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Real PDA Wristwatch

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.

Larry Groebe writes "Just before COMDEX, Fossil announced a new PDA in a wristwatch. Based on the Palm OS, this is nothing less than a complete Palm Pilot on your wrist. See here for features and a picture. This is completely UNLIKE Fossil's *first* attempt at a wrist PDA, which was a hopeless view-only gadget. This new model allows regular Graffiti input and appears to run all Palm programs! At $149, I may be the first in line when it comes out next spring."

9 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Too small... by gazuga · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't even use a PDA, but looking at that picture, it strikes me that maybe this thing is *too* small. How can you input anything? You'd better be good with a stylus...

    --Gaz

    --
    "I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
    1. Re:Too small... by GreyPoopon · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Most of us can remember 'meeting at 4' without a little beeping mini-computer in our pocket.

      If all you've got is one meeting per day, I want your job. Most of the time I have to juggle six or seven meetings per day on completely different topics, and I still have to manage to get 8 hours of programming in per day. While I don't take my iPaq with me (because I don't trust it), I frequently carry my laptop because I need to refer to information on it during the meeting. A Palm or any other PDA serves the same purpose. My manager probably has twice the meeting load that I do, and I honestly don't think he could live without his. The only executives in our company who don't use one have permanent staff members assigned to assist them.

      --

      GreyPoopon
      --
      Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?

    2. Re:Too small... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wait a minute. Your idea of an entry level Palm isn't even a Palm (which *do* go down to $100)?

      Hell, you'd have to get an m515 to get up to even $350 (acc. to Palm's online store).

      --
      May we never see th
  2. Redundant by gadgetboy1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While it looks cool and all, it may have hit the market be too late. Cell phones and PDA look to be heading for convergence and almost everyone I know carries a cell phone. Does my watch with its much smaller screen really need to be a (Palm) PDA too? Isn't that why its called a "Palm" and "PocketPC" device?

    --
    The day you realize Anonymous Coward isn't the name of a really prolific user, then its time to create your own
  3. Re:still fails.. by unicron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most people don't recognize the difference between "water-resistant" and "water-proof" when they buy a watch. Water-resistant means that it can survive the shower. If your watch is truly water-proof, then odds are it's a dive watch, and you're going to be spending some bucks.

    --
    Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
  4. Extending the lifespan of the 68000 by dsandler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's underpowered, sure, but the 68k architecture has been around long enough that, by now, it's a straightforward proposition to manufacture cores at low cost. Device makers are still trying to figure out how to put together ARM devices that land in impulse-buy territory, but Fossil can pack a totally functional 68k PDA into a $150 wristwatch. Nifty.

  5. A likely absence of features by fireboy1919 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is not the first wrist-pda made by fossil, just the first Palm based one.

    They've been advertising their products as something that could interface with a PDA. In other words, they expect you to already have a PDA when you use it. The process of inputting data into it is something like this:
    1) Buy a PDA
    2) Put your data on your PDA
    3) Beam your data from your PDA to your fossil.

    I don't really like that too much. What's the point of the middle man? I want a pda for two reason, and two only:
    1) Addressbook
    2) Expenses data entry (not NEARLY as important).

    I need to be able to get data to my PC and from my PC, and I don't need another PDA. And for what I need, I don't need a touch screen, really. I'd rather have a more rugged watch than a touch screen.

    I expect that I am not alone in this assessment. I wonder when fossil will get the idea; reviewers have been talking about the serious shortcoming in their product (that they can't interface directly with PCs) for quite some time.

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    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  6. Any mention of aa left-handed version? by marhar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Most watches aren't too bad worn on the right wrist, but this one looks like it's going to be really inconvenient for lefties... :-/

  7. Re:waterproof by Andy_R · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you are 100 metres deep, you are either going to be:

    a) already dead, or about to die from decompression sickness
    b) a highly experienced scuba diver (in which case you will have a dive computer strapped where your watch would be) or
    c) in a pressurised submarine

    You are unlikely to return alive and well from 50m unless you really know what you are doing, get anywhere near 100m and your watch will be the least of your worries.

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a