2010年7月15日星期四

Review of the Swatch Paparazzi MSN Direct (SPOT) Watch

The watch has a plethora of features, however everything seems easilyand quickly accessible and configurable. Details like

being able to moveforward or backward by increments of five when holding down buttons makesthe experience feel polished.Great

button feel. The buttons on the Paparazzi feelgreat. Infact, ironically enough, they feel significantly better than they

look. Ithink they tend to look cheap and plasticy (which, of course, they are),however they feel stiff and sound and solid,

but not so stiff that they areuncomfortable to use (unless you record 99 splits with the stopwatch, atwhich point the tip of

your thumb will start to feel it).Great standard watch features. Even with no wirelesscapabilities whatsoever, the Paparazzi

would offer much more than your standarddigital watch.The back light is very similar if not identical on both watches, and

the Paparazziuser manual was obviously derived from the Tissots' as it inadvertently mentionsthings like the touch screen

which is a feature of the High T, not the Paparazzi.The High T is a brilliant watch, offering very innovative features like a

touchscreen (tap the sapphire crystal to change modes rather than having to push buttons),and a vibrating alert. The High T

retails for $725, however, while the Paparazzigoes for a much more reasonable $150. If money were not aconsideration, the

High T would actually be my first choice and my #1 recommendation,but until I receive a complimentary unit to review, I'm

sticking with the Paparazzi.One more feature of the Paparazzi that is worth pointing out is the Internet Timefunction.

Internet Time is Swatch's attempt to modernize time by getting ridof messy and confusing time zones and seemingly arbitrary

and old fashioned units. Theidea is that a day is divided up into 1000 "beats" starting from midnightin Biel,

Switzerland (home of Swatch). Eachbeat is 1 minute and 26.4 seconds which puts noon at exactly 500 beats (expressedas @500).

Midnight, therefore, is @000 beats. Internet Time is the sameall over the world, so you never have toworry about trying to

calculate local times by adding or subtracting offsetsfrom GMT. So at this particular moment, it's @297 all over world, not

juston the east coast of the US. Ilike standardization, however the problem is the lack of context. AlthoughI know it's @297

all over the world, I don't know what that means to anyone elsein the world. Instandard time, it's 1:10 a.m. here, but what

does @297 mean in Japan? Is everyoneasleep, or busy commuting to or home from work? Cool idea, but you probablydon't want to

start telling people to report for a meeting in 5 beats any timesoon.What I like about the Swatch Paparazzi:Good inte***ce.

Swatch can't really take all the creditfor this since I believe the user inte***ce was designed by Microsoft, butwho cares

who gets the credit. The point is that it'sgood.