The Best All-Round Apple Watch Competitor So Far

Welcome to my OnePlus Watch 2R review!

Mark Ellis
8 min readAug 2, 2024

--

OnePlus Watch 2R sidewards on a wooden desk, next to an iPad and keyboard.
Image courtesy of author

I haven’t worn an Apple Watch for ages. This isn’t because I’ve fallen out of love with Apple’s wearable, or because I’m making some kind of point about wanting to break free of the ecosystem — it’s because I’ve genuinely enjoyed trying different watches.

Most of 2024 has been dedicated to the Garmin MARQ Commander. No, I haven’t reviewed it yet (it’s been a busy year) but I can confirm that I’m still a big fan of Garmin’s take on smartwatches — even if this one is ludicrously expensive and susceptible to the odd software glitch.

Today, I’m writing these words while wearing the brand-new OnePlus Watch 2R. It sits just below the Watch 2 in terms of specs and pricing, and it’s a mightily interesting timepiece.

Let’s get into it.

Specs and pricing

The Watch 2R is made from aluminium alloy and features a silicone strap with a stainless steel buckle. It’s an incredibly light watch, at just 59g and, as you can see — circular. Which immediately gets my vote.

That circular frame houses a 1.43-inch AMOLED display that’s capable of 600 nits of sustained brightness and can hit 1,000 nits of peak brightness. Powering everything is the Snapdragon…

--

--

Mark Ellis

Tech reviewer. Join my newsletter list for a weekly behind-the-scenes video of a tech content creator! ⬇️ https://markellisreviews.ck.page/newsletter