Two Watches, Two Neat Technologies: Phosphor
As we said in our previous piece, why should you end up wearing a normal old wristwatch when so many other interesting ones exist? We’ve taken a look at ones to help you sleep and ones to help you wake up but today we look at a watch that uses cutting edge technology… pretty much to look cool.
Phosphor uses electronic ink to display the time and date in a pretty nifty way. Their e-ink technology is similar to that of e-books, like the Kindle, and they have a nice page showing how it works. We’ve been walking around, showing off the Phosphor Digital Calendar Watch with Black Leather Band and have gotten to both love and, unfortunately, get annoyed at it.
For starters, it’s almost an art piece- which means that it can be difficult to read at first. Much of the big, beautiful face of the watch is taken up by a calendar, which allows you to see the date (but not the month). Alternatively, you can press the lower button to show you the month, but then cannot see the time. There are no seconds shown, so the watch only updates once a minute- probably good for the battery, but not as fun. Also, the miracle of e-ink is thinness and light weight- but this watch is quite heavy, and surprisingly thick. We’d call it bulky, and it seems a bit wasted on the calendar, considering that there are no extra functions.
Well, there is one- the top button allows you to choose between a black background and white lettering/numbers or vice versa. It’s a nice touch, and shows off the e-ink, but the face will blink twice while it is happening, kind of an odd quirk. Overall, folks liked the styling- silver and black, sleek and futuristic. It felt like wearing a movie prop in many ways- one that looked great and told time, but not much else. No backlight, no alarms, and a pretty basic polyurethane watch band (stainless steel and leather available, at extra charge). The watch is water resistant, up to 50 meters, which is great. Now, if only we could read ebooks on it! $195, with slightly lesser-priced models available.
