Gadgetory

when your principal standouts in the United States our fringe or affordable smartphones you've got to have some serious stones to price your first SmartWatch like this at $349 only one other SmartWatch in the Google store is as expensive and that's just the entry tier does Huawei bring enough quality to justify the coin I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and let's find out in our video review of the Huawei watch the Huawei watch was designed to make an impression and it does from the moment you open the package while we loaned us the base model of the watch to review but nothing about it says basic the 42 millimeter casing is 3/16 L cold formed stainless steel made it to a 21 millimeter black suture stitched leather band that's both more traditional looking and more rigid than the soft leather of some other smart watch bands every Android wear manufacturer in 2015 seems to be using the same strategy when it comes to design D emphasize the geekiness of a SmartWatch by amping up its style and while this is certainly subjective I don't think anyone this year has done it better than Huawei from its blended lugs to its brushed finish to its sapphire crystal this is an absolutely beautiful piece it's ready to ip67 for water and dust resistance but it's such a great-looking watch you'll probably find yourself taking it off well before you get near either of those about the only hardware complaint I've got is thickness at over eleven millimeters it's got some girth but that's par for the course in today's SmartWatch world and you forget all about the thickness once the display comes to life it's a 1.4 inch full circle screen at a resolution of 400 by 400 the highest you can find on Android wear compared to much of its competition everything on the Huawei watch looks incredibly sharp the deep color saturation of AMOLED makes the on screen graphics pop in full brightness while it's high contrast means the time is usually still visible even in power saving mode toggling between the two is as simple as pressing the crown at the two o'clock position which like everything else feels very well made unfortunately there's no ambient light sensor here to change the displays brightness you've got to go to the settings menu it's pretty common for smartwatches but it still feels archaic on such an otherwise advanced product when it comes to software Android wear is Android wear Google gives manufacturers precious little room for improvisation or expansion and to be candid that's probably a good thing Huawei has seldom impressed us with its software design on smartphones that said there are a few bits of custom work here most notably in the fitness suite the daily tracking app is a straightforward way to keep track of your step count and calories burned and qua Way says it's heart rate readings are more accurate than the competition due to its use of two optical sensors instead of one I can't speak to the accuracy but it did seem a bit faster it's weird to even think of the Huawei watch in a sporty sense though maybe it's because I don't have the black Sport Edition here but this is a watch that gets along much better with a business suit than a tracksuit and Huawei includes over 40 watch faces out of the box to make sure you can find a match for whatever you're wearing no matter which watch face you're running the Huawei watch seems to have no trouble keeping up standard hardware loadout of a Snapdragon 400 with a half gig of ram serves it well making for very fluid interactions whether you're swiping tapping gesture scrolling or commanding it with your voice whether what we watch differs from a typical hardware loadout is in acoustics according to Android police there's a speaker underneath the casing there must be some reason hallway has included it but for now it's one of those mysterious touches we have to assume is for future expansion a shame that Huawei didn't take that a step further and build in NFC which is just as absent here as on any other Android wear device I've tested the Huawei watch for five days during which it's been paired with the Moto X pure edition the watch is also capable of working with the iPhone but we stuck to Android now depending on where you look huawei claims up to two days or one point five days of battery life and my testing I found the shorter figure more accurate with the always-on display enabled but Wi-Fi disabled I managed to get about 18 hours on a single charge that means most people will be charging this thing every night and that's kind of a shame because this charger isn't the greatest like the Apple watch charger it's a nondescript magnetic puck but huawei's disk is shoes wireless charging for a set of tiny pins that don't always line up on the first try what that means is that sometimes the magnet will attach but charging won't take place and unless you remember to look for that charging indicator you'll be none the wiser until you wake up the next day to a dead SmartWatch for a watch this expensive it would have been nice of Huawei to bundle a more convenient charger Motorola's Moto 360 comes with a cradle in the box so the watch can double as a bedside clock and that watch starts at 50 dollars cheaper than the Huawei watch the Huawei watch is available in three colors with several options for bundled bands with prices stretching all the way up to seven hundred ninety-nine dollars for the gold-plated Edition and additional bracelets available in several styles at similarly steep prices and as I said before even our entry level review device here is a not insignificant $349 is it worth it yes but only if you're already sold on Android wear is a platform for some the interface is still too convoluted and the added convenience of an android smart watch still doesn't offset the inconvenience of charging yet another device every night for them the Huawei watch is likely to be just as ill-fitting as any other but Android wear has come a long way in a short while and nothing exemplifies that better than this device from where I'm sitting it's got the best display the best industrial design and the most elegant look and feel you can find in the Google store right now like the Apple watch and the watch urbane I do think it's too expensive especially at the higher tiers but as Huawei continues to remind us this is a product aimed squarely at wristwatch lovers and the unconscious both groups accustomed to spending money if you're looking to kick off or upgrade your Android wear experience and look and feel matter more to you than anything else well it just doesn't get any better than this of course the Huawei watch isn't alone in the marketplace and we saw almost all of its competition at Aoife 2015 in Berlin check out our related hands-on coverage from that show here on YouTube and be sure to also take in the written version of this review at pocket now linked in the description below and available on September 22nd til next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter thanks for watching and we'll see you next time