Comments on: Fossil Wrist PDA Available

For those wondering "Why?" Because sometimes you forget your Palm. Period. And since this also holds appointments, etc., it will be a better reminder for the alarms. My Palm is in a Grinder Gear case. The case is INCREDIBLE, but you can't hear the alarm through it.

IsaiahP

Simple. It's Palm's idealogy at it's simplest:

In the years to come, corporations....and eventually consumers...will be using tablets, etc. to actually *WORK ON*, and will be beaming/BlueTooth-ing their information to and from workstations and PDAs.

Palm wants their OS on EVERYTHING. Or at least *compatible* with everything.

The average consumer doesn't (and will NOT) *WANT* a full-screen Sony 615. I do. The "average" guy does not.

PDAs will be (and already are) a way to carry important information to and from work and home, along with acting as an excellent high-end scheduler/calendar.

If you can't see this, then you are either narrow-minded, or extremely short-sided. Probably the same type of person that doesn't believe Microsoft can (not will, but *CAN*) topple.

So you like to use Excel and Word on your PocketPC or Palm, eh? Wouldn't you rather edit those documents on a tablet that is included on every seat of an airplane? With a full screen and handwriting recognition? And then BlueTooth it to your Palm?

Take it into the hotel and BlueTooth it to the tablets/dummy workstations they have set up there? Think about it.

Palm has been saying from the get-go that the AVERAGE consumer (the one who decides that m100s and m105s will be the hottest selling PDAs, the ones that only saw Phantom Menace once, the ones that use AOL) doesn't NEED or WANT to watch movies on their PDA, edit Word documents on their PDA, or manipulate Excel files on their PDA.

You'll pick up your PDA (not you nerds, of course, but the AVERAGE consumer)which will likely be as small, if not smaller than a Palm m515, BlueTooth the documents you need that day from your PC into your handheld, along with any clips, photos, etc., and BlueTooth it again into your Tablet or dummy-PC when you get to work.

Gotta take documents or attachments home? You'll BlueTooth it to your PDA and off you go.

I'm still positive that not even *you* shortsided nerds have the faintest idea how radically "going wireless" is going to change business, and eventually, the consumer market.

I work in an office of 2,000+ employees. Nobody likes their clunky desktops (even though they're 1.7 Ghz), and NOBODY likes taking their laptops home. All the women have these pain-in-the-ass carts they use to lug them around because frankly, even the most modern laptop is uncomfortable for most women to tote around.

If (or more likely, WHEN) we make the paradigm change to inexpensive tablets, PDAs, and Dummy PCs, people in this office will be a lot happier.

It'll be a lot simpler to store your documents on a PDA (or even a tablet) and take it on a plane, then it is to take your friggin laptop all over the country.

The possibilities are ridiculously cool, but more importantly, they will render us more efficient, and hopefully, happier.

I'll step off the soap box now.

This watch synchronizes with a PDA, making it a PDAA (Personal Digital Assistant Assistant). I would be more intrigued if it synced directly to a PC, as a few watches have already done, but who's going to go through the hassle of syncing one auxiliary device (a PDA) with both a watch *and* at least one computer?

Anyone know if one is planned?

The Squire

Sometimes it's just not convenient to carry the full size PDA with you, so something pocket size would be very nice to have.

But, this watch is a bit to uncoventional for me.

http://world.casio.com/euro/wat/collections/wrist_net/

I had a Casio PC-UNITE 100 (for $99) two years ago. After two months of showing off to my friends. A watch is still a watch and my Palm III is still a PDA. I can never develop a habbit to have my wristPDA sync with my true PDA all the time.

Ohhh, the only thing I feel useful is my Datebook appointment on the Casio. The under-classed alarm sound on my Palm III can not compete with Casio's brisk and loud alarm sound.

The buttons themselves are like other Fossil data watches I've tried (I have a BRAIN watch I recieved as a gift) - you have to press too damn hard to get them to function. This is probably due to the water-resistant nature of the watch, but they need to come up with something more responsive.

But the worst feature about the watch is its performance as a PDA. The reason I use a Palm is for instant access to my data - no loading, no waiting, easy lookups. The Fossil PDA watch incorporates none of those features. If you want to view the date book you will be presented with a "loading ..." screen. I put 8K worth of data into the date book and it took over 15 seconds to load. Then I had to scroll through the day to see the first appointment (it's not smart enough to display the first event regardless of time).

The watch is littered wtih such issues and short-sighted design. For example, you can't re-order the applications on the Home menu. I have no interest in using the To-Do function on my watch, but want to look up Memo documents quite often. Unfortunatly you have to scroll through the pre-set order to get to what you want, regardless of wether or not there is even data in an app.

The device is also more "one-way" than I anticipated. If someone "beams" you thier business card, you can't look at it until you download it to your Palm (which then removes it from the watch), catagorize it in your address book then beam it back on your next sync.

And calling it a "sync" function is a true misnomer. That would imply you could update data on the watch and pass it back to the Palm. All updates must take place on the Palm, and then the Fossil software doesn't "sync" the records that have changed, it does and entire dump of all records selected, which via infrared is pretty time consuming (transfering 8k in the date book and 75k in the address book took over two minutes).

While I didn't expect to be able to write a memo on my watch, I did expect the ability to set an alarm, or at least a snooze setting for an appointment.

I could go on and on, and I've only played with the thing for a couple of hours. Trust me, this thing is DOA.

Jeffrey Tschiltsch

This device can store 300 to 400 memos, which is a powerful way of communicating directions or instructions to another diver on an underwater jobsite. Plus the backlight would be useful in lowlight situations found on most underwater jobsites.

Now if only there were a way to access the 400 memos without having to scroll through each one -)

What next- a microchip in the ear that syncronises with the watch?! (that syncronises with your Palm, which syncronises to your laptop, which syncronises to your PC [etc])