Huawei Watch review

Design and comfort

• Chunky but stylish design
• Water resistant and includes a heart rate monitor

Early smartwatches were known for having awful designs, just take a look at the Samsung Gear Live or LG G Watch, but thankfully the current crop are all actually, dare I say it, attractive?

The circular Android Wear watches are not only starting to resemble more traditional timepieces, but they're also starting to get smaller. If you're a man and already a regular watch wearer, the size of the Huawei Watch shouldn't be an issue. On a woman, it could seem a little bulky.

It only comes in one size, measuring 42mm in diameter and 11.3mm thick. That's the same diameter as the smaller Moto 360, but the 360 is 0.1mm thicker. Strangely though, on the wrist you'd swear the Moto 360 is thinner.

Perhaps it's the strap lugs that make the Huawei Watch appear chunkier, we're not sure.

Ultimately, it won't look out of place on most male wrists, but just like every other smartwatch we've tried (bar the 38mm Apple Watch) it may look out of place on more slender arms.

The Huawei Watch is reasonably lightweight. As in, its weight is noticeable, but it doesn't feel too heavy in day to day use.

Taking a leaf from Apple's book, there are several different design options for the watch, allowing you to personalise it to your tastes. First off, customers have the option of three finishes, gold, silver, and black.

The gold casing comes with either a brown alligator leather band, or a gold link band. The silver case comes with either a black leather strap, a steel link strap, or a silver Milanese loop. And the black casing comes with either a black leather band, black steel link strap, or a black Milanese loop.

We reviewed the silver steel casing with the black leather band, and must say, it's our favourite configuration of the bunch.

The leather strap is one of the best I've seen come with a smartwatch, it's soft, flexible, and doesn't wrinkle.

If you want to further customise the watch, you can add any 18mm watch strap. It's a nice option to have, especially if you like to stand out. Changing the strap is incredibly simple, just pull back the release mechanism and it'll pop out.

The Huawei Watch is still one of the more premium-feeling Android Wear watches. It's solid, the materials are high quality and the design is understated and sophisticated. Unlike the Moto 360, the screen is fully round, too.

The crown button, located at the 2 o'clock position, acts as a home button, also waking and dimming the screen. Positioned where it is makes the button much more ergonomic than having it placed at 3 o'clock, as it requires less rotation of the non-dominant wrist.

On the rear of the watch you'll find a centralised optical heart rate monitor and four gold contacts for the charging dock.

The Huawei watch is rated IP67, which means it's dust resistant and will survive half an hour in up to one metre of water. While it's not necessarily a watch you'd want to wear while swimming, you could happily wear it in the shower or during torrential rain.

Battery life

• 300mAh battery
• Battery life is simply okay

Huawei has equipped the Watch with a 300mAh battery, which is actually quite small for such a thick device. They claim this is good for around two days use with Ambient Mode turned off, and 1.5 days with Ambient Mode turned on.

I found this to be more or less correct, depending on usage, although, even with Ambient Mode on, I'd guess you could stretch out around two days usage, if you're not doing anything battery intensive, such as navigation.

Most of this is used by the AMOLED screen and background OS, but in idle the watch uses very little power. In fact, the smartwatch uses so little power, I charged the watch on Friday, left it on a desk over the weekend, and the device still had power on Monday.

In short, the battery life is merely okay, it's certainly not a stand out performer.

Charging the battery to full takes around an hour, which isn't bad. The charging connector looks similar to the Apple Watch power cable, except, instead of wireless charging this magnetic plate has four little gold connectors. It can't be easily knocked out, and the magnets make locating the connectors simple.