Thursday 17th December 2009

Samsung GT - S 9110 "Montre" Watchphone
Only from The Carphone Warehouse - €449 sim free

In our Consumer Technology Review, Ciaran O'Byrne thinks he is 007 today, and is testing out a Samsung "Watchphone".

The idea of a watchphone or wrist communicator has been around since Dick Tracy was a comic strip.

And various James Bond's have had fantastic watch gadgets, now you can too, if you want to splash out.

The Samsung GT - S 9110 "Montre" watchphone is only available from The Carphone Warehouse, and is apparently the world's thinnest watchphone at under 12mm thick.

It has a 1.7 inch colour touchscreen - which is easy to view, and operate. It fits a 12 button key pad on the screen, and to access the menus, you slide the screen sideways, and up and down for your contacts.

Features include MP3, voice recognition, voice memo, speakerphone support, Bluetooth and an internal memory of 40MB.

It weighs around 91g which I don't think is too heavy. The size of the phone takes some getting used to though, bigger in length than a calculator watch, but you've got a phone, an MP3 player and a web browser crammed in there, so you can't complain too much.

There is no camera on it though, while the LG equivalent does have one.

Advanced features include:

And SOS message feature!! - In case of emergency press the "dial" key 4 times and it will send a text message to selected recipients from your contacts list! In these kind of circumstances, I'd probably select the Irish Army Rangers as a contact!

Mobile Tracker - this is probably an feature for trying if someone steals your watchphone - when someone inserts a new SIM card in your phone, the mobile tracker feature will automatically send the contact number to two recipients to help you locate and recover your phone.

You can even try to carry out conference calls on your watch - which probably looks strange if you have 3 or 4 people gathering around your wrist to talk to 2 or 3 parties on the line.

The watch does come with its own Bluetooth headset so you don't have to walk around with your arm cocked out at an angle and talk to your hand.

Other "watchphones" have been developed over the last two years from the likes of LG.

There have also been phones recently that detect open WiFi zones or use Bluetooth signals to tell you who is ringing your mobile without you having to look at it.

Verdict:

It is a slim piece of tech crammed with enough features to keep you happy, and headphones and Bluetooth set as well, so you don't have to talk to the hand!

But, you wouldn't want to be shy about carrying a gadget like this, and the demands of the battery of advanced pieces of tech mean you will probably have to charge your watch every day or so - which is the same as smart phones, and it costs in the neighbourhood of one as well, at €449 only from www.carphonewarehouse.ie