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Oh nooo!
It's useless, don't buy that! Apart from the very cool form factor, there is really nothing good about that: I ended up exchanging it for a larger model after seeing the dire results...yuck: very few colours, pixelated to death, just not good enough.
OK, my standards might be high as I have done a lot of photography (I normally use a leica M6), but I know you can get better for the price, if you give up on the credit card size.
Try thisCasio EX-S2 for $249 or Konica Revio C2 for $ 79...

May 1983 PF-3000 First Digital Diary

Nobody seems to have mentioned the time-tested Casio Databank watch yet, so here is the product comparison with the Fossil PDA watch:

Fossil features: clock, calculator, backlight, address book, date book, to-do list, IrDA port, ability to run Palm apps, and a memo pad.
Casio features: clock, calculator, backlight, address book (kinda), 5 alarms, world time, atomic time synchronization and a stopwatch.

Fossil battery life: five days
Casio battery life: two years

Fossil price: $295
Casio price: $89

I'm going to stick with my Casio Databank. :^) If you use a CR2032 battery instead of the CR2016, and you turn off the hourly chime and alarms, you can get about 8-10 years use out of one battery!

And, you forgot the onHandPC at http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/5a1a/, and the various Casio DataBank watches (I'm looking at the color E-DataBank at http://www.casio.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=products .detail&catalog=Watches&section=E%2DDataBank&produ ct=EDB700DA%2D2V... they've also got a color camera watch now.)

My PDA is my PDA, and my watch is my watch.

Of course, since my PDA is also my portable mp3 player, digital camera storage brick, and a few other things, my watch * is also my thermometer, compass, altimeter, and barometer...

* This is actually the newer version of my older model Casio Pathfinder.

The thing that this gentleman forgot to account for was the loss of sales to electronics manufacturers. He's focused on the media companies, which are only a part of the equation. How many portable TVs end up at sporting events, fishing trips, etc.? Though I haven't been able to find hard statistics, Circuit City carries five models and Casio even has a section for portable TVs on the front page of their website. I don't think he understands what a lobbying power the electronics industry is. Without broadcasts, every one of the portables out there would be useless and a revenue stream for manufacturers would dry up. How about anteanna sales and such for companies like Recoton? I'm sure they would join the fight ageanst any legislation destroying the boradcasts.

The thing that this gentleman forgot to account for was the loss of sales to electronics manufacturers. He's focused on the media companies, which are only a part of the equation. How many portable TVs end up at sporting events, fishing trips, etc.? Though I haven't been able to find hard statistics, Circuit City carries five models and Casio even has a section for portable TVs on the front page of their website. I don't think he understands what a lobbying power the electronics industry is. Without broadcasts, every one of the portables out there would be useless and a revenue stream for manufacturers would dry up. How about anteanna sales and such for companies like Recoton? I'm sure they would join the fight ageanst any legislation destroying the boradcasts.

CASIO Databanks (with calculator and other features) with USB drive support. I still use a Databank today for over a decade. I still love them over PDAs. The 128 MB is too small for my taste. 1 GB would be nice.

Cool, but, for the US folks, it needs atomic capability (as in automatic synchonization with the NIST atomic clock in Boulder, CO), as in:

Casic's "Waveceptor" watches

It's way cool to have a watch that's always correct.

This isn't a technology per se, but it's still something that has exceeded my own expectations. It's my Casio Databank watch. I have had it for eight years now, and it's still happily chugging along (I had one before it as well, but it was submerged about 1m deep in water and didn't last too long after that). The Databank takes CR2032 and CR2016 batteries (the CR2032 lasts much longer in this watch, somewhere around a decade), accepts 21mm metal link watch bands with ease, and is still the only form of "PDA" I will bring with me, ever. If only Casio came out with one that had scientific functions and unit conversions, I would be in heaven.

Normally, if one takes a picture of something, you did the work, you own the copyright. (Simple enough.) However, for some reason, Connecticut has sold the rights to images of everything inside the mansion, and the staff have to waste their time trying to make sure people don't bring cameras in. Ridiculous.

With the increasing ubiquity of digital cameras, cameras in phones, cameras in PDAs, cameras in watches, cameras "in" people... where do you draw the line? Can you even draw a line?

If I remember correctly, Steve Mann was allowd to use his body-mounted computers while taking tests at MIT. The reasoning was -- since he never took the stuff off -- that it was just another part of his body. I wonder what would happen if he tried to enter Gillette Castle...?

(Though I haven't visited, I believe that Biltmore has the same no-camera rule for the same reason...)

It's all about greed... when people realize all this greed is hurting the common good, things will change. Problem is, the greedy ones are busy trying to convince us we're all "better off this way."

Riiight.

All of the watches will have a small, rectangular liquid crystal display and the ability to receive short data messages, much like a pager. This technology will allow the watch to identify where it is and what the local time is -- and the local weather forecast -- as the wearer travels.

And if they add the ability to run micro Java applications, a phone book, a microbrowser, a picture viewer and midi player, a voice memo recorder and wireless phone capabilities, they'd have invented my PCS Vision phone I already carry around with me. Sure, my cell phone isn't watch-sized, but I don't need some of its features duplicated just cause the device can be on my wrist instead of in my pocket.

Now the video iPod thing... Would be cool if it could play my DIV3/XViD collection and OGG files, but since it's obviously going to be DRM'ed up the arse, it's just another hard drive MP3 player. Yawn.

Hey Microsoft, how about taking two bad ideas and combining the two? An MP3 player on a watch... Sorry, Casio already tried that.

At the beginning of the process, the user enters a password on the watch~.

What happens if you take your watch off and leave it next to the computer? It never encrypts!

Worse yet---what happens if your watch gets stolen? Now you can't get at your data! Better make sure you get the Casio watch option instead of the Breitling. No one would want to steal a Casio POS, so you should be safe.

I'll give you a hint, we are again number one in personal PC sales

Casio?

How much does your company pay? Why didn't this survey ask? You could poll 99 office workers and one IT peon to produce the impression that only 1% of workers have any signicant problem with spam. :)

How does this watch compare to my Palm V?

The main reason I got the Palm V was to be an alarm clock. I kept missing appointments, even though I had them written in my DayRunner(tm) diary - I just never got into the habit of checking my diary every 15 minutes.

This watch would make life a little easier for me - as slim as the Palm V is, it's still something extra to bulk up my shirt/trouser/backpack pockets with.

The biggest drawback for me would be that the watch isn't designed to be a PDA by itself. It's almost like Fossil only wanted the watch to be a fancy alarm clock with address book function. So you'd have to have the watch as well as a PDA in order to get full functionality from it (using beamed business cards for example).

But for the original purpose that I bought the Palm V - reminding me of appointments (and putting out the trash, and leaving the computer game to go to bed) - this watch is just right. I don't think I'd be willing to pony up the $AU600 though - that kind of money would get a really nice watch from Casio.

Since I already have a PalmOS device, this watch wouldn't really be much use to me. If I didn't have a PalmOS device, I'd consider buying it, if it was half the price.

In other geek news, one of my friends got his iPaq to run Linux today (opi). This definitely beats me :'-(

there the Casio WristWatch Camera for not much more.

The Casio Pocket Viewer PV-S400Plus is nice. It's under $80 US, has 4.Meg RAM, comes with useful apps including a spreadsheet, works with MS Office apps, you can load apps on it, it's durable, and it has a long battery life.

A friend had an earlier model, and I almost bought one myself until another friend sold me his barely used Palm-3e for $50 (over a year ago).

My Palm-3e has been working fine since I got it. It's been durable, and the batteries last me a few months. I just wish it was smaller, with the same sized screen, better text input, the same durability, and the same low cost.

I am having a Casio Protrek watch (PRG40 to be exact) which has a compass, barometer and altimeter as well. I buy the Casio watches because these are one of the only one surviving my arm on long-term usage :) ... Any other watch dies with me after 3 to 6 months, a Casio survives for over 5 years (I lost my previous one, else I would still be wearing that one) ..

I have seen the T-touch and found the watch less usefull than the Protrek.

The Protrek comes in 2 versions, a Protrek and a Seapathfinder. The Seapathfinder has the mooncycles built in and the Protrek has a altimeter.

These 2 casio watches have:
- 100 meters watertight (T-touch 30meter!)
- 365 degrees compass with digital layer
- barometer
- altimeter (except the SeaPath finder)
- temperature (in Farenheit and Celcius)
- adjustable ring
- (auto) Backlight (on the letters, like the palm V)
- 4 daily alarms
- stopwatch

they can be bougth with leather, titanium and leather-with-cotton (which I have). Touching the buttons is almost like a touch pad, no heavy touching is needed just tap one of the keys and it switches instantly to compass/barometer/altimeter.

To my opinion this watch has a lot more functions and shows the compass a lot better than the T-touch. (it has 2 layers, one digital layer for normal displaymode (date, time) and another layer for the compass with 365 degrees movement mode. While you are in the compass/baro/altimeter you can still see the time in small; the only major downpoint is that you cannot use the compass while using backlight.

There is one major difference, the watch is completely digital while the T-touch is analog with a small digital screen.

It's 500 dollars though... has a bunch of really cool features for the uber GPS geek. (:

This seemed interesting to me:

The Casio Exilim EX-S1

It won't fit into my wallet yet because it's 11.3mm thick, but the small size is intriguing to me. This is a gadget which I would carry around in my daypack regularly, something I don't do with my SLR or my digicam because they're too bulky and heavy.

The downsides (for me):

1. The price would have to come down quite a bit (an article in c't magazine mentions a price "under 500 EUR"), but even 400 EUR is a little much for my taste.

2. SD cards: thanks, but no thanks. Don't know about MMC, is this any good?

• On-Hand PC -- runs a variant of DOS and an SDK is available.
• Fossil PDA -- despite the word "PDA", it has limited RAM.
• TV/VCR Infrared remote
• MP3 watch
• Color digital camera watch

• On-Hand PC -- runs a variant of DOS and an SDK is available.
• Fossil PDA -- despite the word "PDA", it has limited RAM.
• TV/VCR Infrared remote
• MP3 watch
• Color digital camera watch

• On-Hand PC -- runs a variant of DOS and an SDK is available.
• Fossil PDA -- despite the word "PDA", it has limited RAM.
• TV/VCR Infrared remote
• MP3 watch
• Color digital camera watch

Casio has a whole catalog section for geek watches. My brother got the Wrist Camera and I have to admit it's pretty neat.

As a minor eco-freak, I prefer the Seiko Kinetic. No more watch batteries for me.

Casio has a whole catalog section for geek watches. My brother got the Wrist Camera and I have to admit it's pretty neat.

As a minor eco-freak, I prefer the Seiko Kinetic. No more watch batteries for me.

How about 64MB's worth of NES & Gameboy ROMs for my Cassiopeia EM-500 (with 64MB SD memory card)?

Okay, I don't really have that many ROMs - I have to leave room for my photo album that's filled with the pictures I take with my digital camera. But if you don't think that being able to play classic Nintendo games with a portable system is cool, then you're not a true geek.

The reason you didn't even think about that is that Palms can't play Nintendo games or Gameboy games like my EM-500 (yeah, I know about the Gameboy emulator for Palms - how about that Palm joypad, eh?).

The Casio QV4000 4.13 Mega-Pixel Digital Camera is shipped with IBM microdrives for storage.

The US versions of the two Crusoe portables I was looking at in my previous Slashdot post about this, the Casio Cassiopiea Fiva MPC-205E and 206E, and the NEC Versa DayLite, are both available online, direct from Casio and the NEC from CDW or PC Connection.

The Transmeta ultralight noteboooks page also has "How to Buy" links for all the listed US-market notebooks.

A quick check at Yahoo! Shopping shows a few places that have these available, including CDW.

Check out the Casio BE-300 which you can get for less than $200. Pop in a 128MB flash card or 1GB IBM microdrive and you've got a great mp3 player.

And soon it will play my PocketNES Nintendo emulator :)

Nothing recently, but a while back (like a year ago) I used to work as a sort-of-tech-support person at one of Casio's NJ repair facilities. We used to receive/send most of our packages via UPS Ground... what a nightmare. :(

Damaged packages was an everyday thing. Lost packages averaged about two or three each week, and the worst was when we actually got empty (except for the whatever-you-call-those-bits-of-foam-used-for-pack ing) boxes that were supposed to contain keyboards (music), digital cameras, PDA, etc. I actually spent 25-35% of my week just trying to get UPS to do something about it. I got to know a few of the people who get the phone calls on their end just because we talked so much during the week. And the shitty part is that we had a business account with them (we shipped truckloads of stuff daily).

If we got such poor service while giving them that much of our business, just imagine what a single customer is likely to get.

As I look down at my left wrist, I see a large onHand PC looking back at me. 2 MB of memory, all kinds of PIM goodies and games, and it syncs up with my PC. Battery life is better than what is promised for the Fossil. My wife bought it for me two years ago. It's the US version of the Japanese Ruputer, which is almost four years old. So tell me again how this 8-bit wonder from Fossil can possibly be considered "News?"

Prior to the onHand, I wore a Casio Databank. I like the little keys and the availability of the instant calculator. It makes short work of the usual arguments around the restaurant table.

My ideal watch would combine the ease of calculator input and battery life of the Casio with the Calendar/Phonebook/Notepad features of the onHand. While I'm dreaming, I'd like a built-in cell phone and a date with Sarah Alexander...

Truth is stranger than fiction: According to the CIA World Factbook, the Taliban flag is plain white.

Casio has had a watchws that can interface via IR with each other and with Palms for months now. Take a look. List Price: US$130

Casio also has the EG-800 running Windows CE (A ruggedized version of the e-1xx), though they're only splashproof and not waterproof (for that you may want the Psion Freezer).

Another option if the OS realy isnt an issue is to get an old tablet PC from Dauphin off eBay. Most of them are waterproof but they're also only low-end 386's with mono displays.

model no. PAT2GP1V's manual states that along horizontal plane the accuracy is 3.1m average, 10m maximum, and NO ACCURACY DEGRATION under U.S. DOD-imposed Selective Avaliability Program.
Geez, and they think such an 'upgrade' for GPS is NEWS.

Heavy and dorky, but very cool. http://www.casio.com/gps/top.html

Rather than relying on the PR, rely on the specs.

http://www.casio.com/watches/product.cfm?section=1 6&product=4102&display=10&cid=5107

At the bottom, in small print, it specifically says:
** Batter life is shortened by using imaging functions and data communication functions

How much it shortens battery life, who knows. But you can be sure it takes a whole lot more juice to power the imaging and comm functions of that watch than it does to power the clock.

I managed to overcome the massive slashdotting of Casio.com and find a technical specs page.

Highlights:
174x144 pixels
1M of builtin memory
~80 images with JPEG compression
IR image transfer to comp
Basic Watch Functions
6-month battery if used only as a watch
"Batter life is shortened by using imaging functions and data communication functions"
Auto-Power Save when not being worn.

If you clicked the link to the press release, you'd see that the battery life is estimated at 6 months! I assume it doesn't take as much power as you'd think if they've made it all solid state.

Once individual estimated you couldn't take 80 pictures before the battery died. Casio estimates 6 months before it'll die. Here the full press release with a spec sheet.

http://www.casio.com/corporate/pressroom.cfm?act=2 &pr=4974

I'm currently planning on replacing my six pound Gateway Solo 9300 laptop (P3/800, 160mb, 20gb, 15.1") with one of these two Transmeta Crusoe-based laptops. Mostly because they're uber-light, and with all-day staying power. I'll take offers on the laptop, btw. :)

The first is the Casio MPC-206E Cassiopeia FIVA. It runs the Crusoe TM5600 at 600MHz, which means it's probably comparable to a 400MHz P2/P3. 8.4" TFT LCD, 800x600. Max 192mb RAM, comes with a 20gb HD. Cool toys include onboard 56k softmodem, 10/100 ethernet, 1 Type II PCMCIA slot, sound, VGA out, video out, FireWire, CompactFlash, USB, and an included dual-boot Linux partition. However it's also A5 sized (8.7" x 7.7" x 0.83"), and some people have found it too small to type well on. Nine hours of battery life with the extended life (heavier) battery, and it only weighs 2.18 pounds without.

The other option is the NEC LaVie MX or MX2. Another Crusoe laptop, this one boasts a larger 10.4" 1024x768 reflective LCD (so it's daylight readable) with a backlight you can turn on indoors, and is larger overall. 10/100 is with a dongle, two USB, no FireWire, VGA out is with a dongle, and no video out. Battery life is 8-11 hours standard (no additional batteries to switch in), it's 10.4" x 8.3" x .83~1.16" (?), and weighs 3.27lbs. Battery life is reportedly around half that if the backlight is turned on the whole time.

Dynamism has a neat comparison engine, linked to there showing the LaVie MX2 and the Fiva.

Also, NEC has the Versa DayLite, which is the US model of the LaVie MX, so you don't necessarily have to find an importer like Dynamism for it.

Casio has offered these type of devices for quite some time now.

there are probably many options but a cassiopeia with a CF 802.11 card should do -- it has an internal mic and a headphone jack. my only concern would be processor speed (the cassio has a 150MHz 'VR4122' which is probably enough) but that will inevitably increase. in the meantime those of us with laptops and can use the built-in mic and headphones.

something i`ll be employing when GPS systems become small and cheap enough to fit inside tv`s and computers.

Is this small enough for you?

For a long time, Psion had the handheld market sewn-up. Sure, it had competitors like Casio and Atari (remember the Portfolio anyone?) but no one who really had a well-rounded, well-supported product with either a software- or user-base to match.

But the one area the Psion was weak in was connectivity. Out of the box, you could not connect a Psion to a PC or a Mac, which meant all those names, numbers and address had to be entered manually. Eventually, the company released connectivity kits that allowed users to exchange data between their devices and their PCs. But at £50/$80 or so, these weren't exactly great value for money.

Then US Robotics came along with the Pilot, which, after various model revisions and name changes, became the Palm. Now, fuctionwise, this new handheld didn't do anything that any other handheld could do - to-do list, calendar, calculator, contacts, notes. But what it did do was connect to and exchange data with PCs very easily. At the touch of a button no less, out of the box

Meanwhile, Psion happily trundled on ignoring the fact that the market had changed and that users now expected PC connectivity at no extra cost. Rather than bundling the necessary cable and software (cost to them perhaps £10/$15), they carried on with the same business model.

Now when you have a monopoly (or near monopoly) you can ignore the market like this and just do what you want. When you don't, you have to watch the rest of the herd and, sometimes, follow them.

Psion didn't, sales dropped, the Symbian alliance lifeboat sank, and the rest is history.

No, I think he meant this.

I couldn't find any mention of Linux on the page linked to in the posting. However, I did find this on that page, which initially amused and confused me:
Battery Type: Lithium-ion
Operating Time: Standard Type about 4.5H Large Type about 9.0H
Operation hours depends on usage situation.
I first thought they said that you get twice the battery time by changing to a smaller font in the interface... ;^) Then I understood that they were (probably) talking about different types of batteries. Oh, and that the large type actually gives you more battery time as well, that kind of screws my initial "theory"... Anyway, I think this is kind of expensive-looking, somehow. I'd rather go with a Sony Picturebook. I'd pick a Sony over a Casio every day, basically.

Here's one option for a much-less-than-$800 CE PDA with a keyboard:

Cassiopeia A21S

There are a number of others from various manufacturers. Just search the Web, eBay or online stores for "Handheld PC" and "Handheld PC Pro" or "HPC" and "HPC Pro" instead of "PocketPC".

The form factor of a CE device determines the class of device it is. Now I'm not a Microsoft rep, so don't quote me on this, but I believe that PocketPC and PalmPC CE devices are pen-based and have a 320x240 display, Handheld PC (HPC) devices are pen or pen/keyboard and have a 480x240 display and Handheld PC Pro (HPC Pro) devices are 640x480 and always have a keyboard, like a mini laptop.

Good luck in your search.

No, the only thing this would be good for is bragging rights, and showing off to friends. I'm a big fan of PDA's and such, but this is just TOO small to be useful.