Honor announces the arrival of MagicWatch 2 in France, our first impressions

Shift the January 23, 2020 at 12:20 p.m.

The MagicWatch 2, Honor's latest smart health connected watch, will arrive in Europe, and therefore in France. Officially presented in November during the View 30 press conference, the smartwatch will be offered in the old continent at the beginning of February. Its price starts at 179 euros. Here are the important technical details and our first impressions.

Honor hosted a press conference in London today to officially launch Magic Watch 2 in Europe. A presentation that follows, two months late, that which took place in China when the smart health connected accessory was unveiled with the brand's last two flagships, the V30 and the V30 Pro. This new presentation is therefore only a confirmation that the watch will arrive in Europe. And so in France from February 3.

Read also: Official Huawei Watch GT2: stylish, versatile and enduring for 229 euros

When launched in China, there were rumors that the watch would be marketed in the eurozone at the price of 179 euros in 42 mm version and 189 euros in 46 mm version. If the price of the smaller of the two watches is this, the amount requested for the second is slightly different: 199 euros. It thus takes up the pricing positioning of its predecessor, the Watch Magic (sold on the official Honor store at 199.90 euros). Note that special editions made with designers were also presented.

The MagicWatch 2 technical sheet, first cousin of a Watch GT 2 from Huawei, hasn't changed in two months. The watch is available in two versions with 42 mm and 46 mm cases. The round AMOLED screens measure 1.2 and 1.4 inches respectively. The definitions are 390 × 390 and 454 × 454 pixels for the same resolution in both cases: 326 pixels per inch. A mineral glass protects the whole. The watch chassis is made of stainless steel. The construction is waterproof and the horns are standardized.

Up to 14 days of autonomy

The platform integrated in the chassis is Kirin A1, a component created by HiSilicon dedicated to smart health connected objects. It incorporates an optimized Bluetooth connection (like the Apple W chipsets that you find in Beats and AirPods headsets, including AirPods Pro for example). The capacity of the batteries is different depending on the model: 215 mAh and 455 mAh, respectively. Honor says the battery life is 7 days for the 42mm model and 14 days for the 46mm model. Please note, these figures depend of course on the usage and the active sensors (Always-On activated, Bluetooth headset smart health connected, biometric sensors).

Like the Chinese model, European MagicWatch2 incorporates 4 GB of internal memory. But 2 GB is available to the user. Enough to save a few hundred songs to listen to without the need for a companion smartphone. In terms of functionality, the watch offers 15 modes of sports activity: walking, hiking, jogging, fitness, swimming, etc. A virtual coach function offers the possibility of following a progressive training with several levels of difficulty. Finally, the MagicWatch 2 offers a sleep analysis tool. The whole works in correlation with the Huawei Health app, available on Android (and even on iOS …). So much for the theoretical presentation.

What are our first impressions with the watch?

Let's move on to our first impressions. At the end of the press conference, we had the opportunity to make a first "getting started" of the watch. And we can already share with you some initial observations. This first impression was made with the 46 mm model of the MagicWatch 2. These remarks would certainly have been identical with the 42 mm model.

First, the MagicWatch 2 is a beautiful object with beautiful finishes. Stainless steel and mineral glass go well together. The strap buckle is also made of metal. A nice touch. Two mechanical buttons are present on the edge, as well as an opening for a speaker and a microphone. At the back are the various biometric sensors, including a heart rate monitoring.

Once the watch is on, his first request is to be smart health connected to a smartphone. The vast majority of the services rendered by the accessory depend on this link. And some of these services will even depend on a connection to a smartphone under the Android operating system (not necessarily EMUI). This is particularly the case for the musical application: you will not be able to add songs to the watch from an iPhone.

If you have an iPhone, you can take advantage of a very large part of its functions, especially on the fitness part. The Huawei Health app, which acts as a link between the smartphone and the watch, is HealthKit compatible. This means that the biometric data collected by the watch is shared with health (Apple’s application). And vice versa. Note thata Huawei account is required to create a profile that will get richer over time.

Once the watch is set up with your smartphone, you access the interface of the watch. The top button is used to call up the menu. The bottom button, by default, calls up the menu dedicated to sports training where you can choose the sport you are going to perform so that the data is more precise. This second hardware button is customizable : You can choose to assign it another function, like the music app for example.

Navigating the interface is, at first glance, fluid and intuitive. Turn on the watch from the watchface (a dozen choices at startup). Swipe horizontally to access certain widgets, such as music, weather, goal circles, and heart rate chart. Swipe up to view notifications and swipe down for a quick setting menu (including do not disturb mode). Press the top button to enter the menu and access the on-board applications and the configuration menu.

This first contact is generally positive. We will soon publish a full Review of this MagicWatch2, with some physical exercises in perspective for the author.

AB SMART HEALTH REVIEW