Amongst a bevvy of laptops and tablets, Honor also unveiled two new smartwatches as part of its IFA 2020 showcase, the lightweight and stylish Honor Watch ES and the ruggedised Honor Watch GS Pro.
With the effects of the US entity list continually weighing on Huawei (and by association Honor) it makes sense that the company’s IFA announcements this year were light on phones, with Honor instead choosing to offer new wearables in the form of the Watch ES and GS Pro, in order to appeal to a wider audience.
Huawei fans might recognise the Honor Watch ES as it bears more than a passing resemblance to the Huawei Watch Fit, which recently launched in China and the UAE. The Honor Watch GS Pro, meanwhile, looks to take on the likes of the Polar Grit X; with its MIL-STD-810G certification, dual satellite positioning systems and long battery life.
Honor Watch ES
The most obvious trait of the Watch ES is its 1.67in portrait rectangular AMOLED display. It’s practically a feature-for-feature lift of the Huawei Watch Fit, with support for six always-on watch faces, water-resistance up to 5ATM (making it swim-proof), support for 95 workout modes (including automatic workout detection for six select activities) and the promise up 10-day battery life.
That portrait display also lends itself to the watch’s animated workout courses: 12 routines comprised of 44 animated moves which the watch demonstrates to you as you work out.
This feature also works offline and the workouts are designed to be easily digestible – so you can fit them around your existing daily routine without disruption. Courses include three-minute shoulder pain relief exercises, a fat-burning routine and even an ab workout.
As for the rest of the hardware, the Watch ES features SpO2 blood oxygen saturation level tracking, a female cycle tracker (when paired with Android devices), sleep, stress and heart rate monitoring all wrapped up in a 21-gram casing set to come in three colours.
The Watch ES will launch in the UK from 8 September and will cost a measly £99.
Honor Watch GS Pro
If you’re after a hardier fitness tracker-cum-smartwatch, the Honor Watch GS Pro sports a reinforced stainless steel and polycarbonate casing, set around a 1.39in circular AMOLED display. The aforementioned MIL-STD-810G protection means it’s been tested to withstand thermal, shock and water resistance extremes and what’s more, it’s capable of heart rate monitoring whilst swimming (in up to 50 metres of water).
Built for the great outdoors, Honor sees GS Pro wearers hiking trails or cross-country skiing (both of which it’s able to track) and if you do head off the beaten track, it comes with a dual satellite positioning systems which it can use as part of its Route Back feature to leave a breadcrumb trail of GPS markers that can be followed back if you find yourself lost. It’ll even alert you when GPS strength is weak, just to be safe.
In addition, features like sunrise and sunset tracking, tide-condition monitoring and bad weather alerts are all designed to help those who like to venture out into the wilds be as prepared as possible.
The icing on the cake is probably the GS Pro’s promised 25-day battery life, which can be extended to 100 days in power-saving mode.
Like the Watch ES, the GS Pro arrives from 8 September, but costs a little more at £249.
Alongside the two new wearables, Honor also announced a global launch for its Pad 6 and Pad X6 tablets, along with the MagicBook Pro and refreshed versions of the MagicBook 14 & 15 with Ryzen 4000 processors.
Updated with UK pricing.