That doesn't make sense. Huawei clearly believes the circular screen isn't a failing or they would have made a different watch.
You may not like circular smartwatches (I certainly don't), but that just means this watch is not for you. Plenty of people want them (see the pre-release excitement over the Moto 360, for example). This watch is for them.
I don't view truncation as a major product fail. Would you also categorize iOS and/or Android notifications as fails because they truncate the important parts of notifications?
Besides, in the screenshot you linked to -- you can pull the card up a bit to reveal the rest of the text if you're interested.
95% of the time is showing a watch face. You can also pull up the "half-card" notification to read it just fine; the horizontal insets ensure the entire text on the card is readable when the notification is "expanded".
...and the other 5% of the "time" is showing the hands? :-)
I think the biggest gripe with showing straight lines of text on what is essentially a curved viewport is that mix of curved/straight just doesn't feel quite right. It has the same feeling to me of looking at an old CRT TV with the corners of the image rounded off.
I don't know if displaying the text curved to match the screen would be any better...
You may not like circular smartwatches (I certainly don't), but that just means this watch is not for you. Plenty of people want them (see the pre-release excitement over the Moto 360, for example). This watch is for them.