OPPO unveils Watch 2 Glacier Lake Blue, Watch Free gets international launch
OPPO has uncovered a bunch of devices at its global launch event today. This includes the flagship OPPO Find X5 series, a pair of new true wireless earphones OPPO Enco X2 and OPPO Watch Free. The company had previously announced the Watch 2 Glacier Lake Blue edition in China.
Of most interest to us was whether we would be getting a new watch at the online gathering. Instead, OPPO has announced international availability of Watch Free. Unveiled last September in China, it packs a squarish design with an AMOLED display. It lacks built-in GPS but has all the basic fitness sensors, including blood-oxygen level tracking.
The timepiece is being made available in a number of countries. In the UK, you’ll be able to buy it from March 24th at £89.
Glacier Lake Blue edition of OPPO Watch 2
The company has also released a new variant of its Watch 2. To remind, that timepiece was released in China last summer but it is not yet available for purchase outside the local market. It comes with a number of useful upgrades over the first generation. This includes the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip, a dual operating system and double the storage memory. Other improvements come thanks to the SpO2 sensor, better stress tracking, GLONASS and more. Furthermore, you get support for eSIM, more than 50 apps and 100 sports modes.
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Which means there’s probably not enough there if you are still holding out to the original watch. But the new chip should allow OPPO Watch 2 to run Google Wear OS 3.0 when it becomes available in a few months time.
To remind, in China OPPO-made smartwatches run on Color OS. This has been upgraded to version 3.0 a few days ago. Internationally, however, the company’s watches rely on Google Wear OS so can utilize Google Pay, Google Assistant, Google Fit and Google Pay.
This new variant is called Glacier Lake Blue. Here’s a promotional poster.
The Glacier Lake Blue edition of OPPO Watch 2 is a slight design revamp more than anything else – offering an additional colour option. In terms of actual hardware, it looks to be the same.
But, as its name implies, the device takes on-board a ski algorithm. Beyond that there’s also a newly added national-level physical test for junior high school students. It allows them to take physical fitness tests by themselves, assess their performance and generate customised training plans.
We were hoping there would be some news about an international launch of OPPO Watch 2 today. But there was no word on that. The first generation device can be purchased in many countries so availability beyond the local border of China should come soon.
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