Huawei Watch GT 2 ... my review
My review of the Huawei GT 2
I had a chance to try a Huawei GT 2 for some days. As I own and love my Huawei W1, released in 2015 under Google Wear OS, I was very curious of the new Huawei smartwatches running their own OS.
1/ VERY GOOD DESIGN
For an object you will wear at least 16h a day, design is very important. I personnaly like a lot how the GT2 looks, modern with its edges and yet quite classic with its overal shape. I do like it a lot more than the excessively soft design of a Samsung Active 2.
2/ QUITE GOOD BUILT QUALITY
The device is actually well built and doesn't feel cheap at all. I'm not a big fan of the all plastic back but at least it's just the back and it doesn't make half the sides of the watch.
3/ EXCELLENT SCREEN
The Screen is OLED and really beautifull, it's a joy to look at it !
4/ EXCELLENT BATTERY LIFE
Battery life estimations given by Huawei seems on track with the reality, and it's very good, if you compare with a Samsung Watch Active 2, you get something like more than twice the battery life ! You should get about 2 weeks of basic use and 1 week with AOD.
5/ A LOT OF SPORT THINGS
I'm not a sport guy, so I can't really judge it. This watch is designed for sports, it does offer a lot in this field, but probably less than a Garmin device. HR sensor and SPO2 Seem to work perfectly.
6/ VERY LIMITED NOTIFICATION SUPPORT
- No emoji support, come on, we are in 2020, emoji support is mandatory !
- Notifications text is way too small when you touch a notification to read more
- You cannot answer notifications
7/ USELESS WEATHER APP
Weather app is the worse I have seen on a watch. You just get one screen showing actual conditions and no weather forecast at all. Even a Fossil Hybrid HR or a MyKronoz ZeTime do a lot better !
8/ VERY LIMITED WATCHFACES OPTIONS
Customization is not good at all, you have a small choice of watchfaces and cannot add more without tinkering quite a lot. Some people have designed alternative watchfaces, but you would have to use an outdated app version to load it and I would never consider that for obvious security reasons.
9/ EXTREMELY LIMITED ALWAYS ON
There is an Always On display. Using it will reduce a lot your battery life, but that is to be expected. Unfortunately you only have the choice between 2 specific watchfaces. And they are not so good looking. And they probably won't match your actual watchface.
10/ NO APP SUPPORT
It is not surprising the watch doesn't have an app store, this is usually reserved to the main operating systems like Samsung Tizen, Wear OS, Apple Watch OS ...but sometimes smaller players do have some apps to propose like Garmin.
The main problem with the Huawei GT2 is that the build-in apps are extremely limited so, at the end of he day, if you are looking for something else than a good looking activity tracker, you won't be happy because, except for sports, this watch simply doesn't do anything well enough.
CONCLUSION : I DIDN'T KEEP IT
The smartwatch functions disappointed my a lot. This device is definitively not a smartwatch, this is a glorified and good looking activity tracker, nothing more.
A Fitbit Versa 2 does a lot more things on the smart side, for example. Even an hybrid watch like the Fossil Hybrid HR or the MyKronoz ZeTime is a lot smarter.
The Huawei GT2 seems to be an interesting activity tracker but I would rather consider a Garmin watch, which is a lot smarter and has a better reputation for sports.