Android Wear — and wearables that normal people will actually wear — might be back. The Huawei Watch 2 — and its more stylish Classic sibling — are the first devices to launch with Android Wear 2.0, Google’s long-overdue answer to the Apple Watch Series 2.
Since late last year, Apple has ruled the roost when it comes to wearables. Android Wear has been out in the wilderness for some time. Now that Android Wear 2.0 has launched, though, it might be Google’s time to shine again — and the Huawei Watch 2 is the device which it’s pinning its hopes upon.
The successor to the feted original has a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset and 768MB of RAM, as well as 2GB of onboard storage for apps and media. Mirroring Samsung’s Gear S3, the sporty regular Watch 2 will have 4G LTE and Wi-Fi and GPS and NFC for Android Pay, while the more restrained Watch 2 Classic will get by without 4G.
Strangely, Huawei has chosen a smaller 1.2-inch screen for the Watch 2 — a fair bit smaller than the 1.4-inch display of the original Huawei Watch — despite having a 45mm case diameter, 3mm larger than the first. It has a high resolution of 390×390 pixels, though, which should mean more detail in your notifications and Google Maps navigation. A 420mAh battery should make for at least a couple of days of battery life with most of the wireless tech switched on.
We’re still yet to confirm an Australian price and release date for the Huawei Watch 2 variants, but they’ll go on sale internationally this March for a price of around 329 Euros. It’s unlikely we’ll see the 4G-connected version on Australian shores. [http://www.huawei.com/au/“>Huawei]