OnePlus Watch 2R – Review

OnePlus has been in the smartwatch game for a few years now but they only came onto my radar with the release of the OnePlus Watch 2 at the beginning of this year at MWC 24. The reason for this is that they released their first smartwatch with Wear OS at its core. previously they had been using proprietary watch software which was not able to take advantage of any of the functionality afforded by the implementation of a proper smart watch OS. I have previously reviewed the OnePlus Watch 2 and I enjoyed my time with it but now is the time to look at its slightly more affordable sibling the OnePlus Watch 2R. Have they gone too far with the cost-cutting or are the changes to get under budget sensible choices?

The only way to find out is to get into the nitty gritty of a Coolsmartphone review!
Hardware and Design

A lot of what we are seeing here in terms of design is very similar to what we have seen previously with the Watch 2. In fact the internals are nearly the same. I have done an unboxing for the Watch 2R and I would encourage you to take a look at this to acclimatise yourself with the specs and refresh your memory.

For the more specifications inclined, here is a comparison of the specs for you.

Spec’s comparison table

So as we can see above there are a lot of similarities between the two watches particularly on the internal hardware. I will just spend a bit of time reviewing the key changes between the two devices.

First up is the most obvious and that is the design, the Watch 2 used an asymmetric design with the right-hand side of the watch having a bulge to it that was reminiscent of the OnePlus 12 camera design. This is where we could find the Home buttons and the lower shortcut buttons. These buttons could be changed in terms of long press functionality as well. There was a lot of speculation that the home button was also going to be opened up to be an actionable rotating crown. This has not happened at the time of writing, and I doubt it will be based on the lack of any new speculation online.

The Watch 2R uses a very similar design in that it also uses the dual button setup but it drops the asymmetric design in favour of a more traditional watch style design. This means that the two side buttons now protrude slightly from the watch side. This makes it easier to locate and press. The Home button this time gives no aspirations of being any other than a button which is good to see We also have a slightly differently designed watch band but as this is normally something that is swapped out by the user I am not too concerned by this as both watch straps where comfortable to use long term. The last bit I want to mention is the finish that the casing uses, the Watch 2 has a very shiny and glossy finish which was very prone to be smudged up easily by usage of the watch. On the Watch 2R the casing is now a more matte affair which does make it easier to keep smudge-free. With that, we can actually now move onto a key area of differences and that is the materials used to build the watches.

On the Watch 2 we found that they were largely using more premium materials for the build of the case and this is reflected in the Spec sheet above. We can see that the Watch 2 uses stainless steel for the watch body which brings a higher toughness and scratch resistance to the body. It also unfortunately brings more weight to the watch. In addition to this, the screen on the Watch 2 is made of Sapphire crystal for durability. Now this is the gold standard for smart watches and I feel all watches should now have Saphirre faces on them. Unfortunately, this is where we do see one of the spec hits on the Watch 2R as we have got a Panda Glass screen which has flat edges instead of the slightly rounded edges that were witnessed on its older sibling. Another area to be hit is the aforementioned casing as we now have a aluminium construction over the brushed stainless steel of the Watch 2. Now normally these compromises would give me reason for concern but in this case, I have no issues.

I have been wearing the Watch 2R on and off as my main watch for nearly a month over the summer and during this time I have exposed it to many things that watches don’t like in terms of keeping them in pristine condition. In my role as an engineer, I expose the watch to getting scuffed and scratched and the screen is still as pristine as the day it was unboxed. the casing has also held up very well and I have not been able to make out any markings on the exterior of the watch at all. I am so confident that the watch is durable, that after I finish this review the watch will be used by my son and I have high hopes that he will be able to keep it in a similar condition to what it currently is.

In terms of the battery life and charging this is the same as that of the Watch 2 as the Watch 2R uses the same battery and runs the same internal architecture and screen as the previous watch.

The only other area where the design has changed is in the weight of the Watch 2R. Now at first when I heard about the weight change I brushed it off as not really being a concern after all it is a watch it should be light. It wasn’t until I picked the watch up that I was then shocked at how light the Watch 2R felt. Now to be fair I was using a Garmin  Epix Gen 2 at the time and this is not exactly a featherweight. However, my honest first reaction was that the unit I picked up was a dummy unit as it was so light. It has been a pleasure to wear the Watch 2R due to this lightweight and I have been able to wear it comfortably whilst swimming and mountain biking.

I have included some images of how the watch is fairing after two months of usage and wear below for you and as you will see it is still pristine.

So moving onto the software and this is where things don’t really change much again from the Watch 2 to the Watch 2R. They are both running the same software and both utilise the Dual-Engine Architecture that was first launched with the Watch 2. This uses the same splitting of the load as before. it also brings the same battery life advantages. I would normally go over all of this again for you but I have already written this up extensively in my OnePlus Watch 2 Review so I would encourage you to refer back to that review.

I have been using the Watch 2R with both the OnePlus Nord 4 and more recently the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (horrible name) during this time I was able to transfer my data from one phone to the other by using the backup function that has not been added to the OHealth App. However, that is there only real significant change that has been made to the OHealth app which is still disappointing. I was unable to get the app to sync with Google Fit or any of the other fitness solutions that I have used Garmin Connect and Fitbit). I was also disappointed to see that Komoot is still not really that useful on the watch as you can only use it to track a walk/cycle not follow a pre-created one. This last point is not an issue exclusive to the Watch 2 and 2R though as this is an Android Wear issue more than anything else.

There was however one thing that surprised me about my time using the Watch 2R and that was that i missed Android Wear on my wrist. So much so that i have actually bought myself a new watch the Pixel Watch 3 45mm. The reasons why I have gone with the Pixel Watch 3 over the 2R are purely down to OHealth and its lack of integration with other Fitness solutions. There are a few quirks that I noted in the watch software as well but nothing I couldn’t get past. For me though using the Pixel 9 Pro Fold as my phone it makes sense to use the Pixel Watch 3. My son however will be using the Watch 2R with a OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite so it will go perfectly alongside that and his Nord Buds 2.

I have really liked using the OnePlus Watch 2R and I look forward to getting the feedback from my son when he starts to use it as well. It is a very good smartwatch from a hardware point of view and with some further development of the OHealth app I believe it could be something I would use again. OnePlus have got the hardware-to-price point relationship on point here and they have also managed to nail the battery life issues of most Android Wear owners. it is not time for a bit more love to be shown to the software and get that working better and this would be a highly recommended option for an Android Wear smartwatch for the price-savvy user.

Editor Note:- Apolagies for the lack of any sort of fitness tracking testing in this review. The reviewer’s job does not allow for much activity day to day so it was decided not to include this in this review. The health section of the watch was previously covered loosely in the OnePlus Watch 2 review.

You can buy the OnePlus Watch 2R from the OnePlus site right now and its RRP is £249 but as is normally the ace with OnePlus there’s an offer of £30 pounds off which reduces the price to £219 making this one of the cheapest fully featured Android Wear smartwatches currently available. Incendentally the Watch 2 is also still available and that is only priced a fraction higher. Both are fantastic watches and well worth a look if you are in the market and don’t want to go down the Samsung or Google route.

The post OnePlus Watch 2R – Review is original content from Coolsmartphone. If you see it on another news website, please let us know.