The Apple Watch 5 is a high-quality smartwatch, but you have to pay a lot of money to get that quality. Having similar functionality in a less expensive device is exactly the ideal situation, and this seems to be exactly what Oppo is doing.

According to a leak from Chinese social network Weibo posted by GSMArena, the Oppo Watch is already quite similar to the Apple Watch and borrows some of its best features. And this was confirmed at Oppo's launch event today, where the Watch, the company's first smartwatch, was unveiled (via GSMArena).

Among the key features is a built-in ECG sensor. This has been used by Apple since the Apple Watch 4, and now that it is available in a less expensive watch, it improves the reliability of heart rate monitoring. With ECG cardiovascular health monitoring, sleep tracking, and VOOC fast charging technology that promises a 50% charge in 17 minutes, the Oppo Watch is a serious challenge to the Apple Watch.

It has already been noted that the two smartwatches look similar, and except for the fact that the Apple Watch has a crown and the Oppo Watch uses two buttons instead, it would be physically impossible to mistake them. This is because Oppo uses a combination of Google's Wear OS and its own Color OS to run the Watch, while Apple has its own Watch OS with many related features.

There are also some other hardware differences if you look closely: the Oppo Watch has a curved OLED display, 1.6" (41mm) or 1.9" (46mm) models, black or copper housing, and a choice of different colored straps.

The Oppo Watch will go on sale in China on March 24, but at this time there is no confirmation of an international launch, and for some odd reason it did not appear at the launch event for Oppo's Find X2 smartphone, which was supposedly scheduled. The larger version will cost 1,999 yuan ($288/£221 equivalent) and the smaller version 1,499 yuan ($216/£166 equivalent). For comparison, the cheapest Apple Watch 5 is $399/£399 and the Series 3, which lacks some features including an EKG reader, is $199/£199.