Huawei Technologies is the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world and they are rising up the ranks in the smartphone industry with 75 million sales in 2014, now betwixt with a few companies striving to take third place after Apple and Samsung.

Now Huawei want a slice of the wearables pie as they just revealed their new Android Wear smartwatch at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona 2-5 March.

It’s a good time to enter the smartwatch game, now that other companies have tested out the market in terms of what consumers want in a smartwatch, and what sells, and one thing we do know is that round-faced smartwatches are popular. Plus, with the tweaking of Android Wear since its release and the latest update just being announced, it seems Huawei have timed their project pretty well.

It’s not Huawei’s first wearable, their first effort was an activity tracker called the Huawei TalkBand B1 which tracks steps and sleep, but also works as a Bluetooth earpiece for phone calls. With such stiff competition in the fitness tracker market, the Huawei TalkBand B1 didn’t take off at full speed, but have Huawei stepped up the mark with their new smartwatch?

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So far it seems that the answer is yes, the watch, aptly named the Huawei Watch, won’t be available to buy for a while but early reviews from the Barcelona MWC are putting the Huawei Watch on the right track.

First of all the AMOLED touchscreen display is 1.4-inch 400×400 (286 PPI) which makes it the highest resolution Android Wear Smartwatch to date, compare that to the forthcoming LG Watch Urbane which has a 1.3-inch 320×320 (245 PPI) display.

There is normally a ‘But’! This time it’s the fact that bigger screen means more battery drain, and the Huawei watch only has a 300 mAh battery, whereas the LG Urbane has 410 mAh, go figure! It’s also worth noting that the Huawei Watch display goes full circle unlike the Moto 360 which has a slice taken out of the bottom.

What’s under the hood of the Huawei Watch fits the standard of the current generation of smartwatches, a Qualcomm APQ8026 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB storage.

The Huawei Watch is equipped with a 6-axis motion sensor Gyroscope + Accelerometer for sports and activity tracking. It also has a Barometer just in case you want some instant meteorological readings. According to Huawei, the watch is smart enough to distinguish between different sports and activities.

Heart rate monitoring is a must for wrist bound wearables in 2015. On the rear of the Huawei Watch there’s an optical heart rate sensor to give you constant BPM tracking with alert features. There is also a vibration feature and the necessary built-in microphone.

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There is little doubt that the watch has a high quality build. It’s housed in scratch-resistant stainless steel with colour options for black, silver or gold. The display is protected with Sapphire crystal, so the watch is scratch proof on all sides. There will also be different leather and stainless steel straps available, and at least 40 watch faces to download.

The Huawei Watch is very kind to the eye, possibly the kindest of all! With the upcoming release of the Apple Watch, smartwatch makers need to exert premium effort to turn people’s attention towards their product and away from the Apple.

The watch will hopefully be available to buy mid 2015. As far as the price goes, there’s not too much word, but suggestions say ‘it ain’t gonna be like the budgie! (cheap)

 Huawei Watch