Battery Life & Storage
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| Watch spread out with earbuds |
When I first saw the player, one of the main concerns that popped up was the battery life. I wasnt sure whether something so small would have a satisfactory battery life, and indeed, the player is capable of cranking out the tunes for only 4 hours on a full charge. No doubt that is an impressive feat from the watch, but as far as portable players go, that type of battery life is reminiscent of days when old and power hungry tape players were your only choice in portable music. The good news is that this 4 hour play time does not immediately affect the time keeping capabilities of the player. Once you drain the player to a certain level, it will continue to function as a normal watch, and all MP3 playback becomes impossible. I was glad that Casio didnt let the watch/player drain itself of all battery power, which would have been ridiculously annoying.
As if the short play time werent enough of a negative, I was also amazed that the watch needed nearly 4 hours in order to fully charge the built-in battery this was ridiculously high compared to other rechargeable batteries that can typically be fully charged in 1-2 hours time. Because of the combination of low battery life and long recharge times, I was wondering whether the watch would serve a very limited purpose. I am a stickler when it comes to charging things. My cell phone has a 12 day standby and I always find myself out of batteries when I need it most. So I think I would be very hard put to keep up with the maintenance demands of this player.
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| Closeup of face & earbuds |
Another thing that concerned me, as a first impression, was the memory capacity of the watch. I was skeptical it could have much built-in memory at all, and it turns out the player comes in two models, one with 16MB of memory, and the other with 32MB of memory. 32MB of storage was a standard in MP3 portable players not too long ago, but now it seems a painful restriction, since only around 33minutes, or 5 songs recorded at 128Kbps could fit into such a space. The watch doesnt have any expansion options either (in fact, it wouldnt have been feasible to use SmartMedia cards for sure, since the player isnt long enough to fit any), so whatever you first get is what youre stuck with. What gave me comfort was the idea that I wouldnt treat this watch like any old player. I basically saw the watch as an exercise companion, and I am certain that in those cases even 33 minutes of music can be quite sufficient.
In spite of all these quirks, I was eager to test out the actual music quality of the player, and I wasnt disappointed at all by what I heard. The sound that came from this clunky wannabe watch is clear, vibrant and possibly better than a good handful of similar products. The sound was surprisingly clean, in spite of the low 70dB minimum Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) listed in the manuals specs. I was pleasantly treated to mild, but passable bass, and a pretty detailed upper end. There was no doubt to me that the watch would satisfy the casual listeners, and would carve itself out a place amongst the sporty types who might pick this gadget over their tape or CD players. It certainly is easier to go jogging with the WMP-1V strapped to a wrist, rather than having a larger player bouncing in a pocket or threatening to pop off your shorts regardless of belt clips and straps. I wouldnt bet on impressing chicks with this thing though, and youre better off realizing straight off the bat that other, more sophisticated players out there will likely win you more attention and fame.
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