Review Huawei Watch GT 2: more complete than ever!

During the launch event of the Mate 30 series held a Monaco of Bavaria, the Chinese company also showed the new model of its wearble dedicated to sport, or the Huawei Watch GT 2. Compared to the previous generation, some changes have been made to the hardware sector that allow it to improve its performance and autonomy. So let's not lose ourselves in further talk and let's analyze this product in more detail in our review!

Review Huawei Watch GT 2

Unboxing - Huawei Watch GT 2

The sales case is very elegant and made of black cardboard and the following equipment is present inside:

• Huawei Watch GT 2;
• charging base;
• charging cable;
• manuals.

Construction and design

Il design follows the style of the previous generation but, this time with more harmonious lines e modern which give it a much more aspect premium also in the sports version. Yeah because even with the Huawei Watch GT 2 we have different versions, namely the one from 46 mm and that from 42 mm, which in turn are divided into editions Sports, Classic ed Elite.

Our variant, therefore, is the 46 mm Sport, which has some good size even for those who do not have too large a wrist (like mine), although there is no doubt that it is aimed primarily at the male audience. More in detail we talk about 45.9 x 45.9 x 10.7 mm for a weight of approx 41 gr. The latter is an important aspect because the watch turns out to be quite light and not particularly bulky for sports.

La cash It is entirely made of stainless steel, except the lower part on which lies the heart rate monitor that is in rigid plastic. Overall the structure is very resistant to bumps and scratches and, as if this were not enough, it has a water resistance up to 5 ATM. The strap of this variant is made of silicone and does not make us sweat particularly, allowing in fact a good transpiration of the skin. Obviously the latter can easily be replaced with any other watch-strap purchased in watch-shops and not.

Finally, on the case there is a microphone, a speaker, the heartbeat sensor, the pins for charging, the automatic brightness sensor and two physical buttons. The top one will allow us to open the main menu, while the bottom one can be associated with a function in particular, we find the various trainings available. The two keys will be essential if you use the sportwatch for the swimming, because on that occasion the touch screen of the display will be Off to avoid involuntary touches.

Display

"Never change a winning team", so says an old (but not too much) said e Huawei seems to have followed this philosophy because on board the Huawei Watch GT 2 we find the same panel as the previous generation, or a unit AMOLED da 1.39 inches diagonal with resolution HD 454 x 454 pixel.

This display has truly excellent quality thanks to gods loaded colors, an automatic brightness sensor that is never found unprepared and one high level maximum brightness, which will allow us to use the sportwatch under direct sunlight without any problem.

Il glass which protects the panel received a good oleophobic treatment e hydrophobic. In fact, another thing that I liked very much is that if we are in the shower or in the water the touchscreen is temporarily deactivated to avoid involuntary touches (you can continue to use, but with the physical keys), but if you want to go back to use it enough blow on it to make all the drops fly away quickly and make it completely clean and ready.

L'always-on display can be activated by settings and can only be of two types: digital e analog, which then have 3 colors each. Obviously activating it we will increase the energy consumption, but Huawei it will automatically disable the display awakening by rotating the wrist, so as to avoid unnecessary consumption. The only downside to this is that the brightness of the AOD is not always sufficient for a correct reading in the sun and for this reason we will have to go to wake up the sportwatch anyway.

With regard to watchfacesinstead, we can download several directly from Huawei Health. The variety is not very wide and most of them are more sporty than elegant, but we are waiting for a future update that will improve the situation.

Hardware, connectivity and audio

The real novelty of the Huawei Watch GT 2 is the new chipset for wearable developed in-house by the Chinese company, in more detail we talk about Kirin A1 which, assisted by the 2.0 energy saving algorithms, will allow the sportwatch of optimize consumption. Moreover, they are also present 4 GB di internal memory that we can use to insert up to 500 music tracks (according to the manufacturer).

Moving around the interface is very simple and everything happens quickly without particular hitches or uncertainties. Huawei from this point of view he did a good job and it shows. However being a sportwatch we have a proprietary software and will not allow us to install third-party apps, so continuing to talk about performance on this device doesn't make much sense.

It makes sense, however, to talk about connectivity because the Huawei Watch GT 2 is a concentrate of sensors e modernity, in fact on board we find the accelerometer, gyroscope, heart rate monitor, automatic brightness sensor, barometer, capacitive sensor and the geomagnetic sensor. Furthermore, there is the GPS e GLONASS and the new Bluetooth 5.1 which will also allow us to connect Bluetooth headphones.

With regards to this aspect, as mentioned above we can add some music in the internal memory of the sportwatch through the app Huawei Healt. Reproduction can take place either through w than by connecting earphones Bluetooth. The volume it is powerful enough for such a device, but if you bend your wrist you can seal the speaker, while the balance tends to favor the high and medium frequencies over the low ones, which are almost absent. However I can consider myself satisfied on the whole since it is not a device born for this purpose, but it is a plus that certainly pleases.

The most important aspect is related to calls, in fact, thanks to the presence of microphone we can make some telephone conversations without having to take your smartphone out of your pocket or backpack. In fact, not having a SIM in it, the Huawei Watch GT 2 will necessarily have to lean on the phone. Speaking of quality, however, I was pleasantly surprised because theaudio It's really excellent, both the one coming out of the speaker and the one captured by the microphone.

Software

Il Huawei Watch GT 2 is based on LiteOS, a proprietary software company that, unlike traditional smartwatches devoted to "productivity", does not allow us to install third-party applications.

The interface is taken care of down to the smallest detail and we can move between the various menus through the side swipe or with physical keys. In the same way we will be able to start activities and monitor all the progress with all the collected measurements without having to take the smartphone. Through the "home" we can select the following options:

• Training: then you can choose between a guided tour, an outdoor run, an indoor run, a walk outside, a walk inside, an outdoor bicycle, an exercise bike, indoor swimming, outdoor swimming, mountaineering, hiking, cross-country running , triathlon, elliptical, rowing, other;
• Record training: shows us all the training sessions previously carried out with the relative data;
• Training status;
• Heart rate;
• Activity logs: we are shown the status of the standard daily activity (steps, calories burned etc.);
• Sleep;
• Stress;
• Breathing exercises;
• Music;
• Contact: the favorite contacts previously chosen by the app are displayed. These can be called directly from the watch;
• Call register;
• Barometer;
• Compass;
• weather;
• Notifications;
• stopwatch;
• timer;
• Wake;
• Torch;
• Find the phone;
• Settings: includes the connectivity settings of the earphones, the display, the vibration intensity of the notifications, the non-disturb mode, the customization of the function key and the system info.

In short, as you will have understood the software of this sportwatch is his great strength and is embellished by some goodies such as i breathing exercises or the various guided running exercises which will vary depending on the difficulty level chosen.

With regard to notifications, these can only be displayed, but we will not be able to answer. Furthermore, emojis cannot be displayed, photo o play audio received on instant messaging apps. In general the management of notifications is good, the only thing that does not convince me is that when we receive one the display will not automatically wake up, but it will only show it to us after having rotated the wrist. Sometimes this mechanism doesn't work and we should activate sportwatch manually. Furthermore, I personally prefer to view the notification without having to rotate my wrist.

The app that interfaces the Huawei Watch GT 2 it's the usual one Huawei Health which we know well, which is very complete from the point of view of data collection and the production of graphs, above all as regards sleep thanks to the division into light sleep, heavy sleep and REM phase.

Fitness - Huawei Watch GT 2

So we come to the substance: how this behaves Huawei Watch GT 2 during training sessions? I have to say very well, as a series of measurements are started concerning the heartbeat (also during swimming), burned calories, distance traveled, trend, VO₂Max, the effect aerobic / anaerobic of the year and the SWOLF score in case of swimming. Furthermore, at the end of the training we will be shown the recovery times, all the info related to the statistics on the training volume of the previous week and all the data monitored by the sportwatch.

In short, the Huawei Watch GT 2 he wants to compete with the brands already present in this niche for years and I must say that at the moment he is doing quite well. The collected measurements are quite accurate and often you won't even need to take the smartphone, except to see the weekly progress. Moreover, these are improved thanks to the algorithms with proprietary AI such as Huawei TruSeen 3.5 for the heartbeat and Huawei TruSleep for the sonno.

Furthermore, by answering a few questions we will also indicate the daily stress level.

Autonomy

Under the body of the Huawei Watch GT 2 we find one battery da 455 mAh, whose autonomy varies, of course, according to kind of utilization. As for mine I set the active always-on, the automatic brightness sensor, constant connection to the smartphone, occasional heart rate measurement, 2 weekly activities, Huawei TruSleep activated and notifications activated and I managed to get to around 10 days of use. An autonomy that has me completely satisfied, since we can leave for a vacation without the need to bring the charging base with us. Furthermore, we approach the results of some smartband, but with the advantage of having a large display.

Conclusions - Huawei Watch GT 2

After analyzing in detail the Huawei Watch GT 2 Sport da 46 mm the time has come to take stock. In fact, the new Chinese company sportwatch is currently in pre-order in special promotion a 229.90 € with included two Huawei Mini Bluetooth Speakers. This will be valid only up to 6 October, subsequently the price will remain the same but you will not be able to have the other two products in bundle. We also note that the variant Classic is sold to 249.90 €.

The launch price is not bass, but it is on line with the main competitors in this sector such as Polar, Suunto o Garmin and, to slightly less, Fitbit. However, if you want to spend a lot less, alternatively there is Amazfit, but there are fewer functions that can be managed directly by the wearable.

In short, this Huawei Watch GT 2 it is a great product that will make all sportsmen happy as long as they are willing to spend more than 200 euro.