OnePlus is on a tear of a start to 2024. The company has announced two fantastic smartphones in the OnePlus 12 and 12R. This closely followed the late 2023 release of the critically acclaimed OnePlus Open foldable. Now, it’s back again to unveil the OnePlus Watch 2.
How’s this fancy new timepiece running Wear OS stack up to the competition? We’ll dive into it in this full review.
Design
Overall, the OnePlus Watch 2 isn’t really breaking new ground. If you’ve used a Samsung or Wear OS watch recently, it could blend into the mix. However, the fit and finish is really well done here by OnePlus. The 1.43 inch round sapphire face, just melts into the stainless steel casing. It screams premium watch quality as soon as you take it out of the box.
It’s durable all-around, too. OnePlus has put the Watch 2 through a battery of tests to acquire MIL-STD-810H, 5 ATM, and IP6 environmental certifications. This should make is more than capable in stringent outdoor conditions, impacts, and submersion.
There are only two buttons on the right side of the OnePlus Watch 2. The top one sends you home in the software with a single press and shows recent apps with a double. The bottom button shows you the workout’s menu with a single press, and initiates Google Wallet with a quick double press. The rest of your inputs will be done via touchscreen. The screen is responsive and very bright, 1000 nits and 60Mhz refresh rates. Flowing through menus and screens shouldn’t be an issue.
The OnePlus Watch 2 also comes with a standard 22mm silicone wristband. These are attached with some heavyweight quick release pins, making it perfect for those of us who will immediately seek out flare on Amazon to add additional colorway options to the Watch 2. The official band is comfortable and even has edged trim that covers the mount points, much like the Galaxy Watches.
It’s also a thick rubber that should take a good amount of use before needing to replace it if you don’t mind the standard black color. One last note on the band is due to the dark color and material, it does show lint and dust pretty easily. This isn’t a dealbreaker by any means, but worth a mention for the OnePlus Watch 2 default bands.
Dual chipsets
One key differentiation that OnePlus is banking on is that the Watch 2 is in offering dual chipsets to power the Wear OS experience. Actually, the low-power BES2700 chip does many of the daily refresh tasks without ever waking the Snapdragon W5 and calling up the more power hungry Wear OS.
Essentially, the BES2700 is an embedded layer that handles things like notification pings, sleep tracking, and fitness steps without powering on the more batter intensive Snapdragon W5. This allows these menial tasks to still sync with the OnePlus OHealth app and even share that data with Wear OS, but it’s not always calling on the more intense systems.
It’s a fine line here, and an interesting hybrid for OnePlus to offer. The OnePlus Watch 2 promises this allows for a better performance and endurance. And when you need Wear OS and all the great apps from the Google Play Store, they are all there and ready to be called to action.
Performance
But what does all that mean to the end user? Glad you asked. I found general performance to be snappy. And I found the dual systems to ultimately go unnoticed. Other than you have to use OnePlus new OHealth app, Wear OS users may have never known the difference. It’s worth mentioning that at the time of launch, that you can’t sync the OnePlus Watch 2 directly to the Wear OS app. You are required to use the OHealth app instead.
The OHealth app is pretty robust, and I’ve also tested this with non-OnePlus devices, and the functionality seems to be the same. If you’ve used and Apple Watch, you’ll find this familiar. It has a pretty extensive layout for new watches faces, notifications control, and general settings. The default OHealth home screen is also your dashboard for your fitness goals and biometric readings like heart rate and recovery.
It’s also worth noting, at the time of this review, I still think OnePlus engineers have a few patches to go for this to be seamless. I still don’t get every notification that hits my phone properly mirrored to my Watch 2. My guess is that certain apps just don’t play nice with the dual system hand-off to wake the notifications. Gmail is one of the bigger culprits of this, but I have no doubt the great team at OnePlus have updates to resolve this as it gets in more hands.
Battery
One promise that does ring true is battery life over other Wear OS watches. The company promises up to 100 hours of real usage, and I’ve found this to be spot on. The OnePlus Watch 2 is packing a 500mAh battery to allow for this endurance. I am averaging four days of mixed smartphone and workouts being used. I’ve never seen this with any other smartwatch manufacturer other than Garmin.
Kudos to OnePlus on nailing this feature. Battery life is one of the major pain points of the modern connected watch. Many barely last a day and you are reaching for the charger every evening. This kills one of the main selling points of sleep tracking in my mind. If I’m missing that data due to charging, I’m not getting the full value of my purchase.
When you do need a charge, OnePlus includes a USB-C powered charger in the box. The Watch 2 is capable of 5V/2A output for a total of 10 Watts. This makes charging the Watch 2 one of the fastest I’ve seen with most modern USB-C wall adapters. The Apple Watch Series 9 is capable of 20W charging, but I swear this is faster at around an hour to get back to 100-percent.
Conclusion
OnePlus is always pushing the envelope of what Google’s software ecosystem is capable of producing. From the original OnePlus phone, and it’s “flagship killer” moniker, to the recent Open, the company has been on the edge of what’s out there. It has continued that heritage with the OnePlus Watch 2. This new hybrid chipset lends to a very compelling experience.
Once OnePlus works out the remaining notification tweaks, this will easily be the Wear OS device to buy in the current market. Now, no review is complete without the pricing. Here, OnePlus comes in at $300 full retail, but there are some cool incentives to pre-order before the official launch date of March 4th.
- Pre-orders start on OnePlus and Amazon starting 02/26/24
- $50 USD off with the trade-in of ANY watch in ANY condition (doesn’t have to be smartwatch. Literally any watch)
- 30% USD off with the purchase of a OnePlus 12 or 12R
- The discounts remain for the OnePlus live sale on 03/4, but Amazon members drop to just the $50 USD off on 03/11 for the open sale dates
