OnePlus Watch 2 Hands-On: Not Bad for a $299.99 Smartwatch
A new smartwatch fighter has arrived.
oneplJust because Fossil has thrown in the flag on Wear OS-powered smartwatches, and Apple and Samsung have all but won the war for your wrist, doesn’t mean there’s no room for other players to step up.
At MWC 2024, OnePlus — makers of the excellent OnePlus 12 phone that I recently reviewed — announced the OnePlus Watch 2. The smartwatch is a proper sequel to the dirt cheap and bare-bones OnePlus Watch that came out in 2021.
I’ve been testing the OnePlus Watch 2 on and off for the past two weeks, and it’s definitely a proper smartwatch, as it runs Wear OS 4 and not OnePlus’s own limited RTOS (real-time operating system). It’s got some quirks, which I’ll save for a full review, but at $299.99 it gets most of the basics right.
OnePlus Watch 2 Specs
The OnePlus Watch 2 is a pretty simple design.
A little over 10 years into smartwatches, Apple has largely settled around a rectangle screen with rounded corners, and everything else (running Wear OS or not) has gone with a round display with minor variations in design. The 46mm OnePlus Watch 2 has a 1.43-inch (466 x 466) AMOLED display that also supports an always-on clock (though, it’s not turned on by default).
The “Black Steel” model I’ve been testing has a shiny stainless steel case that’s IP68 water and dust-resistant and 5ATM rated, paired with a silicone band, and a rotatable crown and button on the right side. The shape reminds me of the camera bump on the OnePlus 12, but without the different lenses.
Inside the OnePlus Watch 2, there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 chip and BES 2700 MCU (microcontroller unit), 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. These two chips enable what OnePlus is claiming to be 100 hours of battery from its 500mAh cell. I still need to do more testing, but I can say that the battery life is terrific (somewhere between 2 to 3 days on a single charge).
Other than the lower button, the OnePlus Watch 2 works like any Wear OS smartwatch. Pressing the crown brings up your apps; pressing the button below it launches workouts; swiping down shows your quick settings; swiping up displays notifications; swiping left and right shows your widgets or “tiles” for stuff like steps, heart rate, weather, and whatnot. You know, smartwatch things!
OnePlus Watch 2 Release Date and Trade-In
Like any smartwatch, the OnePlus Watch 2 has a heart rate monitor. OnePlus claims up to 100 hours of battery life.
In addition to the “Black Steel” model, the OnePlus Watch 2 also comes in a gray-colored “Radiant Steel.” Both colorways are only available in a Bluetooth + Wi-Fi models; there’s no cellular version, which means you will need to tether to a phone or tablet to use most of its features.
Similar to the trade-ins that OnePlus are offering with the OnePlus Open foldable phone and OnePlus 12 and 12R phones, the company has a generous trade-in offer for the OnePlus Watch 2. Trade in any device in any condition, and OnePlus will give you $50 off the smartwatching, bringing the price down to $249.99. Pre-orders start today and deliveries start arriving on March 7.
So far, the OnePlus Watch 2 has been a good companion to the OnePlus 12 that I can’t seem to stop using. More soon, but it’s looking like a solid smartwatch, even if it’s not as fully featured as a Galaxy Watch 6.
