HUAWEI WATCH GT 2 (46mm)

I've been something of a watch enthusiast for over 25 years. This is the first smartwatch I've owned. Previously I've paid up to £2000 for automatic (non-smart) watches, the most prestigious one I own being a Tudor Black Bay. When looking into smartwatch territory, I started looking at Tissot's offering which cost £800+. This made me wonder what you really do get for your money at various price points. I did quite extensive research into everything from £50 to £1000 smart watches, the top end of this being a Tag Heuer model. In my case I was primarily interested in a watch that could be used for swimming (i.e. it had to be fully waterproof - which a lot of smartwatches aren't), to monitor my heart rate and of course serve as an actual watch that could tell the time! I wanted something with GPS, lightweight, with more than a few days battery life, and that charged quickly. A decent UI and responsive app were also high on my list as this seems to be hit and miss when it comes to smartwatches. I can safely say this Huawei watch ticks all of these boxes and goes above and beyond in every single category. Upon opening the box the first thing I noticed is the build quality. The AMOLED display is comparable to the quality of the Retina Display on my iPhone. The strap is excellent quality too - it's flexible yet tough and extremely comfy. There are numerous holes in the strap which mean it would fit anyones wrist. The strap itself is actually more of a red colour as opposed to orange advertised. Personally I think the red/black combination looks great, and was actually considering replacing the orange advertised strap with a red one, so for me personally this was a bonus as I got what I wanted with the item. The watch battery came charged to 75% and the battery life is outstanding. I've only charged this once in the week I've owned it and the charging was rapid - it went from around 50% to 100% in under half an hour. Quite incredible. The Huawei phone app (I'm using it on an iPhone 12) is pretty good. Easy to set up and what I really liked is how many different watch faces you can find. There's literally a face for every type of activity/sport as well as a number of "dress watch" faces. I can't imagine anybody would struggle to find a watch face they liked. It seems simple to update the watch software via the app. Notifications on the phone produce a subtle vibration; looking at the watch face will activate it and show you the notification, e.g. a Whatsapp message or call. You can configure how many seconds the watch face stays active before going to sleep. This is a nice feature although be aware the longer the duration the more battery it uses. There are 2 buttons on the right hand side and these can be used to go through the options menu, or start recording an activity e.g. swimming/running/a treadmill session etc. All options are clear and the UI is simple and intuitive. In summary this is an incredibly well built watch. It offers high build quality, a decent app, rapid charging, excellent battery life, loads of watch faces and is light weight. Looks-wise it looks like a professional watch, comparable to Tissot's £800 T-Touch model and with more smartwatch features (admittedly the Tissot and Tag Heuer models are intended to be watches first, smartwatches second, whereas this Huawei is a dedicated smartwatch and doesn't pretend to be anything but that). Can I fault it in any way? The only thing I came across is that the step counter doesn't seem to record the same number as either my iPhone or when manually testing it (e.g. walking 15 steps and seeing the number reported wasn't 15). Personally I don't use this feature of the watch as I bought it for previously stated reasons so it's not too big an issue and I'm not sure if it would calibrate eventually. Overall it's really hard to knock this and given the price I can't see any real competition. I'm so glad I didn't buy a £120 Garmin (doesn't meet even half of my criteria above of what I was looking for) or £240 Citizen CZ Hybrid (isn't suitable for swimming), both of which I considered before I'd done much research. I don't think you can go wrong with this and would say it's an absolute steal.

I absolutely adore this watch. It does the things you want from a fitness watch and does those things extremely well. Accurate fitness readings for sleep, steps, heart measurement, I tested the readings against professional medical equipment and the watch was spot on. The styling of the watch is lovely, it stands out against all other watches I've seen, the OLED display is stunning too. My absolute favourite feature has to be the battery life. So many watches fall down on this critical aspect. The watch gt2 with heavy use with calls, display on a lot, me messing around with it etc lasts 8-10 days. That's with silly amount of usage when I first bought it. Now after a few weeks of realistic usage I'm at 14 days usage and 22% battery remaining. I could easily get 2 or 3 more days from it. For a fitness watch and general time telling you really want good battery life. This delivers. Finally, the negatives. This isn't really a smart watch, don't expect apps, social media and fancy stuff. Yes you can receive calls with it via Bluetooth and the call should quality is impressive, yes you can play music with it plus all the fitness apps. But that's it. The gt2 does the fitness stuff brilliantly and it's a great watch. But it stops there. Which is fine for me. In an ideal world I'd have liked social media notifications and wireless Qi charging, the gr2 Pro does have Qi charging, the gt2 doesn't. Even so, I'm very very happy with this watch, the price, fitness suite and long battery life are so important and those boxes are all and truly checked. Highly recommend.

I've worn this every day now since I bought it a year ago. Here are my thoughts. Battery life: I wear it 24 hours a day. I get at least one week's use between charges. Can't beat that. I don't use the standby watch face feature. When I'm not looking at it my watch is off. Sleep tracking / stress / blood pressure I use these features every day. I'm not sure how accurate they are, but they are consistent, so I can keep an eye on how I am feeling physiologically aswell as mentally. The phone app is great, simple with few features, but gives nicely detailed analysis of sleep. Wear and tear I'm not good at taking care of stuff, I wear this watch for gardening, painting, swimming, gym use, moving rubble, everything. And after a year, not a scratch. Looks as good as new. And... it never smells. fitness I don't use it for fitness. For me, this is the least attractive feature. It aften asks me if I am exercising and want to turn on tracking. I can't find a way of turning this off. Also, if it is being used it has a VERY loud voice that commentator your exercise. I can find no way of turning that off and so I am embarrassed by a watch shouting at me. Smartwatch - messages and alerts Like most smartwatches you can see when you have a facebook post comment, but you can't read it. You can however see and read facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS messages. That's enough. Would I recommend? Absolutely, I think it's great. Only think I would change is to be able to silence the fitness features and voice. Wish I could edit some of the watchfaces, but that's a small thing. It's no where near as powerful as my android LG or Fossil smartwatches, but the proof in the pudding is that I wear this one every day because it is useable and has a great battery life. And it looks like it's dropped in price since I bought it.

Had this watch for 3 weeks now, so plenty of time to get to grips with it and give a well informed opinion. Note - I'm an iPhone user, so some of my gripes may not be valid when running with an Android phone. Things I love: Looks - Looks lovely and traditional which is what drew me to it. Debated the pro version, but in my opinion, it's lost the good looks of the standard model. Straps - Came with 2 straps which I wasn't expecting. Ordered the brown leather but there was also a black silicon strap in the box too. Huge thumbs up. Build Quality - Feels nice and solid. Packaging was equally as nice, especially for this price point. Came with everything you would expect. App - Nice app which I imagine is similar to the competitors, certainly was similar to my previous Fitbit. Maybe not as polished, but beyond adequate. Functionality - Really easy to use and the display is nice and clear. No judders or hesitation so clearly the processing power is more than adequate. Battery Life - I was skeptical of their 14 day claim on battery life, but I got 11 days. Obviously that isn't 14 days, but still hugely respectable in my opinion. Really fast charging too. Thing I didn't like as much: Screen brightness is an issue in strong sun. It can't quite get bright enough to counter the glare. Always on Display - I liked this function; sure the watch face choices are a little bland, but it's to be expected. But what frustrated me was that the watch didn't change to the full face when the watch was raised as it would if the 'always-on' function was off. You have to press one of the buttons to fully wake it up. Charger - Feels very cheap and flimsy. Essentially it's just a magnetic disc, but it just looks and feels cheap. Customisation - Apart from the obvious watch face changes, there's not a whole load of customisation to be done. You can configure the bottom button to open a particular section - settings, HR, Exercise etc but that's about it. Another disappointment in the area of customisation is the watch face selection within the app. There doesn't seem to be any way to filter different styles, so you literally have to trawl through a huge list. I think watch faces for Apple users is quite a new addition, so hopefully this process will get polished out as time goes on. Notifications - Can't seem to tweek individual settings, as in, shut down notification from certain apps. It's literally all or nothing. It also doesn't appear to work with iMessages or SMS on an iPhone which is a shame as not everyone used WhatsApp to communicate. Heartrate - Not sure what the issue is, but I CANNOT get a resting heartrate which is annoying. I've tried wearing it slightly looser than normal and slightly tighter, but still no resting heart rate. However, heartrate as a whole seems ok. I read that some people think it's quite far off actual, but it compares almost identically to what my Fitbit was showing me throughout a typical day. Calories - As far as I can tell, this watch will NOT display general calorie use from simply being awake and existing. It can only draw data from movements, so anyone who really uses this particular data should probably steer clear. I think the new version 3 watch will include this amongst many other new features missing from previous models, albeit at a much higher price. Screen - Not really a fault of the phone, but the screen got scratched within the second week, so the screen seems softer than some other items of daily use. As I say, not a fault of the watch but maybe a reminder that a screen protector is a more of a necessity on this watch. All in all, for the money paid, I'm very impressed with it. However, if you want a really smart watch that does copes with all fitness demands, then this may not be the one for you.

Absolutely without doubt the best looking and functional watch I have ever owned. The GPS alone is amazing, leave your phone at home then review your workout later on the app or see so many stats right there in your watchface. Has so many functions to help track your health and fitness with heart, stress and spo2 levels to name but a few and even has a barometer, altimeter, compass even a torch. There are two buttons for quick access to workouts and the bottom button is customisable so you can add a function to it, I find the torch helpful as it is available in a snap. The oled screen is beautiful so responsive and the brightness is fully adjustable and there are so many available free watch faces,I just love it so far. A long press on the face shrinks the image and then just swipe left or right to choose your next default face maybe a dress face for dinner date or q retro sporty one for shopping. Taking calls is easy and storing and playing music is such a good feature bluetoothing earbuds and storing something like 500 tracks on your wrist or control music I use amazon music is so easy and works seamlessly. The timers function is so well thought out and there is so much more. Find your phone, stopwatch alarms etc. The smart alarm function is next level, if you set it for say 6am the watch will wake you between 5:55 and 6am but won't wake you if you are in deep sleep the hepatic buzzer gently waking you and not a blurring alarm although you can use ordinary alarms too. Outstanding! Battery.life is amazing too Recommend 100 % I know huwaei are not flavour of the month and there could be even more functionality but you will not be disappointed, fantastic premium product beautifully machined and matched to the most comfortable silicone strap makes this watch a perfect companion for sports and health fans. I have have nike Ed iwatch and it needed charging daily is a good watch but not as stylish and cost 3x the price of this and is inferior. I am definitely team Huwawei now, you will be too, what are you waiting for?

I struggled to pick a watch as I read mixed reviews about everyone I looked at and this watch looked like a cheap cousin to the £1000 Polar and Garmin equivalent watches. I've had it a week and while it does have a few limitations I am loving it. I'm using it for Triathalon training and HIIT classes and spin classes. Its a shame it doesn't share its data with UA apps that i also use and the heart monitor can sometimes suggest you have a lower heart rate than you actually have but having had lots of watches that monitor heart rate this is no different to others - it gets it right most of the time. Love the myzone face and the option to change the faces of the watch, I really can't rave about it too much, I'm a big fan. However, it doesn't come with the £1000 price tag of its competitors. Its well built, hard wearing, very useful, very accurate and just a lovely bit of kit if you like to knwo what your heart rate is doing on a regular basis. The Steps seem a bit keen to clock up, it tells me I have done 2-4000 steps and I know I haven't quite done that many. I haven't quite worked out how to keep it on the training screen i want to see when working out but I think that's just a learning curve thing for me. I like the way it recharges and I like the speed it recharges (circa an hour) and I like its battery life (it is a good couple of weeks and that is during some hard wearing with a couple of hours training a day. I wanted a good sports watch that was top quality but couldn't justify the £1000 price tags on the other watches I looked at. This is almost as much watch as the Garmin and Polar but at 1/5 of the cost. I'm super impressed, great value for money.

I bought my Huawei GT2 watch around a month ago and have been extremely pleased with it. The watch itself is a great size and looks good on the wrist and generally feels like a great quality product. There are 2 physical button, which feel nice when pressed. The top one us used to access the list of apps whilst the bottom one can be customised in the settings and set to a feature that you choose. Although it is labelled as a smart watch - I would call it more a feature watch, as you cannot add apps like you can with some other brands. There are various workout modes to choose from, which can track your statistics. I personally only use the Outdoor Walk mode, which activates the built in GPS and tracks your route, whilst measuring your heart rate, step count and height gained and lost. The watch will also track your sleep and give you quite an in-depth analysis of how good (or bad, as is usually my case), your sleep is. There are various other built in apps, which will show you your blood oxygen saturation level, the weather conditions, a compass and a barometer. Other useful features include a handy flashlight (which I have assigned to the lower customisable button) a timer and stopwatch, a remote shutter feature to activate your phone's camera remotely, breathing exercises and an alarm. The watch can also "ring" your phone should you misplace it and due to the inbuilt speaker and microphone, you can make and receive calls directly on the watch. ***** In The Box ***** 1 x Huawei GT2 1 x Charging Puck 1 x Charging Cable 1 x User Guide ***** Installation / Usage ***** I use a Huawei P30 Lite Smartphone, so installation was pretty straightforward for me as the Huawei Health app was already installed. If you have a different brand phone, you will need to download the app directly from Huawei, due to the ongoing issue with the US government and Huawei. Once installed, turn on the watch and use the app to add the device via Bluetooth. The app will find the device and walk you through a simple installation wizard and most likely update the installed firmware. Swiping up on the face takes you to notifications, swiping down shows you the quick settings menu and swiping left or right cycles through heart rate, weather, stress music and activity. From the app, you can see your various statistics that have been recorded, view GPS tracks that you have made, as well as change some settings on the watch. You can use the app to upload music directly to the watch’s built in storage. There is also a watch face gallery with a huge selection if different faces to choose from. Many you will have to pay for, but there is a very nice selection of free ones. ***** Conclusion ***** I have been extremely happy with my GT2. I was tossing up whether to spend the extra £90 on the GT2 Pro, but just couldn’t justify it. I really like the look of the device and although it has a couple of features missing that I would have ideally liked (NFC Payments, Apps, ability to reply to notifications), I think I made the right choice. One of my favourite features is being able to get phone notifications on the screen, without needing to take my phone out of my pocket. I tend to get around 10 days of use from the battery, using the wrist sense feature (not the permanent on screen), and the GPS tracking several times a week. I also really like that you can set a do not disturb feature on the watch, so I can have it automatically turn off the notifications and wrist sense at night time and then turn them back on in the morning. All in all, I’m really pleased and for around £100, I think the watch offers great value for money.

I chose this watch because it has a good reported battery life and a decent screen. I haven't been disappointed. Having played around to get the settings as I want them, the watch does everything that I want, has an excellent screen and a battery life of just over a week (probably two weeks, once I have stopped messing around with it!). The always on display (AoD) is easy to read when I don't want the fancy display. If you use the default settings then I think that you would get over two week's life out of the battery but I am happy to charge it once a week. Update after 5 months: Battery life is about a week but considerably less if you use the GPS a lot. Charging is quick and simple with the supplied charging lead (which magnetically attaches to the back of the watch). I have invested in a leather strap as I think that it looks better than the supplied one and feels more comfortable to me (the original wasn't uncomfortable). Overall I am really please with this watch. It looks good, works well and is a good price. There is a large range of available free watch faces and many more that you can pay money for. It is theoretically possible to design your own but getting it onto the watch is not for the faint hearted. If Huawei made this simple then I would give the mobile app another star. The watch isn't too thick, has a comfortable, replaceable strap and a reasonably loud speaker built-in. It will pair with ear buds if you want. It paired with my Android phone simply and quickly. I would definitely recommend it