Welcome technology lovers. This year’s new Google Wear OS-rich smartwatch Xiaomi Watch 2 has joined the world of smartwatches. This best budget smartwatch has good clean software, great performance, and a stunning outlook. Most of its features are well-upgraded and polished because of its Wear OS and processing unit. Moreover, it has excellent specifications and features. Let’s get into the details and try to find out how reasonable this smartwatch can be for us to buy.
Design and Display:
The device has a 1.43-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 466×466 pixels with 326 PPI. Its peak brightness is up to 600 nits. It is made of aluminum-finished material with a minimal and charming look. The watch is available in two colors. One is the matte black type and the other one is white color with silver coating. Both colors look quite premium. Officially nothing is known from Xiaomi about the glass protection on the screen. But Xiaomi has used Gorilla Glass 3 on their smaller budget Smart Band 8 Pro which was launched at the same time.
So we can expect it to use Gorilla Glass 3 or better quality tempered glass. We can find the speaker is a little lower along the middle of the left side which is quite good but not anything special. It will be pretty helpful in the case of calling. The right side has two buttons. Between the two buttons is the microphone. Both buttons are functional. If we press the above button, it will show all the applications. A long press will turn on Google Voice Assistant. If we single press the bottom button, it will launch the recent app and with the double tap, it will launch the Google Pay.
These shortcuts are set by default, but we can modify them from the settings. The weight of the smartwatch is only 36.8g (without strap) which is quite light. If you have it on your wrist for a long you won’t feel too bothered by such a lightweight watch. Coming to the strap, it is good to say that the quick-release strap is between 140 mm to 210 mm. That is, you can wear a suitable size according to the shape of your wrist. Happily, three types of straps are coming in the box. Pine Green TPU Strap, White Leather Strap, and Recycled Braided Strap (Black). Also, we can buy different types of straps from online or local stores.
In addition to this, the device has 5 ATM water-resistant capabilities. That means there is no time to worry about water. As a result, we can use it whether it is a rainy day or at our swimming session. Due to this, we can get accurate data on swimming from it. The device has an Accelerometer sensor, Gyroscope sensor, Ambient light sensor, Electronic compass sensor, and Barometer sensor. These are very important and useful sensors. We will talk about the health monitoring sensors in our health monitoring part.
Impressive Battery Life:
The 495mAh high-capacity battery is bound to satisfy us. We know that AMOLED display is naturally a battery-saving display and with that, there is a special Qualcomm’s hybrid architecture. That is, Qualcomm has specially designed this formula to enhance battery performance. All in all, this device ensures top-notch battery backup. But here are some battery-saving tricks we can apply to obtain the maximum performance of this battery. First of all, we should turn off the AOD what we call the Always On Display. Yeah, we know how interesting the feature is, but it is also true that this feature tends to drain the battery from time to time.
So if it is kept off then better backup is possible. In addition to this, if we do not use its monitoring sensors unless necessary, and keep the sensors off through settings then there are more possibilities to get better battery performance for sure. And the official magnetic charging cable which is included in the box supports fast charging technology. With which the smartwatch takes nearly 45 to 50 minutes to charge to 100%.
So all in all the battery performance can satisfy us in our day-to-day uses.
Reliability for Flagship Performance:
Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ Gen1 processor is powering our best budget smartwatch. It is a 4nm architecture processor. This processor is specially designed and implemented to enhance the overall performance and usability one step further. It comes with 2GB RAM and 32GB Internal storage. Where we can store our favorite and essential applications, music, and other necessary data. Having storage capacity is quite economical and convenient for smartwatches.
Advanced Heart Monitoring Sensors:
At the back, we can locate all the health monitoring sensors. Where there is the advanced 12-channel PPG monitoring that keeps track of our heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and stress levels more precisely. Even this upgraded monitoring sensor can perfectly identify our sleep patterns. It’s pretty good at tracking when we’ve slept, when we’ve been in deep sleep, when we’ve woken up, everything. Also by analyzing our sleeping habits, it will show us a sleep animal. That we slept like that animal sleep style. Which is pretty fun.
We have to remember one thing these types of smartwatches are not medically certified for accurate health monitoring results. However, from the opinions of various users, it has come out that this device can show very close results in the field of health monitoring. Many of us are familiar with the O2 Ring which is a medically certified device. Compared to such devices, it was found that this watch was able to give very close results. Suppose the difference between 19 and 20 is this. However, our advice would be to have more confidence in medically certified devices that can give proper accurate results in terms of health monitoring.
Professional Sports Modes:
About 160+ sports modes are available on this Xiaomi Watch 2. That gives us overall updates on our fitness and health. Also helps us to acquire overall performance and activity levels to achieve our goals in fitness and sports. Just like a personal coach for us. Some of the notable sports modes are Outdoor Running, Walking, Freestyle, Hiking, Outdoor Cycling, Treadmill, Jumping Rope, Pool Swimming, Different types of water sports, Various outdoor activities, Yoga, Esports modes and many many more.
OS For A Smart Living Journey:
The thing that plays a great role in making this watch smart and perform best for the user is its Google Wear OS. Aiming to make a device most user-friendly, Google has designed the Wear OS much more convenient, attractive, polished, fast-responsive, and easy to navigate. A unique assistant in the journey of smart living. We are getting the advantage of using various types of Google apps pre-loaded in it, such as Google Wallet, Google Maps, Google Assistant, YouTube Music, and even Play Store. Due to this, we can explore more than a hundred popular and essential applications in it. For this, we have to install the Mi Fitness application on our Android or IOS smartphones. Then we have to connect our smartwatch to the smartphone through the Mi Fitness app.
As a result, the watch will properly synchronize with the phone. This MI Fitness app contains every option to customize and configure the smartwatch. Apart from that, we can see every stats and data of health and fitness monitoring in this same application. If we go to the Apps option of the Mi Fitness app, the app store will open and from there we can install the needed applications on the watch. It also has remote photo-taking, timelapse recording, and video-shooting capabilities with viewing previews. This smartwatch lets us easily control the phone’s camera by watching the preview. The viewfinder lags a bit while previewing. However, the previewing feature is impressive, as it’s unavailable on expensive premium devices. The amazing UI experience has taken this device on a successful step to become the best budget smartwatch of 2024.
Watch Faces:
Since we are talking about the user interface, we have to talk about the watch face. This smartwatch is preloaded with several interesting and unique watch faces. Because of the AMOLED display, they look very nice and vibrant. If we keep a short press on the watch face, all the watch faces will be seen. From there, we can apply any watch face we like as well as customize them. If we want to use more exclusive watch faces, we can install them through the Mi Fitness apps section. There are countless collections of cool watch faces out there.
Text and Calling Feature:
It has 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi and Blutooth 5.2. Because of the synchronization with the phone, it can notify us of each phone call and text. We can receive calls, reject, or respond to text from the watch. Even there is a dialer function and contact list to call directly from the watch. We can easily hear the person on the other side through the speaker on the watch and the call quality is relatively good. Along with that, we can see the notifications of Text, WhatsApp, Facebook, mail, etc, and reply to them with Gboard and Voice commands. So it appears that the device is providing full benefits in terms of texting and calling.
Navigation Feature:
During the OS part of this smartwatch review, we have said that every application of Google works well in Xiaomi Watch 2. Due to this almost accurate results are available in the case of Google Maps. Moreover, we can observe good results in the navigation with the integration with Google Maps. Dual-band: L1+L5 GPS technology, Galileo, Glonass, Beidou, and QZSS technologies are available in the watch. So in terms of outdoor tasks, hiking, or anywhere else where we need navigation support, quite good results we can expect from it. The same is known from the opinion of the users.
What are the downsides?
Despite being a low-cost Google Wear OS device, undoubtedly this is an interesting device to satisfy the user. But before buying it we should know if there are any downsides along with its amazing features.
- Xiaomi has not officially said anything about its display protection. We speculate it might be gorilla glass 3 or better quality tempered glass. Xiaomi should have informed us about it.
- The device lags a bit while viewing the camera preview.
- Low brightness could affect the visibility of the display under direct sunlight.
What are the best things about this device?
There are several reasons to call it the best budget smartwatch. Its impressive features and outlook will impress everyone even in such a budget range. Such as:
- Amazing Wear OS by Google,
- Crisp and Sharp AMOLED Display,
- Snapdragon Performance Processor,
- Availability of 2 GB RAM and 32 GB Internal Storage,
- Google Payments with NFC Support,
- Dual-Band GPS System,
- 12-channel PPG monitoring with better sleep and fitness tracking,
- Support calling and texting features,
- Superb battery life,
- 5ATM Water Resistant,
- Reasonable price considering the features and specifications.
Final Words:
We got to know in detail about each feature of the Xiaomi Watch 2. We have also mentioned the reasons behind finding this device attractive to us. Those who are interested in this device must prioritize these features. It is commendable that Xiaomi has brought these features at an incredibly compact price. Overall, it looks like it is directly challenging the Oneplus Watch 2. The reason for saying this is that Oneplus Watch 2 is also a Google Wear OS-powered smartwatch and is nearly similar in specifications.
Although the Oneplus Watch 2 is a premium smartwatch. The stainless steel body comes with many premium features. But if we consider the budget and overall result then Xiaomi Watch 2 is not a device to pitch away at all. We think the Xiaomi Watch 2 is a worthy successor to be our best budget smartwatch. We hope you have got a complete picture of this smartwatch from this whole discussion.