As the tech world surrenders to the avalanche of Black Friday deals, Huawei sub-brand Honor has provided a change of pace announcement – the arrival of the Honor Magic Watch 2.
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This isn’t totally unexpected, since we saw a very similar launch pattern last year, in which Huawei announced a new version of its smartwatch just a few weeks before a near-identical Honor device appeared.
The story is similar here, with the Honor Magic Watch 2 mimicking pretty much everything (bar the name, obviously) of the parent company’s new device, the Huawei Watch GT 2.
That means there’s two versions to pick from – either a 46mm or 42mm watch – with the larger variant offering a more masculine, classic smartwatch design and the smaller actually resembling the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2.
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Both come with AMOLED displays (1.39-inch, 454 x 454 pixel resolution for the 46mm version; 1.2-inch, 390 x 390 pixel resolution for the 42mm version) with 800 nits of brightness, too, something that should help the Magic Watch 2’s face a bit easier to see in direct sunlight.
However, the headline feature – as it is with Huawei’s devices – is the battery life. Honor estimates users can expect around 14 days of standard use from the 46mm model, and week-long life from the 42mm device.
However, we’re keen to test just how much that decreases if you’re routinely taking advantage of the 15 workouts you can track.
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Yes, workouts. Like the original device, you’ll get the virtual pacesetter for runs, waterproofing up to 5 ATM for swimming, GPS for location tracking and VO2 Max estimations. This is all backed up by a few wellness features, as well: sleep tracking, stress monitoring and breathing exercises.
During our short time with both versions of the new smartwatch during our briefing, we couldn’t tell it apart too much from the Huawei Watch GT 2.
However, it does give potential smartwatch buyers another option to consider ahead of the holiday rush – with the Magic Watch 2 going on sale in Europe, Asia and the Middle East on 12 December.
Pricing isn’t official just yet, though we expect both models to come in slightly cheaper than the Huawei equivalents. We’ll update this story when Honor releases the details, but in the meantime stay tuned for our full review.
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