Huawei has confirmed today in San Francisco that it’s in-demand Android Wear entrant, dubbed simply the Huawei Watch, will be coming to Australia next month. The Huawei Watch, announced earlier this year at MWC 2015 in Berlin, has been widely anticipated due to its exceptional design when compared with the current crop of Android Wear devices.
Opening the leather-encased box reveals the premium appeal Huawei wants to push with this device; I’ve opened similar boxes after buying a nice Tissot timepiece, and so it is with the Huawei Watch; this is pitched as a premium timepiece too.
For those of us in Australia waiting to get hands-on, it won’t be long; Huawei is bringing the Huawei Watch to us on 15 October, in a variety of configurations:
- $549 for the stainless steel watch with black leather strap
- $649 for stainless steel with silver stainless mesh strap
- $649 for stainless steel with silver stainless link band
There will be a premium entrant too, at $749, which features a black stainless watchface (as shown in the hero shot, above) with a black stainless link band (not pictured).
For those who like options, Huawei’s providing a good number from the box, but the band will be interchangeable as well, accomodating standard 18mm watchbands, though not the de-facto standard 22mm bands used by many others.
The result, if you hadn’t guessed, is that the Huawei Watch looks much more slender on the wrist, and this is a good thing; the only other luxury-pitched Android Wear device at the moment is LG’s Watch Urbane, and it (like the G Watch R before it) is a fairly sizeable watch, both in thickness and overall size — the comment made was that the Huawei Watch would not look oversized or out of place on a more slender wrist, whereas some other Android Wears can dwarf a slender wrist and look a bit unseemly.
That said, even on a solid male wrist (guilty), the Huawei Watch both looks and feels great. It’s lightweight and though it is relatively thick, it doesn’t look thick, and so its very much a watch you could wear with formal attire and look the part.
Under the hood, the watch is thoroughly Android Wear, so there’s no secrets from the operating system perspective. There’s a 300 mAh battery inside which Huawei says is good for one and a half day’s usage, and it charges in just 75 minutes so a quick boost between engagements is possible.
Other features include the scratch-proof sapphire lens and 1.4″ 400×400 circular display, with no flat tire like the Moto 360. It uses a proprietary cradle to charge, and there’s no word (at this early stage) of whether replacement/spare cradles will be available for sale, though we certainly hope this will be the case.
The surprising bit of news is the Huawei Watch is designed to work with iOS as well; not having an iOS device with me, I can’t exactly test this, but Huawei’s spec sheet shows the watch is designed to work with iOS 8.2 and above, in addition to the Android compatibility.
All in all, it’s a beautiful watch and one I look forward to thoroughly getting to know in the coming weeks.
Ausdroid is in San Francisco to cover Google’s 29 September announcement, and Huawei has provided accomodation for this trip.
Pretty expensive entry point, , when it doesn’t seem to really offer any more than the Moto360.