Do you Jog?
Written: Oct 05 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It's a watch, it plays music, its a watch
Cons: it doesn't play much music, downloads are quite slow
The Bottom Line: Great for an occasional listener or someone new to MP3's. Apart from anything, it will impress your friends.
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| readk's Full Review: Casio WMP-1-1 Wrist MP3 Player (Black) |
Firstly let me say that when this watch came out in Europe it cost £249 ($360) and so when my local Makro (think Sam's Club) sold 129 in 3 hours for £59 I thought my luck was out. That was until the manager called me to say that they had received an unopened return from a customer who did not have a PC matching the minimum requirements!
So first impressions are that this is one hell of a bulky watch. Second impressions are that the adaptor which connects the 3.5mm jack from the headphones to the unit is alarmingly easy to lose. Finally the cradle which provides the interface between the watch and the computer is very lightweight.
Look again though and the watch is no bigger than a G-Shock fashion watch. Removing the adaptor allows the watch to look relatively normal when not spinning tunes and the cradle can be secured using blu-tack or similar.
So first and second impressions out of the way what do you get for your money? Well;
1. A decent watch which is solidly built.
2. A power adaptor and USB cable which feed the cradle (this makes a perfect home for the watch when you are not wearing it).
3. Simple file transfer software.
4. Some pretty decent 'in the ear' headphones which look a little cheap but offer good bass weight compared to many others.
In operation the battery life of the watch is very good. As timepiece it keeps time for up to 3 months on a charge and will play music for around 3 hours. The watch's display is clear and the instructions provided are very good, helping to navigate around the functions with ease.
The file transfer software is fairly featureless. There is no facility to 'rip' or encode your own MP3's, merely the abilty to transfer existing files to the watch at a fairly slow rate (about a minute per song). The software allows you to see the transfer progress but more importantly allows you to browse the MP3 file details to see file sizes and bitrates.
The Casio has 32MB, enough for between 7-10 songs at 128kbps, though the memory has issues (it never really stores 32MB of music and the more times you add or remove files the less real space there is leading to an apparent need to format the memory regularly.
Because it sits on your arm there are issues with the headphones. If you wear a jacket you have to run the headphone cable down your sleeve to make it unobtrusive. If you have long arms you may need new headphones altogether as a quick flick of the wrist of a mis-coordination between head and hand cause the earpiece to fly our of the ear.
This watch is ideal for short journeys on the bus or especially for jogging / walking. It can provide half an hours great quality music. Put some lesser bit rate files on their and you may get a whole album. You can forgive it's maximum bit rate of 128kbps since using files encoded any higher would reduce the number of songs which could be stored. The watch plays a decent tune as well, it has convincing bass weight and manages to make a decent fist of presenting compressed music files with space and timing. It can be used discretely with its volume control and to avoid boredom it allows the tracks to be played randomly.
If you don't have an MP3 player and are unsure whether you need one then get one of these. It has enough memory for the casual listener and it doubles as an inexpensive leisure watch.
I love mine though I no longer jog or catch the bus but for those moments when a song can change my mood it is invaluable.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
readk
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Member: Kevin Read
Location: Wallsend, Tyne & Wear, England
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
A big guy from a small country re-visiting epinions
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