Wristwatch Mobile Phone

Yesterday I bought a new mobile phone.

This is hardly ground-breaking news, you may think, but if you do you don’t know me.

I’m not one of those people who updates their phone annually. I buy mine outright (rather than on a contract) so I get to upgrade it as and when I choose. And that is usually only when it is absolutely necessary.

For example, the last three phones I had have all lasted me well in excess of two years each. The phone I had previous to my current device was a Samsung Galaxy Note (as in a Note 1 – the first of the series which is now up to 4) which I had for two and a half years and I only changed it because it stopped working because they stopped providing updates.

And that was when the major change happened.

I went to a wristwatch mobile phone.

Now, this is a standalone mobile wristwatch, not a companion. You put the SIM in the watch. You don’t have a ‘buddy brick’ in your pocket and use the watch device simply to read notifications, the watch is the entire phone. It is an Omate Truesmart.

The future is here.

Now, a lot of people questioned me about this. How do you take calls? How do you message? Is the screen not too small?

Well, the answer was that it was all surprisingly easy.

I’ll start off by saying that I never intended it to be my sole device. I ordered it (well, Kickstarted it) well in advance of giving up on my Note, however by the time it arrived, the Note was on its way out and it proved so difficult inserting the SIM into the wristwatch that swapping between them was not an option.

But the watch proved functional enough. Yes, the screen was small, but workable. The predictive text was so sensible that mis-typing on such a small screen actually wasn’t an issue. Phone calls were not a big problem either – I could sit with my arm on my desk and talk at the watch, the microphone and internal speaker both powerful enough. The problem with phone calls only really occurred when I was at Alton Towers and didn’t have my Bluetooth headset (which you can use if you need privacy on your call) to cut out background noise. Then I looked a prat, talking into my watch then pressing it to my ear to hear what was actually difficult to hear.

But other stuff was very useable, more so than expected – apps, whilst not being optimised, were mostly usable. The Youtube app lost its volume control which was annoying, but otherwise fine. Whatsapp disappeared off the homescreen and had to be launched separately through a rather convoluted process.

So, why am I giving up on it? What are the problems?

Well, firstly, because of how much they have tried to cram into the device, some bits have spilled out. The antenna for wifi and mobile connectivity are embedded in the strap, on one side, with the GPS antenna on the other. At some stage, either through flex or sweat ingression, my GPS stopped working actually very early on – obviously just a couple of days before I had to take a detour round the back roads to avoid a massive traffic jam.

Then, there’s the battery. It’s obviously not going to be big, but even light usage of the internet during the day means that it needs charging immediately after lunch (from an overnight charge). The size of the screen means that it can’t be used to watch video on a commute, but the lack of battery means that you have to be very, very careful when travelling around in case you need that last 10%. And because of how they tried to waterproof the phone, you need a bespoke ‘cradle’ to charge the battery up with.

But it was also let down on some technical specs. For a mobile device that was only released earlier this year, it is almost inexcusable that it doesn’t have 4g.

The camera, though, was a real let-down. It wasn’t 3mp as had been expected – it was 1.3mp ‘upscaled’ to 3mp. It was actually quite poor. Frustratingly so. And the camera app was really glitchy. Three quarters of the time it wouldn’t actually take the picture; when it did it had no ability to select focus. It was the Tesco Value of camera apps. When you think how often these days you use your mobile to snap a picture, this is not good.

But I persevered with it, and it has been usable if not a glowing experience. Ultimately though I am going travelling in December, and therefore absolutely need working GPS and a good camera, and a sizeable screen for video will be a distinct advantage.

Aside from the specifically mentioned  issues though, the "wristwatch-ability" of the device was a benefit, just not in its current format