Honor Magic Watch 2:Simple, smart and stylish

Following the success of its Watch Magic, Huawei-owned Honor has launched the next edition of its popular smartwatch.

The Honor Magic Watch 2 is a serious upgrade from its predecessor — it sports a bunch of new features and functions such as 14-day battery life, personalised watch faces, 15 goal-based fitness modes and more.

The smart watch comes in two variants: Charcoal Black and Flax Brown, which we received for review. The device has a height of 45.9mm and width of 45.9mm and comes in two display sizes — 42mm and 46 mm. It weighs just 41 grams. The watch is 5ATM water resistant, which means it can fight water up to 50 metres in depth for nearly 10 minutes. The Honor Magic Watch 2 has a 1.39-inch AMOLED touchscreen with 454 x 454 resolution (326 pixels per inch). The display is crisp and clear and negotiates ambient light really well. Even if you are standing right under the sun, you can easily read the dial in next to no time. But the touch response is a tad slow.

The Honor Watch Magic had a better response rate. Maybe a software jig can fix this in an update.

The bezel of the display leans a little in and out but the glass acts as a cover and helps it level out. The watch has two buttons on the side for controls, which are easily reachable during fitness sessions. The top button has fixed functions, apps and settings, while the bottom one allows you to customise stuff.

Dialling it up

The stainless steel dial is good-looking and hugs the wrist nice and cosy. The big dial is both a bane and a boon. Bane, because it’s not something you would go to bed wearing. The big size can disturb hand movement if you have a suitably lean arm and it will end up disturbing your sleep. That said, thanks to the big face, reading notifications and alerts are a lot easier than earlier and everything is clearly visible, making it a great companion to seniors (as well). The personalised watch faces are a nice addition. Most young users are gonna love this innovation.

One of the most striking characteristics about Honor/Huawei products is their simplicity. The Honor Magic Watch 2 sticks to this rule. It packs a bunch of useful features such as the GPS and GLONASS tracking system and real-time voice-over guidance. The GPS tracking is energy-efficient and impressively accurate for the price. The voice-over guidance is clear and confusion-free.

The watch works on Android and iOS operating systems and is backed by Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin A1 processor. The Magic Watch 2 can be easily paired with the smartphone (Huawei health app) via Bluetooth and it supports Bluetooth calls. You can connect the watch to your listening devices via Bluetooth. The watch itself stores stores and plays up to 400-500 mp3 songs. There is a built-in speaker as well, which you may ignore.

Keeping a close watch

The watch can monitor your health, heart-rate, sleep and stress. Given the price, the accuracy of the data is very impressive.

Except in stress, the data comes close to medical standards. Honor claims a 14-day battery life for the smart watch. That’s a little exaggerated, but one can confidently say the watch lasts long enough — for a week in our experience — and it gets charged pretty fast using the charger dial supplied along with the device.

The 15 goal-based fitness modes are more than enough for an average user even though the super pros among them might want a little more, but considering the price range, these are a steal.

The device has 13 different running courses as well.

Given the superb design and features, the Honor Magic Watch 2 can easily be one of the best wearables in the price range.

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