Fossil Wrist PDA FX2008

Reviews: Electronics

Digital Cameras | PDAs | Communications

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Bradford Day
Kurtis
Fossil
Apr. 13, 2005

Specifications

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Testing

After I got accustomed to writing with the little stylus I started beaming info and installing apps. I was able to easily beam my entire address book from my old Handspring Visor to the Wrist PDA. Newer Palm PDAs beamed info back and forth with equal ease. However, certain applications worked better than others due to the miniscule screen size of the FX2008 Wrist PDA. I was able to get a solitaire game program to work just fine. Hardball (a Breakout-type game) didn't work as well due to the fact that the Address/Calendar and menu buttons needed to play the game and found on a full size PDA are absent on the wrist version.

The included software features are common to most Palm PDAs. Memo pad, To Do List, Address Book, Calculator and Date Book are all here. Entering names and numbers in Memo Pad, Address Book or To Do List takes a little practice. As there is no writing pad space common on larger PDAs, the Wrist PDA uses the entire watch face as the writing surface. To enter a letter or number, you simply write over the whole screen. A tracer line will follow your every stylus stroke. The tracer lines are very helpful for the novice graffitier. If you truly hate graffiti-ing with the dinky stylus, you may prefer punching in letters and numbers with the keyboard function. Either way, a steady hand is needed with the fingertip stylus. The alarm feature left a bit to be desired. It performed its duty well, but the beeping was not nearly loud enough in my opinion.

The software CD includes Palm Desktop and Hotsync programs. For this watch the Palm Desktop software is truly helpful as entering vast amounts of information with the stylus just isn't an option. Once again, anyone familiar with Palm products should have no problems navigating through the easy to use and functional software.

As a watch, the Wrist PDA is a bit unwieldy. Its large size and hefty weight are hard to ignore by user and observer alike. Everyone notices this watch, which can be a good thing if you are at some sort of techno-geek singles bar. I did also find myself banging the watch around a bit and catching it on door jams, clothing and small dogs!OK, not small dogs. My point is that it will get in the way a bit as it stands off the wrist a good half inch. The weight did start to bother me after a while and I found wearing it everyday wouldn't be something I'd prefer. The leather band was strong, comfortable and offered 9 fitting notches to accommodate larger wearers. This isn't a watch for the small-wristed. The face is about 1.75" x 2.5" in dimension so bearers of small wrists will have a hard time strapping this baby on. I wouldn't say I have massive wrists, but I was only at the third smallest notch on the strap. For my bony wrist the backing was slightly painful and I found myself having to shift the Wrist PDA into a more comfortable, but less natural, position above my wrist. Fitment aside, it is a rather fashionable time piece. The clock face is easy to read and you can switch it up if you get tired of looking at the same one everyday. The backlight is very bright and the screen very crisp.

I tested the battery life of the FX2008 by simply charging it to full capacity and wearing it around. Fossil says to expect ~3 days of average use before the battery dies. I charged my battery overnight on a Sunday, strapped the watch on Monday morning and it was dead by Thursday morning. By my estimation, I got about 60 hours of use before it died. I barely used the PDA function of the watch during those 2.5 days. A heavy user of the PDA function or backlight will most likely need to recharge the watch every other day. If you are so unlucky as to have your battery die before its next recharge, expect to reset the time, date and digitizer. No other information should be lost, however.

Throughout my weeks of testing, I only had to use the hard reset button once. For some reason the thing just locked up. None of my information was lost and I've not had a problem since.

Conclusion

As skeptical as I was about the usefulness of this device, I must say that I've been pleasantly surprised. This watch does deliver the functionality of a PDA while sporting the stylish looks of a Fossil time piece. I was quite amazed at how they crammed all the features into such a relatively small space AND made it useable!although I wasn't able to play a few of my PDA games on the 1" x 1" screen.

In all likeliness, no one is going to buy this product to play games as the screen is just too small. But for storing and retrieving address, phone numbers and memos, this watch is brilliant. 8MB of storage sounds tragically small by today's standards of 40GB iPods, but considering the Wrist PDA's relatively limited need for large capacity storage, 8MB is plenty. The convenience of having all that info contained in such a tiny and accessible unit is this gizmo's primary function. Unfortunately for Fossil, most cell phones can handle all these functions and more in addition to annoying people in movie theaters.

About the only major gripe I have with this product is the size and wear-ability. Sure it is an ultra small PDA, but it's a huge watch. I think for most people the weight and size are going to be too much to handle for daily use. Incurable gadget geeks will delight in the joys of this ultra small PDA. However, if you are a regular PDA user constantly digging for addresses and memos, this polished steel hunk of time-telling technology is for you. I would guess the gadget geeks are Fossil's primary market for this product... I just hope they have the arm strength.

Pros

Fully functional PDA
High quality construction
Useful software
Well executed concept
Stylish and attractive watch

Cons

A bit heavy and cumbersome
Tiny stylus
Limited niche-market appeal

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Page 1: Introduction, Manufacturer Notes & First Looks
Page 2: Getting Started
Page 3: Testing & Conclusion

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1 User Comment

1 - Posted by Guest on April 17, 2005 - 8:10 pm

Wow, this baby is at, or awfully close to, the top of my personal list of things I can do without.

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