Huawei Watch 2 Pro hands-on, first impressions

Huawei first announced the Watch 2 Pro back in October but never released it in the Philippines. The smartwatch was only available in China and there’s no indication until now if it’s going to be released elsewhere.

The Huawei Watch 2 Pro is the first smartwatch to come with a built-in eSIM (electronic SIM card) which means you get 4G/LTE connectivity, stand-alone GPS capability, as well as on-device voice calls.

The body is made up of SAE 316L grade stainless steel and is compatible with the standard 22m straps. The face is 1.2 inches in diameter and uses an AMOLED display with 390×390 pixel resolution and Gorilla Glass protection.

Under the hood, the Watch 2 Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 1.1GHz 4-core processor with 768MB RAM running on a Chinese-edition Android Wear OS 2.0. It’s got WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS (Beidou), NFC and SMS capabilities. A 4GB internal storage is allocated for apps and data (SMS, etc).

There are a lot more built-in sensors here — accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, heart rate sensor, barometric pressure sensor, a capacitive sensor and ambient light sensor.

The Li-Ion 420 mAh battery can guarantee a whole day of use for the 4G model and about 1.5 days for the non-LTE model. Good thing it supports fast charging too so you can just quickly dock it in the morning before you go to work and there will still be enough battery when you get home. It’s also IP68 dust and water resistant.

The thick metal face has titanium grey that’s more targeted to male users. Having used the original Huawei Watch, the new Watch 2 Pro looks much nicer in term of design. Aside from the LTE connectivity, the biggest practical improvements here are the IP68 certification and the fast charging capabilities.

The Huawei Watch 2 Pro sells for ¥2588 (~Php20,000USD 341INR 28,892EUR 325CNY 2,482) in Chinese online stores like Vmall.