In this world of tech that is steadily advancing, a new toy is about to hit the market — a watch that connects with your smart phone to make calls, hit the internet and serve as a medium for other apps that you may use on your phone.
The I'm Watch, if you're not familiar, is a wristwatch running Android 1.6 on a 1.55-inch 240 x 240 display, though it's highly customized. It's come along a bit since we last saw it in November, but it's still more of a fun gadget than a serious notification tool — though given the current state of smart watches, that doesn't necessarily put it behind any of its competitors. I'm SpA, the company behind the watch, tells us that it should last around a day and a half on a single charge, depending on use. Using it straight-out, say on a as a Bluetooth headset on a call with the screen on, it should last a total of "three or four hours" on its 480mAh battery. The processor is an Atom 9 clocked at 450MHz, and that's paried to 128mb of RAM and 4GB of storage. In practice, those specs can't quite hold up to rapid use, you'll need to give the watch a bit of time after every tap and swipe.
The watch is preloaded with a few basic apps, all of which have been customized. There's Music, Facebook, Twitter, Weather, Stocks, Gallery, News, Calendar, an Address book, and finally a calling app. You pair the watch via Bluetooth 2.1 to any smartphone in order for it to act either as a wrist-bound "speakerphone" (though the volume is quite low) or to tether it so it can gather data for all of its apps. That's a fine solution for some, but the idea of maintaining a tethered Bluetooth connection every time we want to update our watch makes us fear for the battery of both the watch and our phones.
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It runs $349 for the basic "I'm Watch Color" version here, though visitors to CES can snag a coupon for $50 off. There are also an "I'm Tech" and "I'm Jewel" versions, which are simply better-looking and more expensive versions of the same watch. The company says the watch is "in production phase" right now and should ship soon, but didn't have an exact release date yet.
This phone is a great accessory but you have to ask yourself if all that tech is necessary. If this new toy was a phone itself that connected to your Bluetooth headset, then this would be a great new toy. The video unfortunately doesn't show a keyboard display or explain if you can type on such a small screen. At some point though, a holographic screen display should be the next step and will definitely wipe out the need of a regular phone.
[Source: theverge]