So, who’s ready for one more smartwatch to enter the wearable-tech fray and go toe-to-toe with Apple and Samsung? Take note, the Huawei Watch’s early looks and US$349-$799 introductory price range may make this a competitive Android Wear watch with some advantages over Apple’s prestigious tech.
U.S. pre-orders for the Huawei Watch are now open with its first official shipments rolling out Sept. 17 at the higher end of competing Android Wear watches. Perhaps the ambitious pricing is well-deserved, considering that Google claims the Huawei Watch is one of only a precious few running that Android platform that also happens to support Apple’s proprietary iOS.
Limited are its iOS cross-compatible competitors, but its preview at the Mobile World Congress back in March shed some light on stainless steel, black and late-2015 rose gold designs that stylishly set it even further apart. Even with high-for-an-Android prices varying with casing and strap customizations, this handsome devil with a clean fully round sapphire-covered 1.4″ screen running at a 400 x 400 pixels resolution (a fine 286 pixels-per-inch) still prices competitively against Apple’s flagship smartwatch.
Running the latest full Android Wear version, the Huawei Watch comes with the platform’s full gamut of extras and pre-bundled apps in addition a spiffy little heart rate monitor. Huawei announced the watch as currently “available worldwide” from New Zealand to Costa Rica and everywhere that isn’t the United States in between, but price and retail-partner details seem scarce. We do know that, although Huawei has not announced the watch’s international pricing, the U.S. price points suggest something between £230-521 or AUS$495-1,135.
