MWC 2017: Huawei unveils AI-powered Watch 2 and Watch 2 Classic

Huawei’s other major announcement after the P10 and P10+ smartphones at the Mobile World Congress 2017 is the Huawei Watch 2 and Watch 2 Classic. Successors to the beautiful Huawei Watch from last year, the new smartwatches will run on Google’s new Android Wear 2.0 OS and will be available in the US and the UK in April 2017 and at $350 (approximately Rs23,346). They are expected to arrive in India in May 2017.

The presence of new OS means users can download apps directly on the watch. The new OS also comes with AI-powered Google Assistant baked into the software.

Read more: MWC 2017: Huawei P10 and P10+ are the first steps towards achieving a dream

The Huawei Watch 2 with its colourful and slimmer (20mm) rubber bands has a sporty look. The Watch 2 Classic has a more premium but slightly wider (22mm) leather band. The dial in Watch 2 is made of plastic while the dial in Watch 2 Classic is of stainless steel.

The two run on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip with 768MB RAM and 420mAh battery. The hardware is pretty much at par with smartwatches by rival brands. The LG Watch Sport, which also offers a circular dial, runs Android Wear 2.0 and has the same processor, RAM and battery, but offers a slightly bigger 1.38-inch display.

The new Huawei watches have retained the circular shaped dial of the predecessor and offer a 1.2-inch AMOLED display with screen resolution of 390x390p and a layer of Gorilla Glass 3. The Apple Watch Series 2 offers a bigger 1.65-inch OLED display (42mm dial) with a more durable Sapphire crystal glass panel.

The good news is that both Huawei watches have got the IP68 certification which makes them dust resistant and water resistant up to 1.5 metres for 30 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 2 is a lot more durable in this regard and can survive dips of up to 50 metres.

The Huawei Watch 2 and Watch 2 Classic offer all the relevant health-related tools such as heart rate sensor, pedometer and Huawei’s Fit training program. For connectivity, they include Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC, GPS and a built-in microphone for answering calls on the watch itself. The international model of the new Huawei watches will have a LTE variant too.

The Huawei Watch 2 and Watch 2 Classic will be available in India at a slightly higher price tag if you factor in the import duty. The Apple Watch Series 2 (42mm) is available at Rs34,900.