New Watch!

[hatman]

So, the watch arrived yesterday.

On the plus side:

It works!

4 GB USB flash drive

MP3/WMA/WAV playback with speakers

Easy-to-use interface

1.8" decent-quality color screen with 160x128 resolution

Video playback is small, but definitely watchable (er... no pun intended)

USB cable "hidden" inside watch strap (a longer one is also included in the box)

Voice recorder (haven't tested this yet)

Nice, easy to see, time/date/day display in color that randomly changes every minute

Awesomely multifunctional headphone/speaker/high-speed USB/power jack

Mostly comprehensible English instruction booklet

Song lyric display (if you have the correct .lrc file)

Photo display

Photo and video conversion software included on CD

Supposedly good for 7 hours of video or 9 hours of music before needing to be recharged

Charger which plugs into US home sockets and outputs in USB, so I can plug in the USB/charger cable when the comp is off or unavailable

TXT reader

Playback options such as 6 preset equalizer settings, the option to playback at 70-120% normal speed, various display settings (lyrics if you have 'em, different scroll speeds, time elapsed/remaining, a bunch of different languages), etc

It's a freaking video watch!! W00T!!

On the down side:

It's big for a watch

Putting it into what should be "shuffle" mode doesn't seem to really change the play order. (But I haven't played with it too much, so maybe it did and I just didn't realize.)

The FM radio sucks. Reception is very spotty until I'm within a few miles of the station. Even there, it's not good. It wasn't until I was within a few blocks of the station that it actually came in clearly.

While the letters on the TXT reader are a good size and easy to read, it wraps by character, not by word. So words often get cut/split between one line and the next. And it only has room for a small amount of text per screen. 7 lines, about 20 characters each.

This makes the FM recorder feature kind of moot

The time display is only in 24 hour format. I've used AM/PM my whole life.

No other options to change the time display (backgrounds, formats, etc)

My virus scanner detected (and wiped out) what it considers to be a trojan horse virus in the watch's USB autorun folder. (Just finished a virus scan of the system. It checks out clean now.)

I can't turn the screen upside-down. Half the screen sticks out to the left of the strap, and I'm one of those rare, weird people who wears his watch on his right hand.

According to the instruction manual, I should not drop the watch, hit it, shake it, or expose it to: sunlight, rain, humdity, any liquid, magnetic fields, heat, cold, dust, or "chemic enviornment." (So, as long as I don't use it on Earth, it should be fine.) I also should not manually disconnect the player.

The instruction manual also tells me that they have no way to contact me if there are changes or updates. For software updates, support, or any other information, I should call their hotline or visit their website. However, in no place in the manual, box, or watch is the phone number, address, URL, or even name of the company printed.

I loaded it with my entire mp3 music collection last night. 800 megs (I haven't updated/expanded/ripped in ages) in about 30 mins. Playback through the speakers was good. But it said, randomly, that several of the songs (even though they were in mp3 format) were "not supported." No idea why.

The watch came preloaded with a couple of short videos. They actually look pretty good on the watch's display.



You can see the time display here. The circular watch face counts the seconds, and, as mentioned, randomly changes color every minute. The main time display stays white, and is easy and clear to see. (Except in this picture, which turned out rather blurry at normal size.) The green line just below the time is the date, and the red box below that is the day of the week.



New watch vs old watch. You can see how much bigger this one is.



You can also see how thick the new one is.

Full size pics are available here. I also uploaded the manual. You can read their (pretty good) attempt at English. And I have the manual handy from any web-accessible location.

Comments

[kalinalea.livejournal.com]

So cool!

[laramoon.livejournal.com]

so... um... you never said if the pros outweigh the cons?

Looks pretty darn cool to me, anyway. I'd be having a huge geek moment.

(and I have to ask: you guys get mail on Saturdays????)

[lostprincess87.livejournal.com]

WOAH! NICE!

[ladymirth.livejournal.com]

That is one cool watch! Although you know, I'd get nervous if I saw anybody wearing that. It looks like it could be used to detonate a bomb. Or double as a lie detector. Or something else 007-ish.

And the numerals remind me of Mission Impossible.

[annabtg.livejournal.com]

Hehe, cool watch! :D Have fun with it!

See ya,
Anna :D

[ksarasara.livejournal.com]

Spiffy!!

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just? :D