The Huawei announcement on the 1st of March, saw Huawei bring three wearables to market. The Talkband B2 and Talkband N1 are quite interesting in their own right, but it’s the Huawei Watch which seems to be capturing everyones attention, at least here in Android land. We’re at Mobile World Congress and the watches are now live in the Huawei booth so I popped a long to take a look.
Note: the staff at Huawei are extremely protective of the Watch and are only allowing limited access, but I had a play anyway.
The watch is available in three colours – Gold, Black and Silver – with a variety of different bands. The casing is made out of stainless steel, with a 42mm wide watch face that’s covered in a sapphire crystal to stop any potential scratches appearing in the screen. The specs give us a 400×400 resolution for a pixel density of 268ppi and it shows, the screen is quite good, at least in the booth.
The Huawei watch has a similar charging cradle to what we’ve seen on other watches from LG, in fact it’s design wise about the same though with a slightly different charging pin configuration. The cradle itself is powered by microUSB and the Huawei Watch seems to sit in ok, but the staff seem to have trouble positioning it on the cradle. One thought is that the black plastic cradle looks a little out of place when a premium looking Gold or Silver watch is sitting on it, but it would be an extra manufacturing process, and therefore additional cost to create others.
The rear has a heart rate monitor built-in (PPG), but the Huawei Watch is no fitness fanatics dream with no GPS included but that’s most likely not the category of device that Huawei is aiming for with the Huawei Watch.
The front as you can see above sports a slight lip, which sweeps up from the screen at an angle, similar to the G Watch R. When swiping around though it’s actually a softer touch when you eventually come in contact with the sides as opposed to others on the market.
Bands will be available in leather or stainless steel and will come in a variety of colours as you can see with the display models available there are at least Black, Silver and Gold and as you can see on the silver there’s a Milanse like loop band at least. The Huawei staff weren’t sure if this will be offered in black or gold, but it’s definitely in silver and definitely comfortable to wear.
Software wise – there’s nothing to tell. Huawei are simply running the Watch on demo software at the moment so we can’t jump in and see response etc, but suffice to say it should be pretty good.
Availability is really the key here, as is the price and neither have really been announced. A somewhat nebulous ‘Mid-Year’ time-frame is all that any Huawei staff member will advise but pricing is definitely not even being discussed around these parts.
The Huawei watch is really, really nice. The choice of stainless steel means it’s a little cooler to the touch at first but it warms up. The decision to go for a very premium look is a winner in my book and even with an expected higher price tag for it, the watch would certainly not look out of place at an upscale event or restaurant.
If you’re interested in grabbing specs you can jump over to the Huawei website and check them out in depth. We’re definitely interested in the Huawei Watch and we’ll be hounding Huawei till they can give us some release details.
I’ve gotta say I’ve been really impressed with the way you guys at Ausdroid have delivered on the ground coverage from Barcelona. This place is at its best when it’s offering unique perspectives relevant to its Australian audience. The fact that you’ve got Dan in Spain is a real feather in the cap. Thumbs up, fellas. Well done.
Oh, and the Huawei watch is yet another very promising step forward in the land of Android Wear.
Any word on what kind of water resistance it offers?