The Casio MP3 watch. Everyone said it should be done. It's finally here. It looks huge. It makes you look like a spy. IT definitely isn't cheap. But if you are here at this gadget site, and you are a true "gadgeteer", these things shouldn't really get to you. The little bugger sounds great, is ultra light, and draws in the attention of everyone who sees it.
The design of this watch, while not too bad, is one of its weakest traits. It is quite bulky for a watch (for an mp3 player it's relatively tiny) and it sports two huge Velcro straps. Despite this, it is a very light watch, even less than two ounces. While bulky, you don't notice the weight on your wrist while performing your daily chores.
Surprisingly, the sound quality is outstanding. It has adequate volume for both indoors, outdoors, or even a noisy bus. Skip-free and very high quality, it is obvious that this watch is made for the athlete gadget-lover. For your morning jog, drop the Discman, walkman, or portable record player (ouch) and just fill your watch with music and then just strap it on.
To make this watch as small as possible, some sacrifices had to be made. The buttons are a little tricky at first, especially to fast forward or rewind a track. It is still equipped, however, with all the normal features like volume control, shuffle, repeat, EQ settings, etc. It is aswell equipped with a time keeping mode including a stopwatch, the time and alarms.
To get your music to your watch - you load simple software - attach your USB cable to the "cradle" type device, and tadaa - you can instantly copy 32 Megabytes (MB) of Mp3s to your watch. And don't worry, you won't be waiting for hours as your songs transfer, well at least according to Casio - which claims 70 seconds for a four minute track. You can even change the order of the songs un LinkSoft (the software).
One of my favourite parts of this watch is the battery option. The cradle also acts as a battery recharger. Casio says you can play four hours of music until the low-battery indicator comes on, and MP3-playing is disabled. Time lasts about four days after that, so you'll have to recharge as needed. Be careful though, because if the battery dies completely, you'll have to take or send the unit to a Casio service center and pay for a replacement. Buried in Casio's web site is a page listing the four centers in the United States and Puerto Rico.
Extras : Don't lose the snap-on earphone attachment or you won't be able to listen to anything but the alarms you set. Removing the attachment lets you wear the WMP-1V as just a watch -- but its not worth it. The unit is promoted as "water-resistant" with the earphone connector off. But the back of the watch says its a I, which means "avoid all moisture," according to the manual. A Casio tech says you can wear it in the rain, but that's about it. Future models may be waterproof.
Overall, a great watch. Slight adjustments in the design and maybe an expansion card for more memorywould make this great watch even better. Great work Casio in creating another great gadget, 4 gears out of 5! (www.casio.c0m) |
