Huawei’s Watch GT 2 is a magnificence: spherical, glossy, comparatively slim with an enormous, brilliant display; it is a smartwatch we’ve liked having on our wrist. There’s only one downside – it isn’t actually a smartwatch.

Just just like the Watch GT earlier than it, the GT 2 is a really fancy health tracker in a smartwatch physique. Running Huawei’s personal Lite OS, you may’t obtain apps for it, however it covers the fundamentals and boasts stellar two-week battery life.

So what does the GT 2 try this the GT does not? It offers you choices. This this time round, there’s a smaller, extra elegant launch – the 42mm model. This packs a completely completely different feature-set to the watch we reviewed, although, so sufficient on that for now.

Meanwhile, the bigger 46mm mannequin will get a speaker and full cellphone name performance when related to your cellphone, stress-tracking and storage for offline music.

But is a £179 health tracker in smawatch clothes an excellent factor, or ought to Huawei be sticking to bands?

Design and display: Slick and suave

Available in loads of kinds and two sizes, each the Watch GT 2 46mm and 42mm characteristic deep, brilliant and zingy OLED screens.

The 46mm GT 2 encompasses a 454 x 454 decision show and a 22mm strap becoming. It additionally trumps the 42mm choice in some key areas, with double the battery life and RAM and the next decision show. It’s additionally the one one of many pair that may make calls. In quick, the Watch GT 2 42mm may actually have completed with being referred to as the Watch GT 2 Lite to keep away from clients feeling shortchanged.

There are three editions of every dimension – Sport, Classical and Elite, every with completely different finishes and straps: fluorine rubber, leather-based and steel.

Our Watch GT 2 is the 46mm black Sport Edition, and it seems to be wonderful. It has a dial etched into the black body, two crown-esque buttons on the proper and it isn’t too thick. The fluorine rubber strap feels snug towards the pores and skin, doesn’t yank furry wrists, and the large, daring display is a good-looking centrepiece.

Around the again of the watch is a barely raised coronary heart charge monitor, bookended by two POGO pin connectors for charging. There’s a proprietary charging disc that ships with the watch in addition to a USB-A to USB-C cable.

If you go for the leather-based or steel strap editions of the Watch GT 2, you’ll additionally get a Fluorine rubber strap within the field, and with commonplace fittings, they are often swapped out in moments.

Interface: Lite OS certainly

The interface, Huawei’s Lite OS is certainly gentle and really straightforward to navigate round. While its performance is proscribed in comparison with Wear OS, for instance, it’s a bit of cake to determine.

Swipe down for fast settings and horizontally to scroll by way of key parts – music, health logging and so on, and swipe up for notifications. The high proper bodily button fires up the pre-installed apps, whereas the underside proper button is customisable.

There’s no app ecosystem right here, and our GT2 has 23 watch faces, so in the event you don’t like every of these, powerful luck. It’s additionally missing a voice assistant, and as with the unique Watch GT, message notifications provide you with truncated snippet previews with zero interactivity, very like health bands.

It does characteristic staples like a timer, alarm and stopwatch, however you may’t multitask when coaching. Not nice within the health club if you’re mid-circuit and in want of a stopwatch or timer however are locked to the exercise display.

Performance isn’t silky easy by any means, positively leagues behind the Apple and Samsung competitors, however it betters that of the unique and is completely usable. Also price noting, we’d take a drop in smoothness for a lift in battery, and that’s what the GT2 delivers.

The GT2 additionally has a loud speaker and is a helpful cellphone name receiver in a pinch.

Fitness monitoring: Healthy, however not appy

Huawei has upped its recreation for the Watch GT2’s monitoring, having included stress monitoring to the combination, in addition to a barometer to measure air stress.

There’s detailed sleep monitoring too, which labored effectively – though it couldn’t inform once we wakened within the night time until we bodily bought away from bed. Additionally, something lower than three hours will not register as sleep, so it will not provide you with detailed insights. If you are a shift employee with fragmented sleep, you may wish to look elsewhere.

We discovered the Watch GT 2’s coronary heart charge monitoring to be correct for probably the most half when energetic, and excellent when resting. The watch helps 16 exercises: operating programs, out of doors run, indoor run, out of doors stroll, indoor stroll, out of doors cycle, indoor cycle, pool swim, open water, climb, hike, path run, triathlon, elliptical, rower and different for health club exercises and the like.

The smartphone companion app, Huawei Health works with Android and iOS, linking with Apple’s Health app, Google Fit and likewise My Fitness Pal.

That stated, there isn’t any linking on to apps like Endomondo or Strava, which is a ache and relegates the Watch GT 2 to informal exercisers fairly than critical fanatics or athletes.

Battery and specs: Low energy, excessive yield

If you could have automated coronary heart charge and stress monitoring turned off and don’t hearth up numerous exercises in your fortnight with the Watch GT 2, you could possibly hit Huawei’s purported two-week battery life. If, like us, you really plan on utilizing your watch, then that determine will get slashed in half, which remains to be glorious. Being comparatively conservative, we had been capable of get round ten days, even with just a few monitoring options on.

Inside, there’s 4GB storage primed on your offline music, which will be performed again on the watch or through Bluetooth headphones.

Huawei has included its personal wearable processor for the Watch GT 2, the Kirin A1, which is identical processor present in its FreeBuds three earphones. With simply 32MB RAM within the bigger model and 16MB within the 42mm mannequin, it’s a marvel the Watch 2s don’t crumble with each swipe – however they don’t, solely actually slowing down body charges when swiping mid-workout.

Huawei Watch GT 2 verdict

We cannot stress this level sufficient: the Huawei Watch GT 2 is definitely two smartwatches. The first is the suave however sizeable Watch GT 2 46mm, which packs the headline options: two-week battery and cellphone name performance. That’s the one we reviewed. The second, the 42mm Watch GT 2 is a lite model in our eyes, dropping out on options, however it’s extra elegant.

In our month with the 46mm model, we have fallen for its design, and utilizing it as a watch and passive health tracker has been nice. The battery life can also be stable, even when we couldn’t squeeze two weeks out of it.

The Watch GT 2 is undeniably much less purposeful than an Apple or Galaxy Watch, and doesn’t play properly with third-party apps, so received’t be one for critical health fiends. If you’re okay with all that although, it’s cheaper and higher wanting and anything underneath £180, and a fantastic passive tracker.