Huawei Watch Review – Android SmartWatch

Up Close with the Huawei Smartwatch

Taking a quick tour around the Huawei Smartwatch we see the Power Button that you hold down to power your watch on. There is a microphone that is very well hidden along the bezel of the Huawei watch. Over on the back, there is a heart rate sensor in the middle and the charging port for the watch.

The look and the feel of the Huawei Watch that we had was very solid and on the verge of elegant. The metal bracelet and face dont look like any sort of computer or wearable gadget. If you are a watch connoisseur or someone who would prefer to wear a piece of jewelry, the Huawei Watch is an ideal piece of technology for you. The watch face is relatively large at 33 mm and has a total weight of just over 2 ounces feels very solid on your wrist. The version we had looked like it could be a unisex model, but was definitely more masculine made for the fellas out there.

The way you charge the Huawei watch is with the included charging dock. The dock has a magnetic connector that allows the watch to click into place for charging. Our watch came charged out of the box, but we found that the Huaweis charge time is pretty quick where on average the watch charged in a matter of around a hours when the battery is empty.

While we were charging the phone, we navigated to the Google Play Store to download the Android Wear application. After installing the software, we fired it up and paired the Huawei watch to our phone. The phone has to be able to run Android 4.3 or iOS 8.2 or higher. You can always visit http://g.co/WearCheck or http://www.android.com/wear/check/ on your phone to make sure your device is compatible.

The Android Wear application allows you to connect your Android Wear smartwatch to the Huawei Watch (or any other smartwatch). This app allows communication from your phone to communicate to you who is calling, or text messaging you. You can even get alerts and compose quick responses directly from the smartwatch.

Many people know about the many, many fitness wearables that are on the market today. The Android Wear/Huawei Watch combo takes that basic idea of fitness monitoring and expands on it to include a number of different running and fitness services and applications including Google Fit, Strava, Runkeeper and a bunch more. Not only can you track your heart rate, steps, distance and calories burned, you can get notifications on your next appointment, email, twitter updates, flight status, and anything else some smart developer can come up with.

With the Huawei Watch and the Android Wear app happily living in harmony after a Bluetooth pairing, the Huawei Watch takes us through a series of setup screens. You can adjust the brightness of the watch, change the watch face and font size, and scan for new Bluetooth device. The Huaweis settings allow you to choose to leave the watch screen on or fade off when not in use and thereby saving battery life. The watch has a surprisingly high number of features and options you can access directly from the watch.

The Huawei designers made navigating around the watch very simple and logical. From the home screen on the watch, you can touch, touch and hold, or swipe the screen to access various menus and functions.

When you Swipe up, you can scroll through the different cards or apps synchronized with your watch. When you swipe down, you hide this card information and access quick settings menu on the watch. When you swipe left, you can access the applications menus. When you swipe right, you can exit a menu, go back or delete an applications synchronization directly from the watch.

We played around with a few of the watch faces that Huawei pre-loaded on to the watch. When you connect your smartwatch to Androids Wear application, there a many, many more faces you can choose from as well as a number of apps built for wearable devices that you can now tap into.

By default, the Huawei Watch will vibrate when there are incoming notifications. To read them, all you need to do is lift or twist your wrist. This is a great feature of the Huawei Watch where you can exercise discretion when checking the alerts from the smartwatch.

Another great feature to point out is the ability to search with the OK Google voice command. When you lift your wrist and say Ok Google you are able to search on a variety of different things including nearby restaurants, directions, call commands, and general search features that Google would give you during typical use.

As you can see from the photo gallery below, there is a vast number of different applications that the Huawei Smartwatch can tap into.

The Huawei watch has 4 Gigabytes of internal memory, but we found that you want to make sure you have a bit of space on your smartphone to keep all of your associate data that you collect from your smartwatch. This includes anything from your workout data to your messages that you can send or receive straight from your smartwatch. We really tried to load up the Huawei with a bunch of downloads, but we really never had an issue with space on the watch. We did, however, fill up our Samsung Galaxy smartphone with a bunch of different applications that we download from the Android Play Store.

One of the biggest questions for anyone interested in a Smartwatch like the Huawei watch will be, Is it worth the cost? Of course, the answer to that question is really what you are looking for a piece of jewelry, or a piece of modern tech to be used to assist you in your digital life. If you just want a simple digital aid, you might want to look elsewhere for something that is more affordable. You can always grab a Fit Bit for less than $100 if you are only interested in getting a high-tech pedometer and heart-rate monitor.

The $449.99 Huawei Watch is more than just a Fit Bit on steroids. The watch is built very well and when its on your wrist, you feel like you own something special. When you compare it directly to Apples smartwatch, the Huawei comes out ahead when comparing features and bang-for-buck. The only thing the Huawei Smartwatch does not contain is NFC compatibility. So if you wanted to use your watch to purchase your Grande cup of late or Chi Tea, you might have to take out an actual credit card to pay.

Huawei informed us that on Black Friday that they will be offering $50-$100 off select watch models that are purchased through participating retailers.

• $50 off Silver with Black Leather Strap
• $80 off Silver with Silver Mesh Band
• $80 off Silver with Silver Link Band
• $100 off Black with Black Link Band

Those retailers include GetHuawei.com, BestBuy.com, select Best Buy stores, Amazon.com, Target.com and Google Play store. That means the Huawei Smartwatch Black with Black Link band that we reviewed today will be $100 off or $349.99 shipped! On Cyber Monday, Huawei will also offer $50 off those same models from November 29 to December 5, so you’ll get the best savings on Black Friday. Full details of the savings can be found here.

The Huawei Smartwatch comes with a 1 year limited warranty on parts and labor and is available now from retailers all over. The more and more we used the watch, the better we liked it and the more we moved away from the notion that smartwatches are just a gimmick or for those who want to throw their money away. Huawei has a variety of watches with generally the same functionality as what we described above. What you will find though are a huge selection of watch faces, bracelets and finishes. If you don’t like the super-formal look of a stainless steel bracelet, you should surf over tho the Huawei Watch Home Page and check out their sport/fitness bands.

Legit Bottom Line:

While a smartwatch may not be for everyone, Huawei has provided a feature-rich, elegant watch at a relatively affordable price.