It was back in early September we were told that the new and highly anticipated Huawei Watch would debut in the US and Canada on September 17 and it looks like that is a good date as it has arrived in the Canadian Google Play Store for $499. Shipping is within one or two business days after the order is place. As of today, only the stainless steel model with the stainless steel band is available – they are several other models not yet listed. The cheapest would be for the stainless steel body and leather band and next in line is the model currently being offered. A more expensive black version with black stainless steel body and black metal band follows as we go up the price ladder. The most expensive is the rose gold plated model at two price levels – one with a leather band and the other with a matching metal band. The Rose model is slated to debut for later this year.
The Huawei Watch will work with both Apple’s iOS 8.2 and higher and Android devices running 4.3 or higher. This is a great idea on Huawei’s part and opens up the possible sales to all users. While most manufactures view a smartwatch as first and foremost a ‘smart’ wearable device to use with your smartphone, Huawei approached their first smartwatch as first a watch – hence the name Huawei Watch, not Smartwatch. The display is always on, so when you are not using its smartwatch features, it appears you are wearing a regular timepiece with over 40 designs. Whether you want to wear a more formal look or sport a chronograph, you can be sure of selecting the look you want.
The Huawei Watch has a 1.4-inch 400 x 400 resolution AMOLED always on display. It uses a Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. A 300 mAh battery that you can easily get one day of usage with a regular charge each day provides its power. It has the usual smartwatch suspects – gyroscope, accelerometer, PPG (heart rate sensor) and barometer. A couple things it lacks are wireless charging and there is no auto-brightness functionality because there is no sensor – something that should be in a $400+ watch. Huawei claims it can be charged from a dead battery to full capacity in one hour. The prices listed below are US pricing, but you can see all of the models.