Back when I first saw the Motorola 360 I was pretty geared up to grab myself one as it was the first to have a design that actually appealed to me. However the reviews for it were less than stellar, many of them citing poor battery life and lacklustre performance thanks to its incredibly outdated processor. This was enough to sour me on the idea as whilst the design was still nice I didn’t want to burden myself with another device that I’d have to charge daily. With the Apple Watch failing to tickle my fancy I resigned myself to waiting for the next round of devices to see if anything came through. As it so happens there is one potential smartwatch I now have my eyes on but I’m hesitant to get excited lest I get let down again.
The Huawei Watch bears a similar aesthetic to the Motorola 360 with a round face and a single button. The included Milanese strap is a nice addition especially considering that Apple would charge you an extra $600 for the privilege. However should that style not suit you then you’re free to change it to any standard 18mm or 21mm band that takes your fancy. It’s available in the standard array of colours (silver, black and gold) all of which share the same construction although the gold appears to come with a leather band rather than the Milanese style one.
Specifications wise it’s a definite step up from most of the competition sporting a quad core Qualcomm chip and a 400 x 400 AMOLED screen that covers the entire dial (unlike the 360 which has a black bar at the bottom) covered in sapphire crystal. These differences might not sound like much but the newer processor should be able to run a lot better in low power modes and the AMOLED screen handles being dimmed a lot better than the 360’s IPS panel does. So whilst the Huawei Watch might have a slightly smaller battery it should, hopefully, be able to last significantly longer which was the main complaint against the 360.
However I still have concerns on just how useful such a device will be for me as whilst the array of sensors included in the device are impressive they’re still somewhat short of my idealized smartwatch. Sure the list of features I laid out a while back might be a little extreme (indeed I think including MYO technology now isn’t required, given that Google Glass isn’t as great as I first thought it’d be) but I’d want something like this to be functional and useful. Perhaps I’m being too harsh of a critic of the idea before I’ve tried it as there’s every chance that I’ll find a myriad of uses for it once I have it but I’ve used enough random bits of tech in the past to know that not all of them work out how everyone says they should.
Regardless it’s good to see more companies coming out with smartwatch designs that don’t look like cheap plastic pieces of junk. Whilst I’ll always question the value proposition of Rolex level smatchwatches I can definitely see the value in having a piece of technology on your wrist. Whether the current generation of devices will be enough to satisfy me is something I’ll have to find out and the Huawei Watch might be the first one to make me shell out the requisite cash.
