Realme has launched two new cheap smartwatches, with improved fitness tracking features to tempt you away from rivals like the Amazfit Bip.
The Realme Watch 2 expands on the original Realme Watch's health features, and the biggest new addition is on-board GPS for tracking runs, walks and bike rides. While the original Realme Watch had to piggyback on your phone's GPS receiver (a method that rarely results in accurate measurements), the new watch lets you leave your handset at home, and should hopefully deliver more accurate results.
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It has the same heart rate and SpO2 sensors as the previous model, but the Watch 2 offers 90 dedicated sports modes rather than 16. That looks impressive, but it's unclear how many of these will offer activity-specific metrics and how many will simply measure heart rate and time.
The new watch has a 1.4-inch display, with a resolution of 320 x 385 pixels (an increase from the original watch's 320 x 320 pixels). That's only slightly less than the Apple Watch 6, and should result in crisp, clear graphics and text.
Realme is also launching a larger model, the Realme Watch 2 Pro. This has a 1.75-inch display, but is otherwise identical in terms of specifications.
When we reviewed the original Realme Watch last year, we found that it was more like a simple fitness tracker than a fully-fledged smartwatch. It looks as though the Watch 2 will be similar, as it still lacks tools like on-watch music playback, contactless payments, or downloadable apps. That's something of a shame, because the new watch's high resolution display could do so much more than display health stats.
How much will it cost?
The Realme Watch 2 is available now for £49.99 direct from Realme, which is the same price as the original Realme watch. Prices for other territories aren't available at the time of writing, but if Realme sticks with the same prices as last year internationally, then we can expect it to retail for $50 in the US, and AU$169 in Australia.
The Realme Watch 2 Pro will be more expensive, costing £69.99. That converts to about $100 / AU$130, though we expect the actual US price will be closer to $70, and the Australian price will be around AU$200.
Although it's still a very affordable device, that's a pretty big price jump for a small increase in screen size, and it will be interesting to see whether the extra outlay is justified. We'll be putting the Watch 2 to the test and will bring you a full review soon.
We'll be particularly interested to see how it measures up to the excellent Amazfit Bip, which is similarly priced and offers many of the same features together with a mature, well developed smartphone app.
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