Honor is slowly increasing its portfolio past smartphones, and not too long ago launched its second era smartwatch, the Honor Magic Watch 2, in India. Honor’s newest wearable gadget is priced aggressively and boasts of some notable options similar to the flexibility to make and obtain calls, 14-day battery life, help for a tonne of exercises, music playback controls, and extra. To high all of it off, the Honor Magic Watch 2 appears premium with out being too heavy on the pockets. But is the Honor Magic Watch 2 all about tall claims, or does it have the substance to grow to be the perfect smartwatch in its worth bracket? We discover out in our overview:
Honor Watch Magic 2 design
The Honor Watch Magic 2 appears quite a bit just like the Huawei Watch GT 2 (Review), however that isn’t essentially a nasty factor. The Honor providing is constructed very effectively and its design can be fairly premium. We have the Honor Watch Magic 2’s 46mm mannequin for overview within the Charcoal Black end, which is priced at Rs. 12,999. Honor additionally gives a Flax Brown variant that comes with a leather-based strap and can set you again by Rs. 14,999. In case 46mm is just too massive in your wrist, Honor gives a extra compact 42mm model that is available in Agate Black and Sakura Gold (with a steel strap), priced at Rs. 11,999 and Rs. 14,999 respectively.
The 46mm variant of Honor Magic Watch 2 is available in Charcoal Black and Flax Brown (seen right here)
Starting with the supplies, Honor has used 316L aerospace-grade stainless-steel for the casing, which is claimed to be gentle and corrosion-resistant as effectively. The base has a contoured design, and regardless of having a small hump within the center for the guts price sensor, the watch is comfy to put on. There are two contact factors on the underside for charging, and the watch attaches to the included charging dock magnetically.
The Charcoal Black variant we had for overview comes with a Fluoroelastomer strap that has a rubber-like stretch to it. It is comfy and does not appeal to mud or smudges. We have been additionally in a position to strive the leather-based Flax Brown model briefly and had no complaints. You can swap whichever strap you get for any commonplace 46mm watch strap that fits your style. The watch has a 5ATM water resistance ranking, which implies consumers will not have to fret about leaping right into a pool or monitoring a swim.
Tipping the scales at 41g, we discovered the 46mm Honor Magic Watch 2 comfy to put on and never too massive both. We fairly preferred the bevelled edges, particularly the outer rim with a tachymeter scale. This design contact offers the Honor smartwatch some id and distinguishes it from the generic black glass look of a number of its rivals. Just like with the Huawei Watch GT 2, solely the bigger variant has this design contact, whereas the smaller one is extra understated.
There are two buttons on the suitable, positioned at angles. These buttons present good tactile suggestions when pressed. However, they might have been a tad smaller. Due to their dimension and positioning, they registered unintended presses just a few occasions. The higher one acts as the house button and has a purple ring for the sake of differentiation. The decrease button will be customised to carry out quite a lot of duties similar to opening your contacts, accessing name logs, checking notifications, and much more.
The Honor Magic Watch 2 has a 5ATM water resistance ranking
Overall, we really feel that Honor has not lower any corners in the case of the construct high quality of the Honor Magic Watch 2, and the design additionally feels premium in an understated method. It will probably be as much as consumers to decide on between the sporty look of the 46mm variant, or the extra compact and sober 42mm choice.
Honor Watch Magic 2 specs and options
The Honor Watch Magic 2 runs Huawei’s in-house Lite OS, which covers the fundamentals however is slightly limiting. We’ll speak extra about this later. On the {hardware} entrance, the 46mm variant packs a 1.39-inch AMOLED show with a 454 x 454 pixel decision and an adequately excessive pixel density of 326ppi. The show is crisp and the brightness is surprisingly good. We did not face any points with content material visibility even whereas utilizing the gadget in broad daylight.
Honor has used Huawei’s in-house HiSilicon Kirin A1 chip, and the Watch Magic 2 packs 4GB of inside storage, though solely round 2.3GB is offered for customers. However, the corporate has not revealed the quantity of RAM that this gadget has. The inside storage can be utilized for music recordsdata, and it takes round 30-40 seconds to switch a low-quality observe of about 3MB dimension. Only the MP3 and LC-AAC codecs are supported.
The Honor Magic Watch 2 contains a 455mAh battery and is claimed to last as long as 14 days on a single cost. It helps Bluetooth 5.1, dual-frequency GPS, and GLONASS for monitoring out of doors actions. The 46mm Honor Magic Watch 2 can be able to receiving calls and enjoying music by its onboard speaker in addition to wi-fi headsets. It is suitable with each Android and iOS units, and pairs through the Huawei Health app.
Honor Magic Watch 2 comes with help for 24×7 coronary heart price monitoring and sleep monitoring options
As for options, it gives 15 health monitoring modes (eight out of doors and seven indoor) for actions similar to working, swimming, biking, and trekking in addition to 24/7 coronary heart price monitoring, sleep monitoring, and stress monitoring. The watch can be able to measuring VO2 Max ranges. Sleep and coronary heart price monitoring are enabled by default, however stress monitoring needs to be activated manually after taking a take a look at.
Honor Watch Magic 2 software program
The Honor Magic 2 runs Lite OS, Huawei’s personal smartwatch working system which can be discovered on Huawei-branded smartwatches. It covers all of the fundamentals, however lacks the flexibility you get with Wear OS or Samsung’s Tizen. Lite OS doesn’t help third-party apps, which implies you can’t obtain any new apps.
Notifications from third-party apps like WhatsApp and Gmail are displayed on the watch however you possibly can solely faucet on them to see messages. You cannot view media recordsdata, take heed to voice messages, or reply to a message utilizing textual content or audio straight from the watch. We observed throughout our take a look at interval that the Honor Magic Watch 2 often stopped displaying notifications from sure apps similar to Gmail, after which displayed a barrage of all of them without delay.
On the personalisation entrance, you possibly can select from the watch faces that come preinstalled and a few that may be downloaded. The choice accessible is not notably numerous, however we observed that extra watch faces are slowly being added. You want to put in the Huawei Mobile Services app individually to obtain extra watch faces, but it surely stored crashing on our smartphone. Interestingly, the Honor Magic Watch 2 product page on the Honor Global web site says that customers can create customized watch faces primarily based on their cellphone’s wallpaper or a photograph, however we did not see that characteristic within the app.
The companion app gives the required set of health options, but it surely wants a visible overhaul
There are just a few different UI-related points as effectively. Swiping up from the underside of the house display brings up the notifications checklist. A downward swipe opens the short settings panel, which is populated by 5 controls for the Do Not Disturb mode, the Find My Phone operate, alarms, the show sleep time, and settings. Swiping proper from the left edge doubles as a again gesture and takes you to the earlier web page.
Swiping left on the house display brings up devoted pages for coronary heart price monitoring, stress monitoring, location and climate info, music playback controls, and the step counter. However, you possibly can’t swipe up or down on any of those pages to see extra info or controls.
On the brilliant aspect, Lite OS contains virtually all of the important features of a smartwatch and health tracker. Aside from the big variety of health monitoring modes, you can also make or obtain calls and play music on the watch itself or by a linked cellphone or wi-fi headset. You also can alter the power of vibration alerts, which is a neat contact.
The flashlight characteristic is one other helpful addition. The structure of exercise information on the exercise information web page is kind of clear and intuitive. Design-wise, Lite OS is clear and will get loads of issues proper, particularly in case you are a fitness-oriented particular person.
Honor Magic Watch 2 additionally gives a stress monitoring characteristic, however it’s a hit and miss.
Honor Watch Magic 2 efficiency and battery life
We examined the Honor Magic Watch 2 for over three weeks, and our experiences have been principally optimistic. The AMOLED show is sufficiently vivid. There is not any always-on show mode, however you possibly can preserve the show on for a most of 20 minutes. While that is disappointing, you possibly can select between an analog and digital static show that may stay seen on displaying solely the time. We fairly preferred the minimalist look of the analog choice.
However, Huawei warns that enabling a static watch face will lower the battery life in half, and that growing the screen-on time with the common watch face will even take a toll.
The ambient gentle sensor did an excellent job of adjusting brightness primarily based on the exterior lighting circumstances. We observed that the Honor Magic Watch 2 is just not notably zippy and takes a while to reply to contact inputs when it wakes up. The accuracy of swipe gesture recognition wants some work, and UI fluidity might have been higher as effectively.
We took three strolls of 1km every on completely different paths to check the gadget’s monitoring accuracy. The Honor Magic Watch 2 measured 1.02km twice and 1.01km as soon as, which is suitable. When it involves step counting, the smartwatch logged 995 steps on common over three trial walks, whereas we manually counted 1,000 steps. These monitoring outcomes are good for a smartwatch on this worth bracket.
The always-on coronary heart price sensor works high quality and offers an in depth breakdown of your coronary heart price at every hour of the day with a graph. The sleep monitoring characteristic employs Huawei’s proprietary TruSleep expertise and logs REM, deep, and light-weight sleep period. We discovered the information to be in keeping with the standard of sleep we skilled. You’ll additionally get a sleep rating on a scale of 0-100, and a really informative chart that reveals patterns similar to bedtime regularity, occasions awake (rated between low, medium, and excessive), common wakeup time, and respiration high quality, amongst different parameters.
There is not any always-on show choice on the Honor Magic Watch 2 however you possibly can allow a easy static show
The Honor Magic Watch 2 helps twin satellite tv for pc positioning techniques and shortly latched on to GPS indicators. However, we discovered that the gesture one has to carry out for enabling GPS monitoring typically went unregistered.
The Honor Magic Watch 2 gives a stress monitoring characteristic that ranks stress on a scale of Zero to 99. It needs to be enabled manually after taking a take a look at which asks you to price how you’re feeling a few sequence of twelve statements that embody I’ve nothing to sit up for, I do not see any that means in life, I can do issues simply in addition to different folks, and I believe that hardships have made me stronger. The smartwatch measures your coronary heart price earlier than and through the take a look at, and analyses your responses to assign a take a look at rating. However, we discovered it was a hit and miss.
Coming to health monitoring, the Honor Magic Watch 2 permits you to select from 13 working programs primarily based on the depth stage, strolling, biking, swimming, climbing, rowing, and extra. The checklist is just not as exhaustive as what the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 gives, but it surely covers almost all of the necessities that one would possibly need, and prices half as a lot. Workout information are saved each on the smartwatch and within the Huawei Health app. You can select to share health information with Google Fit and MyFitnessPal, however there is no such thing as a approach to work with different apps similar to Strava.
Only the 46mm variant of the Honor Magic 2 permits you to obtain calls on the gadget. We discovered the speaker high quality to be first rate, and inside a variety of 10m with the linked cellphone, we didn’t discover any voice breaking both. The microphone does a suitable job, because the particular person on the opposite finish of the decision was not in a position to discern whether or not we have been speaking to them by a smartwatch or a cellphone.
The speaker is simply satisfactory for music. Just do not crank the amount all the way in which up, or you’ll begin hating your favorite vocal artist as voices sound too artificial.
Honor Magic Watch 2’s 46mm mannequin reaches near its promise of 14-day battery life
Battery life is likely one of the key promoting factors of the Honor Magic Watch 2. The firm claims the 46mm variant can last as long as 14 days on a single cost. During our overview, the gadget lasted for 12 days. With the static show enabled, excessive brightness, the watch face visibility cranked to the utmost 20-minute period, and coronary heart monitoring and GPS enabled, the Honor Magic Watch 2 lasted round 6 days, which is considerably higher than Wear OS smartwatches can handle. As for charging, the Honor Magic Watch went from Zero to 60 p.c in 30 minutes, and took over an hour to totally cost.
Verdict
The Honor Magic Watch 2 will get loads of issues proper, and is a well-rounded package deal contemplating its worth. Its design and construct high quality are spectacular, and Lite OS has all of the vital options that you’d need in your smartwatch. However, the shortcoming to obtain apps will be limiting, and there are just a few software program quirks and responsiveness points that have to be ironed out as effectively.
Performance is one space wherein the Honor Magic Watch 2 does its job effectively. There is a tonne of fitness-centric options, and it’s pretty correct in the case of monitoring actions and sleep. Connectivity was by no means a difficulty, and we preferred with the ability to make a name and management music playback. Notably, the Honor Magic 2 gives an ideal battery life and you will keep away from the effort of charging your smartwatch each second day.
If you occur to be a health fanatic and need the smartwatch expertise with out spending an excessive amount of, the previous-generation Honor Magic Watch (Review) is an effective decide too. As for options, the Huami Amazfit GTS and its Amazfit GTR sibling are value trying out. If you wish to spend as little as doable, the Amazfit Bip and Amazfit Verge Lite (Review) are what it is best to have a look at.
This post was last modified on June 30, 2020 4:50 pm