Feb 16
I gather that increasing numbers of people these days use their cell phone to tell the time, and don’t bother with a watch.
However, the watch is fighting back. Behold, the quad band GSM phone in a wristwatch, with Bluetooth (so you can pair it with a headset for phone use) and OLED display showing analog hands. Plus 1.3MP camera, kinetic battery recharge, and MP3 player.
At 13mm thick it’s still pretty bulky, but not much worse than my Casio G-Shock.
Tagged: analog, Bluetooth, Casio, cellular telephone, gadgets, GSM, MP3, OLED, phone, technology, watch
5 Responses to “Phone vs watch”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
February 16th, 2008 at 17:36 -0700
I’ve been kicking the idea of a deconstructed cell phone around in my head for a few months now, though I haven’t taken it as far as actually doing anything about it. As to the phone/watch conundrum, using the phone as a timepiece works for me because watches tend to die in my presence. I think my flagrant disregard for time causes them to give up in despair.
February 16th, 2008 at 23:47 -0700
So watches die on you, but you don’t destroy or lose phones?
I can kinda sympathize with the watch thing. I seem to have the same problem, unless I stick to Casio. It’s probably possible to break a G-Shock, but I imagine only in some kind of limb-mangling industrial accident.
February 17th, 2008 at 16:37 -0700
Hmm. Interesting. Very interesting. There are just a few problems I can see.
I can’t find the manufacturer (”Epoq”) on the web. They seem to be Chinese, which may or may not say something about the likely quality of the product in terms of general fit and finish, longevity, firmware bugginess, etc.
I’m not sure I believe the bit about 50m water resistance when it has a USB port.
That page doesn’t make it completely clear that there’s an option for digital time display.
If it’s using OLED, there’s a risk the thing will glow at night. Or need a button pressing to read the time in daylight. I’d prefer e-paper.
Although I’m right-handed, I wear my watch left-handed so that scroll pin would be awkward to use, especially while trying to see the display. Maybe a subsequent version will use the bezel as a data-entry device instead.
February 17th, 2008 at 18:43 -0700
Yeah, it’s clearly a cheap Chinese-made device. However, it’s impressive the amount of crap they can fit into such a small device. I know Casio have been making mobile phones recently, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before there’s a G-Shock with phone.
The USB port is a strange design choice given that it has Bluetooth.
February 18th, 2008 at 21:16 -0700
I’d be astonished if kinetic charging was sufficient for any serious level of use; I suspect the USB port is for recharging as much as anything else.