$800 Huawei Gold Smartwatch Spotted on Amazon
Are you craving a shiny gold smartwatch but don’t want to pay $10,000+ for the Apple Watch Edition or even $1,200 for the LG Watch Urbane Luxe? How about a gold-plated Android watch for under $800?
Huawei has tried to keep the details of its new smartwatches under wraps until the release date but some of the items appeared for sale on Amazon a few days ago. The gold-plated smartwatches by Huawei were listed starting at $699.99. That price is for the gold-plated version with a brown leather strap while the fancier model with a gold-plate bracelet is $799.99. A black version is $499.99 and a stainless steel model goes for $349.99.
Like most of the high-end wearables coming out now, the Huawei gold watch has a round face rather than the rectangular ones of earlier smartwatches. This one has a 1.4” AMOLED display with a scratch-resistant sapphire glass and a gold-plated stainless steel body. Users may choose from a wide variety of bands and 40 pre-installed watch faces.
Like most smartwatches, the Huawei can show alerts for texts, calls and app notifications from any of the 4,000 current Android applications. Unlike many smartwatches, it’s compatible with both Apple and Android smartphones, working with mobile devices running iOS 8.2 or Android 4.3 and higher.
While the Huawei is undoubtedly a nice looking smartwatch, especially compared to earlier wearables from tech companies, it seems doubtful that the brand has the clout to sell many pieces at these prices. $800 for a smartwatch is getting into Apple territory, and unfortunately, Huawei isn’t Apple.
One analyst gave an opinion on why Huawei is not likely to sell a lot of smartwatches at these lofty prices and he’s right on the money. According to Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, “Huawei likely should have co-branded this with a luxury brand or created a luxury brand to sell this under much like Honda did with Acura, and GE did with Monogram. Under the right brand this could be very successful, Huawei isn’t that brand—at least not yet.”
Alas, looks aren’t everything and the Huawei Watch, gold or not, is probably doomed to be an also-ran.
