HUAWEI Watch GT 2 (46 mm) Smart Watch, 1.39 Inch AMOLED Display with 3D Glass Screen, 2 Weeks Battery Life, GPS, 15 Sport Modes, 3D Glass Screen, Bluetooth Calling Smartwatch, Matte Black

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 pressureI 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 tearI'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.fitnessI 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 alertsLike 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.