Most of the time, reviewing hardware for MacUser is a fairly straightforward process. Does a printer produce good prints, a camera snap good pictures, and a new Mac make us reach straight for our wallet?
Here, though, it's a slightly different matter. The idea of this watch is to link wirelessly to your mobile phone - which has to be a Sony Ericsson model at that - and display on its small screen who's calling you or it tells you if you have received a text message.
There's a school of thought - and it's one we have a lot of sympathy for - that says that if your phone and watch are close enough to connect over Bluetooth, it's the height of laziness to find glancing at your watch sufficiently more convenient than picking up your phone, there is also the fact that you would have to be prepared to spend over a hundred pounds on this latest slab of technology. And this is rather the crux of the problem.
There's no denying it works - although claims the watch has a range of 10m are tempered in the manual when it accurately suggests that getting solid objects such as your body between the phone and watch might occasionally break the connection - and we did genuinely start to get attached to the notion of a gentle vibration on the wrist alerting you to being able to see who was calling when jammed into a commuter bus, reluctant to wrestle your phone from your pocket.
You can tap a button once to silence your phone's ringer, twice to reject the call, but you can neither talk via the watch or read received text messages; it's notification only.
And - imagine - it also tells the time. As well as the analogue hands, you can view a digital clock; this latter apparently reads the time directly from your mobile, and when we went abroad, the mobile automatically adjusted to the new time zone, updating the digital clock on the watch.
We confess to a sneaking liking for this watch. The battery - which is quoted at lasting a week - was still going strong a fortnight later. That said, while we would love to receive it as a gift, we would have a tough time justifying it as a purchase.
While we would love to receive it as a gift, we would have a tough time justifying it as a purchase.Author: Christopher Phin
Abacus MobileWear Bluetooth watch