Having cemented its reputation for building reliable smartphones, Chinese manufacturer Huawei is expanding into the smartwatch market. The new Huawei Watch is its first foray into wearables and it’s not a bad start.
The smartwatch market is currently a small one, so any new product has to be very good to survive. With established products such as the Pebble and iWatch to compete with, the Huawei Watch is going to have to offer something very special to be able to lure people away from these brands.
In the design stakes, the Huawei Watch is a winner. Made from premium materials, it looks and feels like a quality watch. The stainless steel strap and case are reassuringly solid. The sapphire crystal display is going to take a lot of effort to scratch and the overall look of the watch is great.
At first glance, the completely round face looks like a traditional watch and that, for me, is the sign of a quality product. All six of the available designs look for all intents and purposes like classic watches.
Under the glass is a 400 x 400 pixel display with 286ppi. It’s currently the highest resolution screen on any Android watch. It does look the part and performs well under every situation except direct sunlight.
Under the skin is a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor with 512 MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. It also has Wi-Fi, an optical heart rate monitor, gyroscope, an accelerometer and a barometer. To power all this, the watch uses a 300mAh battery that Huawei says will last two days with moderate use. Considering the screen is always on, two days is likely an aspirational number rather than a realistic one.
Android Wear used to be the best OS in terms of features and reliability, before Apple took the lead with its latest release. While the Huawei Watch is an Android Wear device, it’s actually compatible with both Android and iOS. So regardless of your OS of choice, you can use this watch as you see fit.
Android Wear is easy to live with on this watch. A simple swipe down on the screen shows you e-mails, another swipe shows you how far you have walked and another can show you your chosen news alerts or something else. As long as you take the time to set up the Huawei Watch just how you like it, it’s very easy to use.
The Huawei Watch is a fantastic first entry into the smartwatch market. It looks and feels great, works well and offers a lot of what most of us want from a smartwatch.
Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who has his own blog at www.itnewsblog.com.