Honor Watch Magic 2 review: an immortal watch that you can use to talk

Huawei and Honor watches are highly autonomous. These LightOS devices can last up to a week without recharging. Watch Magic 2 is a step forward in this segment. They received a microphone and learned to analyze the activity of the carrier more accurately.

Characteristics of Honor Watch Magic 2:

Supported Android 4.4 or higher iOS 9.0 or higher

Connections: Bluetooth BT 5.1 with BLE/BR/EDR support

Operating system: Light OS

Screen: AMOLED, 1.39 inches, 454 × 454 pixels, 326 PPI density

RAM: 32 MB

Built-in memory: 4 GB

Sensors: Accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, optical heart rate sensor, light sensor, barometer, capacitive sensor

Microphone: yes

Dimensions: 45.9 × 45.9 × 10.7 mm

Weight: 41 g

Battery: 455 mAh

Waterproof: 5 ATM

Design

Externally, Honor Watch Magic 2 is similar to a mechanical watch: a metal case, a round dial, two mechanical buttons on the side. You can’t call them futuristic, like most smartwatches; their design is strictly classic.

The watch case is made of stainless steel, widely used in the aerospace industry. The material is resistant to mechanical damage.

There is a metal ring with a dial around the screen. In this model it is located below the glass. In the Huawei Watch GT Active it was located higher and protected the watch from impact; here you have to rely on the strength of the glass above the screen. The solution is impractical, but logical - the industry is striving to reduce the scope. This makes the watch look more modern and aesthetically pleasing.

The weight of the watch is 41 g. For comparison, the Apple Watch S4 44 mm weighs 36 g, and the S4 40 mm weighs 30 g. The watch is heavy. During the first few days you will definitely feel them on your wrist, and when you actively work on a computer keyboard, when your hands are tense, you will want to take them off.

Where to download watch faces for Huawei GT/GT 2 and Honor Watch Magic

The standard display design often bores users, and some may find it uninteresting. Then the question arises, how to download watch faces for Huawei Watch? To do this, you will need to install the Health application. Use Google Play.

How to connect the Honor Band 5 fitness bracelet to your phone: instructions

The program presents a catalog of different designs. To easily find a suitable solution, use a special filter and sort the categories. For example, among popular themes there is a dark design.

Screen

Display - AMOLED. The brightness is high - it is comfortable to use for hours on a clear day. The picture is clear, especially noticeable if you add a photo to the dial, but more on that later. Colors are rich, blacks are truly black because the pixels of this color are not backlit.

In the settings there are five levels of screen brightness - so, it’s comfortable to use for hours both on a clear day and in the dark. In the first case, the picture is clearly visible, in the second the display does not hit the eyes. Automatic brightness adjustment is available.

The screen is round, and this is a controversial decision. Thus, the accessory repeats the design of a mechanical watch, and its appearance is made in the same style with round icons. At the same time, it is more comfortable to interact with a rectangular screen - it is more convenient to scroll through notifications and view health and training data; interface elements do not fit under the frames. This is a complaint not only about the Honor Watch Magic 2; most smart watches have this design, with the exception of the Apple Watch and Amazfit.

The display is turned on in one of two ways - by raising your wrist or by pressing either of the two crowns. The first one can be turned on or off in the Huawei Health app. Activating the screen by raising your wrist can be inconvenient - for example, when you move your hand at night, the screen lights up and the light hits your eyes. In this case, it is better to turn off the gesture.

Review of smart watches Honor MagicWatch 2

The Honor brand continues its expansion into the smartwatch market. A year after the release of the first model of the Watch Magic smart watch, the second generation model, MagicWatch 2, goes on sale. In China, the new product was released earlier than the rest of the world - and caused a rush of demand. According to the official report, the company sold 10,000 devices in just 1 minute. However, no shortage is expected: the product enters international markets, including ours, within the planned time frame. Therefore, it’s time to figure out what it is and how it looks compared to its competitors.

Like the first generation Honor Watch, the new watch is not built on Android Wear, but on its own operating system. There is no app store or watch faces, but there is a full display of notifications, the ability to voice answer phone calls, personalization of information displayed on existing watch faces, sleep analysis and, of course, a wide range of fitness capabilities.

But the main thing is that the new product promises 14 days of operation on a single battery charge, and this at an official price of 12,990 rubles. This all sounds very attractive, but what actually happens?

Technical characteristics of Honor MagicWatch 2

As we can see, compared to the previous generation, the new product has stepped forward at least in terms of the capacity of the built-in storage and in the size/resolution of the display. For a wearable device, this is already a lot.

Equipment

The watch is delivered in a cubic-shaped box - almost black, but with a noble blue tint. In addition, the Honor inscription shimmers in different colors.

The watch inside is tightly secured in cardboard, so it should not be damaged during transportation.

The equipment is quite modest: inside the box, in addition to the watch, we found a short user manual, a charging tablet and a USB-C cable.

The tablet charger is attracted by a magnet and attaches to a pair of contacts on the “back” of the watch.

By the way, the decision to use USB-C in the charger instead of the outdated and less convenient Micro-USB can only be welcomed. And this is the main advantage of the package. Alas, there are no additional straps or anything like that here. There is also no mains charger.

Design

The appearance of the watch as a whole inherits the design of the previous model: there is also a large round screen without any recesses or dead zones, a chronometer bezel with a tachymeter, a steel case that turns into fastenings for the strap and two steel, strongly protruding buttons. The top one turns on the applications menu if we are on the watch face, and returns to the watch face if we are on any other screen. And the bottom one opens the training menu by default, but it can be reconfigured to launch any application.

Returning to the topic of appearance, it is worth noting that the bezel of the previous model was visually more striking. Here the numbers are written, perhaps, even too small, they are almost “blind” and, in addition, are hidden under glass, and not pressed onto steel. The same is true for notches.

Note that the Watch Magic had a version with a tachymeter, and another with a regular hour bezel, where the numbers corresponded to the minutes. The new model offers only a tachymeter scale, and this solution is ambiguous. Probably only a few readers know how to use it, and even fewer use it on any regular basis. However, if you don’t need it, then you can ignore it altogether.

The back surface of the watch case is made of matte black plastic; in the center there is a module with a heart rate sensor.

The fastening of the strap to the watch is standard, on a lever that must be pulled back to remove half of the strap. We received a strap in the classic version: entirely made of brown leather with double stitching. It looks elegant, the skin feels pleasant to the touch, with a light natural scent. Note that its color, in fact, without an orange tint (as in the photographs) is a noble brown. So the photos do not accurately convey the appearance of the strap; in reality it looks stricter.

Overall, the design of the watch makes a very pleasant impression. They do not look bulky, even on a thin hand, and the classic look (round steel case, large display without dead zones, all-leather strap) allows you to successfully combine the watch with a suit (but, perhaps, not a tuxedo) and smart casual clothing. In addition, two large side buttons give the watch a brutal look, but not too much.

Perhaps only two design decisions are questionable: the choice in favor of a tachymeter instead of a standard digital scale and the very pale, hard-to-see scale numbers. That is, the logic is apparently this: if the user needs it, he will take a closer look, and if not, then he will not catch his eye again. Well, why not...

Screen

The AMOLED screen of the watch is completely round, without any dead zones. With a diameter of 1.39″, the resolution is 454×454, which is quite significant.

Before moving on to instrumental testing, we note several aspects that are noticeable to the naked eye. Firstly, the black color here is absolutely black, the concept of contrast does not apply to it (which is true for all OLED screens). Secondly, the brightness is sufficient for using the watch in a well-lit room and, apparently, under the bright sun too (but since over the past few months we have not seen the bright sun in Moscow at all, we will assume that this is just an assumption).

The colors of the icons are bright, rich, maybe even too saturated, but from the point of view of ease of use and clarity, this is a plus in the case of a clock. Separately, we note the really very high pixel density - so much so that these pixels themselves cannot be distinguished even when looking closely. As a result, the contours of letters and icons are perfectly smooth. In general, there are no complaints about the screen.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are slightly worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photograph in which a white surface is reflected when the screens are turned off:

The screen of the Honor MagicWatch 2 is slightly lighter (brightness according to photographs is 118 versus 110 for the Nexus 7). The reflection ghosting is weak, which indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen. We didn’t figure out how to display an arbitrary image on the watch screen, so we had to test the screen in flashlight mode, that is, when displaying a white field in full screen with maximum brightness. It reached a value of 460 cd/m². Taking into account the good anti-glare properties, this will allow you to see the image on the watch screen in conditions of strong illumination (a clear day outside).

On the graph of brightness (vertical axis) versus time (horizontal axis), a pronounced modulation with a frequency of 247 Hz is determined (exactly the moment the flashlight is turned on after the black field is shown).

However, during rapid eye movement and the stroboscopic effect test, no flicker is visible.

This screen uses an OLED matrix - an active matrix based on organic light-emitting diodes. A full-color image is created using subpixels of three colors - red (R), green (G) and blue (B) in equal numbers, as confirmed by a fragment of a microphotograph:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The white spectrum is typical for OLED - the primary color areas are well separated and appear as relatively narrow peaks:

The color temperature of the white field is approximately 7230 K, and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is 1.8 units. The color balance, at least of the white field, is good, but even with not a very large deviation, the white field acquires a slightly bluish tint. Still, the screen has excellent viewing angles, with a much smaller drop in brightness when looking at the screen at an angle compared to LCD screens. When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the white field is excellent. Black is just black from any angle. It is so black that the contrast setting is not applicable in this case. In general, the quality of the screen can be considered very high.

Interface and functionality

To use your watch, you need to install the Huawei Health app, which is compatible with iOS and Android. It is also used with a number of other wearable devices from the manufacturer, so you need to select your model from the list of proposed ones. To use the watch, this application alone is enough, everything is collected in it.

The watch interface is very simple: one of 12 watch faces is displayed on the screen. Most of them are stylized as chronographs and display several types of information at once - for example, not only the time, but also the number of steps, date, etc. There is also one customizable dial. But, unfortunately, you can’t download new ones.

You can change the watch face by long pressing on the screen, after which, swiping from right to left, the user selects the desired option. With the same gesture on the screen in normal mode, you can display four widgets: heart rate, weather, music control and activity. Widgets, unlike watch faces, do not change. If you press the top button when the screen is on, the application menu will open. If you click the bottom one, there is a list of workouts. In this regard, practically nothing has changed compared to the first generation, except that music control has appeared - but only in conjunction with an Android smartphone. This does not work on iOS devices.

As for training, it is worth noting that there is a fairly wide choice (for example, swimming is in the pool and in a pond; running and walking are several types). Also, as a plus, we note the possibility of warning if a specified heart rate threshold is exceeded during exercise. The downside is that any workout must be manually started and manually stopped. That is, even if, for example, you choose to walk and at some point stop walking, but forget to stop the workout, it will not stop automatically.

Information about training and overall activity results is provided in the smartphone application. There you can also see data on heart rate, distance traveled, ascents and sleep. By the way, sleep, unlike training, is determined by the clock yourself - just go to bed in it and get all the statistics in the morning.

Note the appearance of the smart alarm function. It works like this: in the settings, you set the deadline for waking up and select the interval during which the clock can wake you up.

If, for example, you need to wake up at 9 am and you set a half-hour interval, then the watch will track your sleep and, starting at 8:30, can wake you up at any time as soon as it “understands” that you are in the optimal sleep phase for awakening. If you set a 10-minute interval, then awakening will occur no earlier than 8:50, but the accuracy of hitting the desired phase will be less and, therefore, awakening itself may not be so easy.

Returning to the issue of training, I would like to note the swimming mode. The main thing is that the watch can fully track your heart rate during swims—many wearable devices have big problems with this. And, of course, in addition to this, the new product collects all the necessary statistics.

Moreover, these statistics can be displayed both in text form and as diagrams.

We can safely say that this watch is in no way inferior to its competitors in terms of analyzing training in the pool. There is only one thing that confuses me: won’t the leather strap get wet from frequent training? Silicone straps are still more suitable for them.

Honor MagicWatch 2 is also good in terms of voice communication. Yes, you can receive a call on your watch and talk to the caller. The feature is actually quite valuable. A simple example: you are busy at home with some household chores (cooking, cleaning, etc.), your hands are busy or dirty, suddenly a call rings, and the phone is in another room. Firstly, thanks to the watch, you can immediately see who is calling and decide whether it is necessary to answer right now. And secondly, if you still need to answer, then press the button and talk by the hour, without stopping what you are doing. Perhaps this is not the best scenario for long conversations, but for short everyday conversations (“Darling, what else can I buy in the store?”) it’s fine. Fortunately, the watch provides fairly good sound quality both on your side and on the caller’s side.

Next, we note the improved work with notifications. Firstly, they are now all shown - if, of course, you enable the corresponding item in Huawei Health. And secondly, in the case of popular applications, their icons are displayed, which is also very convenient.

And lastly: there is an Always-On mode (“Screen is always on”) and GPS.

To summarize the above, it can be noted that Honor MagicWatch 2 is one of the most functional smartwatches on the market today. And the only serious limitation is the inability to install additional applications and watch faces. But this limitation made it possible to make the operating system much more economical, which affected battery life.

Autonomous operation

One of the main features of the model is its long battery life. Many popular smartwatches can barely last two days without recharging, but the Honor MagicWatch 2 easily lasts the promised two weeks (give or take, depending on usage scenarios).

Of course, it all depends on the frequency and duration of GPS use, enabling/disabling constant heart rate tracking and Always-On mode. We used the watch without Always-On, but with heart rate tracking enabled and a fairly large number of notifications. And the watch lasted for about two weeks without recharging.

conclusions

The Honor MagicWatch 2 smartwatch demonstrates perhaps the optimal ratio of price, functionality, design and battery life. We have never seen a watch that could do so much and at the same time be so inexpensive, last so long on a single charge and be so stylish. For each of these points, you can find a more advanced solution, although this is debatable: somewhere, for example, you can install applications, but you cannot track sleep. However, one thing is certain: such a balance of all these four aspects is extremely rare.

We see that Honor is rapidly improving its watches, does not stand still, improves both the software and the appearance, but at the same time the prices remain more than affordable. In the case of the new product, this is 12,990 rubles, but when purchasing at the Honor brand store, you will receive an Honor Scale as a gift, which are sold individually for 2,490 rubles. The total is only 10,500 rubles, which is, of course, very little for such a product.

Ultimately, you need to make a purchasing decision based primarily on your taste and feelings about the design, since a watch is, first of all, an accessory that should please the eyes of both the owner and the people around him. But if you are satisfied with this parameter in the case of Honor MagicWatch 2, then we can safely recommend this watch for purchase, because in all other parameters you will almost certainly be satisfied.

Autonomy

Battery life is the strongest point of all Huawei and Honor watches. Magic Watch 2 stands out even among its own. Thanks to the A1 chip architecture and AMOLED screen, the accessory does not consume excess energy and lasts up to 2 weeks without being connected to a power source. The processor has increased data processing speed, which is why the process requires less energy, and the black pixels on the display are not highlighted.

In reality, the figures are close to those stated. During the day, the watch is discharged by about 5% during active use: viewing notifications, monitoring physical activity and health status (pulse and sleep). With GPS turned on, the energy will last for 2 days. However, you won’t have it turned on all the time, we’ll talk about this later. Our test sample ran out of charge after just 10 days of continuous use, despite the fact that for us it periodically worked with GPS turned on.

The watch is charged wirelessly using the included charger. The charger is connected at first in an unusual way - the pancake is attached to the bottom panel of the watch using a magnet. First, it pushes away from the body - to connect the pancake, you need to lean it against it and turn it, then it will attach to the watch.

Cool

Are you looking for something that will attract the attention of others? Here are some of the most unique watch faces that you can apply to grab everyone's attention.

Steam Gray

LB750

Colors

Software

Honor Watch Magic 2 runs on the LightOS operating system. Its functionality is limited - there is no app store, and the ability to download files to the device's memory is limited.

The interface is aesthetic. The icons are multi-colored, making navigation easier. They follow the shape of a round screen; there is a unity of style. An analogue of the curtain in Android has been added to the main screen - swipe down.

Dials can be changed. Select the appropriate section in the settings or hold your finger on the main screen. You can choose the most convenient dial: in addition to the time, the battery charge can show training data or health status. Just decide what's most important to you and choose the watch face that suits you.

A special feature of Honor Watch Magic 2 is the ability to put a photo on the watch face. In addition, you can set up a slide show - each time you lift the watch, a different photo will be shown on the display.

Pressing the left crown goes to the settings menu, pressing the right one goes to the training menu.

Weather forecast

Smart gadgets HUAWEI WATCH GT 2 / HONOR MagicWatch 2 also have the ability to determine weather information in your area.

Method 1: Weather information can be viewed on the Weather Forecast display. To do this, swipe the display to the right until you find the “Weather Forecast” section. At this point, you can view your location and all weather data: temperature and air quality.

Method 2: View weather information using the Weather menu. On the main display, you need to press the button at the top and scroll to the “Weather” item. Next you need to select this item. Data about your location is also available here.

Pairing

The watch is synchronized with your smartphone using the Huawei Health application. On Huawei or HONOR it is pre-installed; on others it needs to be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store. Otherwise, the model and operating system do not matter - the accessory works with any smartphone without restrictions. Select the desired watch model, and on the accessory, open the “Search for a smartphone” section, then pairing will be performed.

Showing notifications is standard for all smartwatches except the Apple Watch. In the “Messages” section you will see everything that has arrived on your smartphone. The text is displayed in full - click on the desired notification and it will expand.

Notifications are implemented conveniently, but they are incomplete. You won't be able to respond to notifications without a smartphone - the watch does not support either templates, like the Samsung Galaxy Fit bracelet, or the ability to dictate text. Photos are not displayed, however, only Apple Watch can do this.

Added a function to remotely control music on a smartphone. One of the desktop pages is a player. It allows you to: turn on/off a track, select next/previous, adjust the volume. A good replacement for the remote control on your headphones if you don’t have one.

The highlight of Honor Watch Magic 2 is the ability to answer calls. The watch has a built-in speaker and microphone, so you can answer an incoming call even if your smartphone is not nearby.

Important features of Huawei smartwatches

Smart watches are equipped with their own operating system and allow you to download programs from Google Play. A feature of the presented devices from Huawei is considered to be advanced functionality with a combination of price. To control the bracelet, just download a special application to your phone and synchronize gadgets via Bluetooth wireless technology.

Thanks to the program, you can daily monitor your daily activity, heartbeat, sleep phases, customize the display of alerts, change the design on the watch display, etc.

When using a smartphone as a tool for redesigning, you need to install the Huawei Health program, synchronize the devices with each other and make sure that the application has the latest update. Remember, software without updates may work with errors or refuse to function at all.

Health control

The basic capability of wearable electronics is heart rate measurement. This watch is equipped with TruSeen 3.5 heart rate monitoring technology.

On the main screen, swipe to the right, you will see a page with an expanded set of heartbeat data: current heart rate, dynamics of the indicator during the day, maximum and minimum values ​​during the day. Swipe up and you'll see your heart rate zones: extreme, anaerobic, aerobic, fat burning, and warm-up. The graphs are configured manually - in the Huawei Health application you can specify the threshold and limits of the heart rate.

Added TruSleep advanced sleep analysis feature. The system shows how much time you slept, divides sleep into daytime and nighttime, and analyzes sleep phases. In the settings you can specify how many hours you should sleep, and the clock will show whether you are meeting the plan or not.

Smart alarm supported. The system analyzes your physical condition and selects the optimal time to wake up. In the settings you can specify the wake-up interval (up to 30 minutes). The vibration motor is of high quality - when you hear a wake-up signal, it seems as if you are being disturbed; it is extremely difficult not to react to the alarm clock.

The watch also monitors the user's physical activity. If you sit still for a long time, the accessory will remind you of this and encourage you to get up and stretch.

Checking your stress levels

The wrist device can be used for one-time or regular monitoring of stress levels.

1. When checking your stress level once, you must apply the instructions below:

• You need to go to the “Huawei Health” add-on menu.
• Select "Stress".
• Next is the “Stress Test”. When using this option for the first time, calibration of the stress level is required. In the “Huawei Health” add-on, a questionnaire will appear on the display. By answering the questions in this questionnaire, it is possible to obtain more accurate stress level test data.

1. When checking your stress levels regularly, do the following:

• You need to open the Huawei Health add-on.
• Next, you need to select the “Devices” menu.
• You will need to click on the name of your gadget.
• Then you need to enable the “Stress Level Test”.
• You also need to calibrate stress indicators using the prompts on the display. Check the correct placement of the wrist device. The smart gadget will check regularly.

1. To view stress information on your wrist device, do the following:

• On the main display, you need to press the top button.
• Moving up or down through the sections, find the “Stress” item.
• You need to click on this item. This section looks at the stress change chart, which is a histogram of stress level, and time interval.

1. If you need to view information about stressful situations, you can also use the Huawei Health application. Follow the instructions below:

• You need to open this add-on.
• Next, you need to select the “Stress” item. This item stores stress level indicators: a diagram of changes in stress levels per day, week, month and year. You can also get useful tips at this point. In order to minimize stress and relax, use the “Stress Relief Assistant” subsection.

Workout

Honor Watch Magic 2 has added a GPS sensor. With it, the watch collects data about your movements, even when you don't take your smartphone with you. That is, you don’t have to take your mobile device for a run - the smart watch will do everything for it, and the application will display the distance you have traveled, without the need to carry a large device with you.

The watch is equipped with two satellite navigation systems. Thanks to them, the accessory accurately determines your speed and route while running or cycling. In addition, there is an altimeter, a device for measuring height. It will record your descents and ascents.

GPS turns on and off automatically. When a smartphone is nearby, the watch uses its sensor; when it is not nearby, its own is activated.

15 training modes are supported. Data is collected in the Huawei Health app. In it you can track your performance during training and progress over a certain period. There are many metrics. There are 13 running courses.

The microphone built into the watch will help you during your workouts. The device supports voice prompts. With them, you can adjust the data collection process during training in the shortest possible time.

I wouldn't exactly call it a sports watch. The Samsung Galaxy Fit fitness bracelet records as many as 90 types of exercises, six of them are automatically recognized. There are only 15 of them. The watch counters this advantage with a GPS sensor. Which is more important depends on your goals.

Is Honor Magic Watch 2 worth buying?

Techno

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Magic Watch 2 offers long battery life and very good performance. They will definitely please users who play sports, as they offer protection from water and many options for tracking activity. However, this smartwatch can appeal to absolutely anyone - it boasts a solid list of technical characteristics and versatility in design.

Price at the time of review:

RUR 13,000 for the 46mm version and RUR 11,000 for the 42mm version.