* Firebox Video Watch 2GB wrist-mounted media player

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Firebox Video Watch

2GB wrist-mounted media player (05/05/2008)

If you're going to carry a media player, how best to keep your pocket from being picked? Strap it to your wrist, of course, which is exactly what you do with the Video Watch. This device does video, music, photos, text, voice recordings and, in its spare time, shows the time in analogue and digital formats.

All these functions have been available for a while in pocket players, of course, but this is one of the first designs to mount the player on your wrist and not make an unsightly bulge in your shirt/blouse cuff. It's actually not much bulkier than a typical Casio G-Shock (rugged man's watch) and is a lot more useful, if you don't need to know your blood pressure or mean height above sea level.

The Video Watch has a bright, 128 x 128-pixel OLED colour display, which is a lot better than LCD at showing videos in outdoor light and has no problem with fast frame updates. The menu system is controlled via three buttons down each vertical side of the watch and is pretty easy to familiarise yourself with. When held down, one of the buttons goes straight to time display; a useful shortcut.