Huawei Watch GT 2 review: Great battery life and display, but not enough features

Brand: Huawei
Product name: Huawei Watch GT 2
Key specs: Kirin A1 wearable chipset, 1.39-inch AMOLED display, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC and 5ATM water resistance.
Price: ₹15,990 (base model)
Rating: 3.5/5

Huawei may have halted its smartphones in India but the company is still on track with its wearables. Like the Huawei Watch GT 2 which is its latest smartwatch offering. It’s the successor to Watch GT and comes with improved performance and new features.

The Huawei Watch GT 2 comes in two dial sizes of 42mm and 46mm. We had the 46mm variant for review which looked pretty big and funny on my wrist initially but eventually I started to like it.

I used the black colour variant with the outer bezel having a 24-hour marking around it. Speaking of which, it doesn’t really make sense to have since it’s a smartwatch. As we’re still on the subject of its design, the rubber strap is a bit disappointing too as it doesn’t really look premium as one would expect. So the Huawei Watch GT 2 really ends up looking like a normal watch except for the digital interface, of course.

The Watch GT 2 however comes in more variants like stainless steel, rose gold stainless steel and titanium grey stainless steel for the watch. There are different options for the strap as well in metal, rubber and leather.

The display is probably its saving grace as it’s pretty good and some watch faces make it really stand out. There are two buttons on the side for controlling the menu and powering off/on the smartwatch. It’s an AMOLED display on the Huawei Watch GT 2. Colours look the right kind of bright on this smartwatch and the touch interface works well too.

The biggest trademark of the Huawei Watch GT 2 is its battery life. Huawei claims it will run for 2 weeks straight and it did go on for almost two weeks on a single charge. This was pretty impressive for the Huawei Watch GT 2 as compared to the Galaxy Watch Active which lasted for around 2 days. But the battery does trickle down if you use a standby watch face which is understandable.

Another crazy thing about the Huawei Watch GT 2 is its speaker. Yes you can play music on the smartwatch and it can be as loud as your phone. It has a built-in media player where you can store songs. It also supports voice calls which were quite clear and loud.

The Huawei Watch GT 2 uses the Huawei Health app to connect which is available on iOS and Android. But the app is much better on Android than iOS in terms of features. If you have an iPhone I wouldn’t recommend getting the Huawei Watch GT 2. On the Huawei Health app you can check detailed reports on your workout, sleep and heart rate.

There’s also an option to download additional watch faces with this app but this weirdly didn’t work. The app requires you to download Huawei Mobile Services to download watch faces but it just kept crashing multiple times.

Some of the limitations of the Huawei Watch GT 2 include no support for wireless charging and third-party apps like Spotify.

Verdict

If you’re looking for a decent smartwatch with good battery life and the necessary features, you can go for the Huawei Watch GT 2. It’s also priced lower than its rivals starting at ₹15,990 for the 42mm variant. If you wish for more features and a better interface than you can give the Galaxy Watch Active 2 a try.