HUAWEI WATCH GT 2 (46mm)

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 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'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.

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've started running again recently so wanted to track my progress, I immediately thought about a fitbit. Started looking at smart watches and just spent ages. Ended up a choice, I thought, between the versa 2 and Garmin vivosmart 4. Then I spotted this. I stayed to looking at the Samsung Galaxy watch but rejected quickly based on battery life, then this watch was suggested, and I have a Huawei P30 Pro phone (which is awesome by the way) so thought I'd take a look... the smaller (gt 42) size is good for me as I have a pretty normal size wrist for a bloke, so this watch doesn't look overly big (it doesn't look like a big smart watch) it is also very thin, no bigger than my existing mechanical watch. Screen is beautiful and clear with vibrant colours (loads of watch faces to choose from well) The GPS works fine, sleep measuring is good too.. Heartbeat and VO2 max all good .. You can set running targets and can see stats and hear from a coach as you run, so you know how well you're doing vs those targets... Everything works fine.. Loaded up 130 mps3 to listen to so don't need my phone with me when running, just Bluetooth to my earbuds... Annoying that it doesnt yet sync to Strava (although I understand this is being worked on).. The Huawei health app on my phone is great.. Lots of info so you can compare the same run pretty easily and see progress. Would be nice to be able to directly sync Amazon music, but no great hardship to copy across a load of tracks. All my social media alerts come across fine (and you can pick which ones you want to be notified of) Charging is really quick and the battery life is impressive.. Easy 4 - 5 days and that's with GPS use every day when walking and running on alternate days. My experience watching endless reviews and reading spec sheets is that there is compromise on every device. Be sure on what features you must have and what you'd like to have etc.. Then you can prioritise and compare. For me, battery life, having GPS and size were very important. This has been one of the most impressive pieces of tech I have bought for some years... And I do like my tech. Ps.. The price is also amazing given the spec Update 6 months later and I am still very impressed, works perfectly and now there are loads of watch faces to choose from as well. The only small point is that it only partially syncs data with Google fit and not at all with Strava.. They really should put that right.. Very easy to do if they wanted to. Given the price had dropped further now this is a fantastic buy in my opinion.. I would still buy this today if I were looking again.

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 spend months researching smart watches on Youtube and shop sites and I was not prepared to spend more than £250 and not less than £125 (as I did not want anything that looked too plastic). My list included Samsung, Fitbit, Tickwatch and Amazfit. I was annoyed that Samsung keep increasing their price of their older versions just as I went to buy one. I had discounted the HUAWEI Watch GT 2 (46 mm) as being too expensive and too big, as well as conspiracy of spying. When HUAWEI released their latest v3 the price of the GT2 plummeted to even below my minimum spend (unlike Samsung who increase!) This was a no brainer so I snapped one up and have no regrets. This is a stunning looker of a watch, the chrome body and leather strap look amazing and everybody who sees it is impressed (including Samsung owners). It is a big watch but fits me very well (see picture) + Quality and looks are amazing + Battery life is weeks not hours + Always on face is very nice looking. see picture. + The battery lasts for many days even with the "always on" enabled + It is 5 ATM waterproof (but I still will avoid getting it wet!) + Sleep monitor is good + Music storage and internal speaker is fun - GPS lock can take up to 10 minutes to get a lock. Likely this is increase battery life but reduces usefulness as a exercise watch. Strangely starting exercise from the phone app is ok but you have to keep the phone nearby - Heart monitor is not accurate compared a Blood pressure machine or Phone app. - Android app is limited. Worryingly you have to replace the Google store app with a download from Huawei. What are they hiding from Google? - Auto activate wakeup does not stay on long enough to read face details and no setting to change - More decent faces are additional cost - Not for Apple users apparently but they wont care :P - Does not yet connect to Fitbit scales or other devices or services. - lack of apps - Weather app is limited, it even has a Tide app that only displays a port not even in UK! A nice watch with quality build and looks but beauty is only skin deep.