A few years ago, Huawei introduced the world to its first smartwatch. Ever since its debut, the Huawei Watch has been one of the most sought after wearables. The smartwatch has gone through many iterations with the brand offering a host of new fitness trackers to build its ecosystem. The Huawei Watch GT2 Pro is one of those devices.
With the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro, the brand continues streamlining the interface, limiting features and the likes with the intention to extend battery life and performance.
Design and Build
Given the short period of time between its predecessor, the Watch GT, and the Watch GT 2, there were always going to be plenty of similarities. That being said, Huawei has done a great job in redesigning it. In the same vein, Huawei has redesigned the Watch GT 2 Pro. It has a softer look about it, while also having much smaller bezels. As a result, it’s both smaller and more lightweight. All of this makes it look far more premium.
The unit is manufactured in a titanium frame, which is surrounded by sturdy sapphire glass on the top and a ceramic casing on the rear. The premium touch is added with a leather band. This, compared to the metallic straps on the Watch GT 2. And there are quite a few straps available as well, either from Huawei or third parties. Each of these provides a unique touch of flair.
Screen and Display
As mentioned in the design, Huawei has made significant improvements in this area. As such, the screen has seen the most visible improvement. Interestingly, it has the same 1.39″ AMOLED screen with a 454x454px display. However, there is much less bezel around making it look all the better for it.
It offers great gesture support and smooth scrolling. The Sapphire glass also provides great protection, even though it’s still prone to some scrapes and scratches.
Software and Features
Out of the box, the Watch GT 2 Pro comes standard with 12 watch faces. More can be downloaded via the linked app on your smartphone and synced to the device. The default is the constellation ‘NightWish’ face, which is featured heavily in the marketing. And for good reason – it looks great. As with the previous Huawei units, the analogue faces have the most aesthetic appeal. It looks almost real.
The unit is also the first in the range to offer a built-in NFC. This means you are able to interact more readily with other devices, such as making payments or signing into a building.
Fitness and Wellbeing
While the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro may be labelled as a smartwatch, it’s still a fitness device at its core. As a result, it offers all the latest fitness features you require. This includes your daily stats such as steps, heart rate monitor SpO2 monitoring and more.
It does a great job of getting things done efficiently, and with all the shortcuts you don’t need to traverse through endless menus to get to your most frequently used apps.
As with previous units, it boasts quite a large number of preloaded tracking activities. From your conventional walking, running, treadmill and swimming, it also offers more unique activities such as playing golf or practising your baseball swing.
Battery Life
Battery life has always been one of the strong points for the Huawei brand and its wearables. That’s no different here on the Watch GT 2 Pro, offering two weeks of battery life under normal mode. Switching to a few GPS-enabled activities will reduce this to about seven days, but that’s still quite sufficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEYCex5nXjc
Conclusion
In the end, it may just be a slight update on the previous unit, but that’s just on paper. The Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro delivers upgrades across the board and makes a great argument to upgrade as a result.
The Watch GT 2 retails for R5,499. It’s available online at the Huawei Store, as well as from selected network carriers and retailers across the country.