If you’ve ever finished a marathon with a chafed wrist, a dead GPS watch, or both, Huawei’s new Watch GT Runner 2 would like a word.
The watch officially launches Thursday, February 26, and leaked specifications from German tech publication WinFuture suggest Huawei isn’t messing around this time. The GT Runner 2 succeeds the original GT Runner — which came out nearly five years ago — and the upgrade is substantial enough that this isn’t just a refresh. It’s a proper rethink.
Battery Life That Actually Respects Your Training
Let’s start with the number that matters most to distance runners: the GPS battery. The Watch GT Runner 2 will last 32 hours with its dual-band GPS running continuously, and up to 14 days under normal use. That’s enough to get through a full marathon, a 50K, and still have juice left to obsessively review your splits afterward.
For context, Garmin’s Forerunner 970 — widely considered the benchmark in this category — currently retails at $649. Huawei hasn’t confirmed pricing yet, but if the GT Runner 2 undercuts it while matching the specs, that’s going to be a very uncomfortable Tuesday morning in Garmin’s headquarters.
The dual-band GPS also supports what Huawei is calling “Ultra Precision Positioning,” which should address one of the most common frustrations among urban runners: that irritating moment when your watch decides you ran through three buildings.
The AirDry Band Is Quietly the Best Feature Here
Buried beneath all the flashy specs is a genuinely clever piece of engineering. The Watch GT Runner 2 comes with an “AirDry” band, which uses raised threads and ventilation slits to lift the watch slightly off your skin. Air circulates underneath during a run, keeping things cooler and — crucially — reducing the kind of wrist chafing that turns the last 10 miles of a marathon into a small personal nightmare.
It’s the kind of feature that sounds minor until you’ve needed it. Anyone who has ever peeled a watch off a raw wrist at mile 24 will feel this one deeply.
Health Tracking for the Serious Athlete
On the health side, the watch adds an upgraded ECG sensor tuned specifically for evaluating training load, plus HRV (heart rate variability) monitoring. HRV tracks the millisecond-level variations between heartbeats and has become one of the more reliable indicators of recovery and readiness — essentially telling you whether today is a day to push hard or take it easy.
Having both metrics on your wrist, without a chest strap or separate device, is a meaningful step up. Combined with heart rate zone training, these tools give serious runners a much clearer picture of what’s actually happening inside the body during and after hard efforts.
Marathon Mode: Bold Promise, Details TBD
Huawei has teased a dedicated “Marathon Mode” that it’s billing as an on-wrist running coach. What exactly that means in practice — pacing guidance, fueling alerts, race-day heart rate management — will be confirmed at Thursday’s launch. The cynical take is that every running watch now claims to be a coach. The optimistic take is that Huawei has had five years to watch what Garmin does well and what it doesn’t.
It Also Looks Good, Which Shouldn’t Matter But Does
The design is worth mentioning. The GT Runner 2 has a round dial set in a geometric titanium frame with a distinctive orange and blue accent layer between the case and the dial. Three strap options are available: plain black, a tri-color orange-purple-white option that looks like a running track, and a blue gradient version. All are nylon — and all come in that AirDry design.
Is it the most important thing about a running watch? No. Will you still appreciate not looking like you strapped a medical device to your wrist? Absolutely.
A Crowded Market, but a Clear Target
The Watch GT Runner 2 enters a competitive field. Garmin’s Forerunner and Fenix lines have long been the default choice for serious marathon and ultramarathon runners, while Apple, Samsung, and COROS are all competing for the same wrist space. Huawei has not yet announced pricing for the new watch.
What the GT Runner 2 appears to offer is a combination of premium materials, long GPS battery life, and running-specific features at what the company will likely position as a competitive price point. Whether Marathon Mode delivers something meaningfully different from what Garmin already offers will be the real test.
Full pricing, specs, and availability drop Thursday. We’ll be covering the launch — and if Huawei sends us a unit to test, you’ll hear about those AirDry bands and HRV numbers firsthand.
