At a pre-CES media event in Las Vegas, Fossil showed off their latest high-tech wristwatch - or is that miniature Palm OS PDA? It's hard to say; Michael Oryl reports.
The new Fossil FX2008 is the world's first Palm OS wristwatch, based on the somewhat ancient 4.1 version of the operating system. While both larger than a normal watch and smaller than a normal Palm OS device, the Fossil does a reasonable job of blurring the lines between the two types of devices.
Like all Palm OS devices, the Fossil allows the user to interact with it by using a touch screen, albeit in this case a particularly small one. Using a small orange folding stylus that is stored in an oversized watch band clasp, the user is able to both navigate through the system and enter text using the Graffiti text input system. While not as nice to use as a full sized device, the small screen and mini-stylus were a good enough match to let me enter text as accurately as on other larger devices.
 | | Fossil Wrist PDA FX2008 |
As you might expect of a Palm OS device, there are a number of button's on Fossil's watch. The upper and lower right buttons let you scroll through options, while a middle button on the right hand side takes care of the selection process. The lower left button brings you back to the main Palm OS menu, and if you hold it down for a couple of seconds, the watch will toggle the display between normal black on green mode and the inverse green on black mode.
I can't really say how the device performs when doing typically CPU intensive activities, since there was only a limited suite of stock Palm OS applications loaded onto the watch, but I can say that it seemed snappy enough for me in the time I spent with it.
The problem people are going to run into with this device is its bulk. The truth of the matter is that it is still quite a bit larger than a normal watch, and it probably won't fit inside the cuff of a regular business shirt. This watch pretty much is destined for casually dressed people; or those with short sleeves.
Considering that this is a first generation device, however, all of this is understandable - and overall, I think it is still a very cool product.
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