Huawei Watch 2 hands-on—This feels like a last-gen smartwatch

BARCELONA, SPAIN—We're just getting started at Mobile World Congress 2017, and the latest new gadget revealed is the Huawei Watch 2. Huawei's flagship smartwatch is getting a upgrade, and this version has GPS, NFC, optional LTE, and is launching with Android Wear 2.0.

There are actually two Huawei Watches: The "Huawei Watch 2" and the "Huawei Watch 2 Classic." The classic version is made of metal, has a 22mm watch band, and looks a lot like the original Huawei Watch, while the non-classic version is "sportier" (read: made totally of rubbery plastic), has a 20mm watch band, and has optional LTE. The materials, band size, weight, and LTE availability are really the only two differences between the watches.

First, the good news: Huawei has totally outclassed the LG Watch Sport construction, fitting LTE, GPS, NFC (for Android Pay), a Snapdragon Wear 2100, and a 420mAh battery in a much thinner smartwatch. The 12.6mm thickness here puts the 15.5mm LG Watch Sport to shame. In fact, all versions of the Huawei Watch 2—including the LTE version—have exactly the same measurements.

Both also have 768MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, GPS, and IP68 water resistance. The company is also promising "continuous heart rate, all day long, 24/7" heart rate monitoring, which, if the battery can stand up to it, will be a great feature for quantitative health enthusiasts.

Now for the bad news, which will probably be a dealbreaker for many people. The first is that there's no digital crown. The spinnable physical control crown on the LG Watch Sport and Watch Style might be copied straight from the Apple Watch, but they are a wonderful user experience that makes scrolling and reading long lists a joy. Given Google's involvement in the latest LG Watches, I suspect the digital crown will quickly become a standard among Android Wear devices, and it's handy enough that you should demand it on your next smartwatch.

The other two buttons work just like they do on the LG Watch Sport: The top button works as "home/app drawer," and the bottom button is a configurable app shortcut.

The second big problem is the display on the Huawei Watch 2. It's small—only 1.2 inches—and not particularly good looking. It's washed out and seems reminiscent of first-gen smartwatches, despite the high 390x390 resolution for a screen this size. I even saw flickering on one of the review units that were given out.

The display is deeply inset into a large bezel, which poses a barrier for swipe gestures. Huawei tried to make use of the large bezel by inscribing 0-60 second numbers along the rim, but that's an odd decision on a smartwatch, given that it is irrelevant on most interface screens. What if you have a digital watch face, or an analog watch with no second hand? What if you are using one of the many non-watch face functions? Most of the time bezel numbers are not useful.

I suspect the bezel is so large because it houses the various antennas—unlike the LG Watch Sport, the LTE, NFC, Wi-Fi and other antennas are somewhere in the body, allowing the watch bands to be removable. The removable watch bands have an easy-release handle on the underside of the watch, and the SIM slot for the LTE version is cleverly hidden under the watch band.

According to a rumor from Android Police, the Huawei Watch 2 was finished some time ago, and has sat around waiting for the (delayed) Android Wear 2.0 release. The "old" narrative really makes sense when you see the Huawei Watch 2 in person. Despite the compact design, the tiny, ugly screen and lack of a digital crown really makes this feel like a last-gen smartwatch.

More really bad news: The LTE version is not available in the US.

Both Watches have a 420mAh battery. Huawei is promising a "10 hour" battery life with GPS and LTE on, and "more than 2 days" with GPS and LTE off. The Watch 2 also has a low power "Watch Mode" that only tells the time and tracks your steps. In this "dumb watch" mode, Huawei claims the battery will last "25 days." None of these battery life measurements take into account Android Wear's "Always-on screen."

There is nothing worse than having a dead smartwatch on your wrist, so switching over to watch mode when the battery is low would be a lot nicer than a dead, blank smartwatch screen.

Huawei gives us a very detailed release breakdown, saying:

HUAWEI Watch 2 will be available in more than 20 countries and regions. These include:

Launching in March – Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Germany, China.

Launching in April – US, UK, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland, The Nordics, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, India, South Africa, Poland, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Japan, UAE

Launching in May – Malaysia

As for the price, Huawei only says it will be "priced from €329 [~$347] depending on the design and features being chosen."