Huawei's First Smartwatch Runs Android Wear, and It's Beautiful
BARCELONA - Smartwatches took over Mobile World Congress this year, and Huawei entered the ring with its first timepiece simply called the Huawei Watch. It's a stylish watch with a number of band options and an embedded heart rate monitor, making it one of the most fashion-forward Android Wear devices available.
The metal body of the watch is slick and classic, featuring a bright 1.4-inch, 400 x 400-pixel AMOLED touchscreen that's scratch-resistant thanks to its sapphire crystal lens. The body itself is also scratch-resistant, so you'll never have to worry about bumps or drops tarnishing the aesthetic of this timepiece. It will come in gold, silver and black, along with a slew of leather band options and different ways to customize the watchface.
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Aside from the scratch-resistant design, the Huawei Watch is a pretty standard Android Wear device. It's powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm processor, has 4GB of storage and 512MB of RAM, and will connect to any smartphone running Android 4.3 or higher.
The watch also has an optical heart rate monitor built into the underside of the body, so it'll track fitness metrics like steps, distance, calories, sleep and heart rate. Huawei estimates the watch will get 1.5 days of battery life on a single charge, which is common among smartwatches, even if it's not ideal.
The body of the Huawei Watch actually looks remarkably like the new LG Watch Urbane (not the model with LTE), making it one of the few classic-style smartwatches that could pass for a regular timepiece. Companies like Huawei and LG are proving that it's possible to make lovely smartwatches, but those Android Wear devices are currently limited by the operating system's basic features and small app library.
If MWC has proved anything, it's that tech companies are slowly figuring out how to make devices like smartwatches more beautiful. However, it'll be up to Google and developers to make Android Wear more robust and worth a spot both on your wrist and in your life. Until then, we're interested to get our hands on a Huawei Watch and review it fully - the smartwatch will be available later this year, but a final price has not been revealed.
Valentina Palladino is a senior writer for Tom's Guide. Follow her at @valentinalucia. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide and on Facebook.
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