View the Fossil Wrist Net photo gallery.

Update (12/13/2004): Fossil has lowered the price of the Wrist Net FX3005 discussed in this review from $200 to $149 which, in my opinion, makes it much more attractive. Well done, Fossil!

Fossil recently polished up and re-released their Wrist Net watch in an attempt to wrap the MSN Direct service in a slightly more fashionable package. In their own words, the Wrist Net now has a "stylish new look" with its new integrated leather and rubber strap, redesigned buckle, additional watch faces, and slimmer case. I recently reviewed the new Swatch Paparazzi (probably the biggest competitor to the Wrist Net), so I was anxious to see how Fossil's efforts measured up. And since the Wrist Net is only the second MSN Direct watch to be redesigned since the original lineup (the first being the Suunto n3), I was also interested in seeing if I could discern the direction in which the MSN Direct watches are evolving.

I don't touch on the MSN Direct service itself in this review, nor do I get into the features of  MSN Direct watches, since I cover both in pretty painstaking detail in my review of the Swatch Paparazzi. And since I don't have the original Fossil Wrist Net watch, the sole purpose of this review is not to compare the old and the new side-by-side. Rather, I approach the new Wrist Net from a fresh perspective, comparing it to the Swatch Paparazzi where appropriate.

Swatch continues to impress me with watches that are not only fun and affordable, but useful. First, I was won over by the Swatch Paparazzi, and now, as a recreational diver, the Swatch Fun Scuba.

The Swatch Fun Scuba comes in seven distinct styles, all but one (the black "Moray's Bite"), predictably wild. Although Swatch's site warns that the Fun Scuba is not a scuba-diving watch, and that it is meant to be used in parallel with a professional dive computer, it looks like a fun and suitable companion for recreational diving excursions.

View the Casio GW-1100 photo gallery.

I reviewed this watch's all-digital little brother about a month ago, and found it to be a good watch for someone who needs something durable and inexpensive. If you're really into Casio G-Shocks, though, you'll definitely want to look at something more like the GW-1100 and its peers.

This is a big, bold G-Shock that's just about as feature-rich as they come. It's not exactly a lightweight, inconspicuous timepiece, but people don't wear G-Shocks when they want their wrists to go unnoticed. Despite its size, weight, height, and the fact that there are ten noticeable screws keeping this watch water and dust-tight, I think it actually manages to convey a touch more class than your typical G-Shock.

Features of the GW-1100

• Solar powered. The face of the watch, behind the hands and in front of the four LCDs, is a good-sized solar cell which easily keeps this watch's battery well charged. A couple of minutes of direct sunlight each day is the best way to keep a Tough Solar G-Shock happy (normal incandescent, and even fluorescent, lighting can also be used, though you'll need substantially more of it), however Casio claims that a fully charged battery will power this model through normal use for up to seven months. I don't have time to sit in the dark for seven months to test this theory, but I will say that even after prolonged disuse (so many watches, so little time), whenever I pick it back up, the battery has always been nearly fully charged, so my guess is that Casio's claims are accurate. You don't want to let the battery completely discharge, though, since it takes 24 hours of direct sunlight to fully recharge it which is not an easy feat unless you happen to be orbiting the Earth.
• Battery charge indicator. The LCD at the 6 o'clock position will let you know when you've been cooped up in your dark basement for too long, and that it's time to get out into the sunshine for a little recharging.
• Power saving function. When not exposed to light for a prolonged period of time, the watch goes into power saving mode which means the LCDs turn off and the hands stop moving. Once it detects light again, or a button is pushed, or the watch is angled toward your face for reading, it awakens again. The LCDs come back on, and the analog hands scurry back into their proper places. Neat trick.
• Atomic timekeeping. This watch will calibrate itself up to five times a day using a radio signal broadcast by the cesium clock in Fort Collins, Colorado (or one of the two atomic clocks in Japan, depending on how the watch is configured). Calibration attempts are made at 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., and if none of those were successful, again at 5:00 a.m. (if nothing else, this watch is persistent). It chooses late night/early morning with the assumption you are asleep, and the watch is sitting peacefully beside you, dutifully facing Fort Collins near a window. The watch also records the date and time of its last successful calibration, so don't worry about trying to stay awake to monitor it's progress.
• Signal strength indicator. Very handy for finding the optimal spot to let your watch soak up the time calibration rays.
• Analog and digital time synchronization. This means that the hands on this watch are actually just an analog representation of the digital time. This may seem obvious, but Casio actually makes analog/digital watches where this is not the case. You can set the analog hands to be inconsistent with the digital time, but they will still be in-sync, just with an offset between them. I have another analog/digital G-Shock that arrived with the hands way off for some reason, but it was quite easy to get them synchronized, and they have stayed in-step ever since.
• World time. 30 cities (29 different time zones) around the world.
• Five alarms. Each is an independent daily alarm. Nothing special, except that there are five of them. Naturally, there's an hourly time signal, as well.
• Auto-repeating countdown timer. 60 minutes is the timer's ceiling, and it repeats up to nine times. You can turn the auto repeat function off in which case, the left-most LCD (the one at the 9 o'clock position) displays 1/10 seconds rather than the number of times the timer has repeated.
• Stopwatch. Measure elapsed time, split times, and two finishes up to 99:59':99".
• Electro-luminescent backlight. That means only the LCDs are illuminated, not the entire face of the watch. This watch also has an auto illumination function which means, when activated, it will illuminate automatically if you hold the watch parallel to the ground, then rotate it more than 40 degrees toward your face. It's even smart enough not to activate itself if it senses that there's enough light in the room that you shouldn't need it. Pretty slick.
• Water resistant. 20 BAR (20 ATM, 200 meters, or 600 feet).
• Shock resistant. According to the manual, "The watch can be worn on the wrist during any hard sports. (Use care not to allow the front glass to butt against any hard objects.)" Although they don't specify, it should be ok to wear during "soft sports," as well.
• Scratch-resistant mineral crystal.
• Accurate up to about 15 seconds per month. Not exactly an engineering marvel, but consider this: 15 seconds per month is roughly .5 seconds per day (worse case scenario), so if the watch calibrates nightly, at any given time, it should never be more than a half second off, and most likely much less than that. Not bad.

View the Watch Report wrist-phone photo gallery.

People have been fascinated with the concept of embedding communication devices into watches for years. There have been countless experiments, prototypes, demonstrations, promises, and even a couple launches. For a pretty comprehensive view of just about everything related to wrist phones out there, check out the Watch Report wrist-phone photo gallery.

With everything that's being embedded into watches these days -- GPS receivers, cameras, thermometers, barometers, altimeters, TVs, MP3 players, remote controls, miniature globes, solar cells, PDAs, USB drives, FM receivers, voice recorders, even atomizers -- what's taking so long to get a viable mobile phone on our wrists? The key word here is viable. Reducing GSM technology to the size that it can be comfortably worn on the wrist is not so much the challenge as creating a product compelling enough that it will replace or supplement the pretty impressive mobile phones most of us already use. Consider these factors:

• Battery life. I think we're just going to have to live with charging these contraptions nightly, but they will still needs to handle enough talk and standby time to get us through the day.
• Reception. Even talking on the newest, most advanced mobile phones can be extremely frustrating. What kind of signal will we be able to get on our wrists?
• Privacy. Presumably, you will be able to use a headset with your first wrist-phone, but will fumbling with a headset every time you receive a call outweigh the convenience of wearing your phone on your wrist?
• Size. With early adoption often comes conspicuousness, and plenty of eye-rolling from friends and significant others.
• Functionality. People have come to expect quite a bit from their cell phones. Personally, I use mine extensively for talking, email, instant messaging, SMS, pictures, personal information management, and a fair amount of web browsing, all with a nice QWERTY keyboard. That's obviously way too much to fit on a wrist, and a lot to have to live without if I swap it for a wrist-phone.

Fortunately, despite these challenges, the vision of convenient, instantly available communication continues to inspire the most imaginative, innovative, and entrepreneurial among us, and that vision has led to three fairly promising models.

More Tissot news! While I was scouring Tissot's site for additional information on the Navigator 3000, I came across a new look for the High-T. There's no evidence that anything other than the color of the band has changed, but it certainly makes a dramatic difference. I thought this was an interesting decision since the High-T is intended for a higher-end (read richer), more conservative market while the Swatch Paparazzi has the younger, hipper urban crowd covered (Tissot and Swatch are owned by the same parent company -- Swatch Group), but then I remembered that even the T-Touch is available in several different colors, so why not the High-T, as well?

In case you're unfamiliar with the High-T, it's my personal favorite MSN Direct watch at this particular moment. Although I don't actually own one (yet!), I have played with them several times in the past, and they are very impressive. Feature wise, they are pretty comparable to the Swatch Paparazzi, with two important distinctions:

1. The High-T has a touch crystal, which means rather than jabbing at the mode button to navigate, you need only gently tap the fine sapphire crystal. I have a T-Touch (which also has a touch crystal), and I love the technology.
2. The High-T has a vibrating alert. Personally, I think this is a fantastic feature. MSN Direct watches are big enough and draw enough attention to themselves as it is that they really don't need to be beeping all the time in response to alarms, appointments, news alerts, and instant messages. A subtle vibration is far more preferable, if you ask me.

The only problem with the High-T is that it's not easy to get your hands on. It's not that they are in short supply, but Tissots are not sold in your typical mall jewelry store. You may have to call around a bit and do some additional driving to claim one for your own, but believe it, it's worth it.

Swiss watchmaker Tissot recently announced a new member of their Tactile line: the Navigator 3000. It has appeared as a blurry picture next to a "coming soon" teaser on their site for quite some time, but now the picture is finally clear, and some specs and pictures have been published.

Before I get into the details of the Navigator, I'd like to mention a few things about Tissot Tactile watches in general. First of all, I happen to be wearing a T-Touch on on my wrist right now (detailed review forthcoming), and I love it. The Tactile line of watches allows you to navigate by tapping the sapphire crystal in different locations rather than pressing a mode button over and over. They are technically impressive, classy watches, and I think the Navigator 3000 is a great addition.

Features of the Navigator 3000 include:

• Tactile crystal to navigate through five modes and multiple time zones.
• World time (150 countries or cities).
• Countdown timer.
• Stopwatch.
• Two programmable alarms and five alarm melodies.
• Multiple date formats.
• Backlight to illuminate the LCD.

• View the Paparazzi photo gallery.
• View the MSN Direct photo gallery.

The Swatch Paparazzi is a refreshing and welcome addition to the existing line of MSN Direct watches.  It's not that the existing models from Suunto, Fossil and Tissot are lacking -- in fact, I think they range from good (Fossil) to better (Suunto) to amazing (Tissot) -- but the Swatch Paparazzi brings a hipper and more urban feel to a line of watches which thus far tend to be associated with, at best, business men, but more typically, geeks.  Plus, the Paparazzi has put Swatch back on my radar screen from which it has been conspicuously absent since about middle school.  Not only am I wearing the Swatch Paparazzi on my wrist right now as I type, but I'm loving it, and not looking forward to the inevitable moment when I must put it away and move on.

Before I continue with the review, I want to mention that I had initially planned to review the watch and the MSN Direct service separately, however I have since decided to combine the reviews into one since, as is the case with any well integrated hardware and software, the two are largely inextricable.  Still, I will dedicated a section of this review wholly to the MSD Direct service which should be relevant to any MSN Direct watch.

Features of the Swatch Paparazzi include:

• Customizable watch faces.  As with all MSN Direct watches, choose the face that best suites your mood or situation. Try pressing the enter button (middle button on the right-hand side) while viewing your favorite watch face. While arbitrarily pushing buttons to see what might happen, I discovered that some of faces can have a couple of different modes.  If the face does not support multiple modes, it will let you know by beeping at you.
• Stopwatch (chronograph). I discovered that the Paparazzi supports up to 99 splits.  Although hundredth of seconds are not displayed after the first ten seconds (to preserve battery life, I assume), they are recorded and displayed once time has been stopped.  I found the stopwatch will go up to 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds before flipping.
• Two fully customizable alarms.  By fully customizable, I mean either alarm can be configured to sound every day, on one specific day of the week (every Monday, for instance, to make sure you remember to go back to work), or on any specified date.  I love this feature, and find it extremely useful.  It's a great way to remind yourself of something without bothering with your PDA.  The backlight flashes in addition to the audible alarm, in case you turned the sound on your watch off in order to avoid being rude in a movie or at a wedding (though if you did, you need to get your priorities straight!).
• Countdown timer.  No digital watch is fully complete without one, in my opinion. The range is from one second to 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds.  Backlight flashes in addition to audible alarm.
• Calendar.  Of course you get the date, but the Paparazzi (along with all MSN Direct watches) also gives you a full calendar.  This is another feature I absolutely love.  Check out the Paparazzi photo gallery to see it in action, but basically, you get a full seven-column calendar which you can scroll backward and forward.  No more counting on your fingers and toes trying to figure out whether your birthday falls on a weekend this year.
• Wireless time calibration. All MSN Direct watches are calibrated through the MSN Direct network (via FM radio signal), whether you have subscribed to the MSN Direct service or not.  If you're the type of person who is perpetually late, don't worry -- you can even configure a +5, +10, or +15 minute offset to make sure you're always on time or a tad early.
• Free wireless content.  The Swatch Paparazzi receives a limited amount of content from the MSN Direct network even if you don't active the watch. Free content includes entertainment news (specific to your current geographic region), general news headlines, and local weather conditions.  You will find the Paparazzi to be fairly feature-rich before ever giving Microsoft your credit card number.
• MSN Direct Service.  The MSN Direct service takes your wireless content to the next level.  Although it's a very decent watch without the service, adding MSN Direct gets you the ability to install new watch faces, synchronize appointments with Outlook, and to receive surprisingly detailed news, messages, weather information, stock quotes, sports scores, horoscopes, movie information, "diversions," and lottery numbers.  (More on the MSN Direct service, and each individual channel, below.)
• Internet Time.  Internet Time is to time what the metric system is to measurement. The downside is that it only seems to be supported by Swatch.  More on Internet Time below.
• Water resistant. Only to 3 ATM, though (3 BAR, 30 meters, or 100 feet). My recommendation would be to try to keep this watch as dry as possible. Don't worry about getting caught in a rain storm, but don't wear it while swimming the English Channel or diving for sunken treasure, either.
• Rechargeable battery.  Don't panic.  This isn't as bad as it sounds. If you're as much of a gadget freak as I am, right now you're thinking that you need another charger in your life like you need a tax audit, but it's really not that bad.  It's small, light, portable, and after a two hour charge, your watch will be good to go for between four and five days, depending on its configuration.  I think I could actually squeeze six days out of it if I really wanted to, but there's no sense in trying to set a world record, especially if it could mean having to be disconnected until you can get back to home base.  I know a watch charger is just one more thing you have to remember to pack (and re-pack after the security personnel at the airport remove it from your bag), but it's better than keeping a hefty supply of hearing aid batteries on hand (remember the Timex Messengers?).
• Separate power for radio receiver.  That's the most elegant way I could think of to say that you can toggle the watch's ability to receive FM signals independent of the watch's main power, making it kosher for in-flight use.
• Settings.  I'm not sure this qualifies as an actual feature, but I think it's worth mentioning.  The Paparazzi (and all MSN Direct watches) have a very cool settings/configuration screen more reminiscent of a PDA than a watch.

Hopefully Fossil is serious this time about their new Wrist PDA: a full Palm OS (4.1) built right into a watch. Actually, I'm sure they were quite serious the first time they announced the Wrist PDA and took "Best of COMDEX" in the mobile devices category nearly two years, though it seems circumstances conspired against Fossil, and the watch disappeared from their site as suddenly as it had appeared. I believe Amazon had even started taking pre-orders, though presumably, everyone's money was safely returned, and I'm sure there were no hard feelings.

Don't worry, Fossil -- I'm not writing this to accuse you of false promises and vaporware. On the contrary. I'm writing this to congratulate you on getting the project back on track. I believe it's in everyone's best interest that bleeding edge devices like the Wrist PDA not be released until they are ready, and I also believe this product is no less impressive and relevant now than it was when it was originally announced. In other words, I'm still dying to have one.

Features and specs:

• Palm OS 4.1 (English).
• Motorola Dragonball VZ 33MHz. Not much by today's PDA standards, but pretty darn impressive for a watch.
• 2MB of RAM. The first PDA I ever owned was a special "upgraded" version with 4MB. Again, very impressive for a watch.
• 16 level grayscale with backlight; 160x160 pixels.
• Address Book, Date Book, To Do List, Memo Pad, Calculator, and even the time.
• Support for most Palm OS 4.1 compatible applications.
• Customizable watch faces.
• Touch screen input.
• Miniature stylus concealed in the watch's band. Slick!
• Built-in page up, page down, and back buttons.
• Three-direction rocker switch (aka jog dial). Well done, Fossil.
• USB interface.
• Infrared data transfer.
• Internal rechargeable battery and an AC power adapter to recharge it.
• 4-5 days of battery life. Sounds fairly comparable to an MSN Direct watch.
• Wrist PDA SDK for the software developers among you (a free download from Fossil's site).

So hopefully the wait is finally almost over. As soon as I can get my hands on one, you can be sure I'll post a detailed review.