebula Grey. Both colours give it a high-end smartwatch look and the GT 2 Pro comes with hundreds of faces that you can change to using the app.
The face design of the smartwatch can be changed with some of the designs seen below.
The smartwatch is one of the best-looking wearables on the market with the simple, blacked-out packaging almost equally impressive.
Performance
In order to use the watch, the user will need a Huawei account and will also need to download the Huawei Health app from the app store.
The health app allows for tracking of several features including heart rate, sleep quality, and stress levels. Additionally, other features such as stopwatches, timers, weather reports, and moon phases are good, if not supremely valuable additions.
What is a valuable addition, however, is the route guidance feature which offers backtracking functionality so users are able to find where they began an activity such as jogging or cycling.
I have an iPhone XR and was unable to unlock every feature that the GT 2 Pro had to offer. For example, any smartphone that has at least version 11 of the Huawei EMUI interface can control the phone’s camera through the smartwatch. When connected to other smartphones, this function is unavailable.
I had seen some criticism upon its release about the smartwatch failing to reliably track HIIT workouts, and while this criticism may have some weight, I found that the vast majority of the time the heart rate monitor was generally correct.
In terms of hardware, there isn’t too much to differentiate the Pro variant of the watch from the regular Watch GT 2, yet the battery life and charging is somewhere where Huawei has made significant improvements.
Battery
The GT 2 Pro is the first smartwatch from Huawei to feature wireless charging capabilities. There is a magnetic charging port that the watch head sticks to in order for it to charge.
You can also use a smartphone to charge the device using the reverse charging capabilities on some devices.
Huawei says the watch can last around 10 days with light use on a full battery charge, and this is fairly accurate. The battery will of course diminish depending on how much one uses it but it usually will require just one charge a week.
Verdict
The Huawei GT 2 Pro certainly provides value for money. With its high-end performance and luxurious design, the GT 2 Pro proves it belongs amongst the elite smartwatches on the market today.
With unrivalled battery life and admirable performance, the GT 2 Pro delivers a fantastic user experience that will be used to its full potential by Huawei and Android users.
The watch retails for £249.99 on Huawei’s website.