HANDS ON: CASIO WSD-F10 ANDROID WEAR SMARTWATCH

Casio’s first Android watch can take a hike, and survive for a month

Android Wears is no longer just for tech brands. Mechanical and digital watch-making companies are using the operating system to muscle their way into the smartwatch world. The latest to do so is Casio with the WSD F10. It’s not the catchiest name we’ve heard, but the watch does a fantastic job of differentiating itself from the competition, by offering two highly desirable features — a super tough body, and a long-lasting battery mode.

The F10 is an activity watch, primarily made for cyclists, hikers, and fishermen. Anyone with a fondness for massive wrist wear is bound to love it.  The chunky body is huge, but it’s very lightweight at 93 grams with the strap, which is made from hard wearing urethane plastic. The F10 has been engineered to meet MIL-STD-810 standards, which means it withstands shock, humidity, radiation, vibration, high and low temperatures, plus ice and water. These features are common across Casio’s range of regular watches, but unseen in the Android Wear world, making the F10 instantly stand out.

There are three buttons on the side, one for the power, and the other two for activating the app on your phone or cycling through data from the F10’s sensor array. The widgets look fantastic, with an almost military style that suits the watch’s build perfectly. You get a compass, air pressure and altitude readout, activity data, and even information on tides and sunrise times. Inside the Casio app on your phone, it’s possible to tailor alerts so you don’t miss ideal conditions for your favourite activity.

Two screens and 30-day battery

Sadly, GPS is missing from the sensor list, and the watch requires your phone to pinpoint location. However, GPS on a smartwatch comes at a cost — battery life, which just happens to be another strong point of the Casio WSD F10. There are two screens, a color LCD that’s almost completely round, and a second monochrome LCD. Activate the second screen with Timepiece mode, and the watch shuts down Android Wear and all the smart features, leaving a cool retro digital watch face. Suddenly, the 24 hours of battery life estimated with Android Wear active turns into 30 days of use.

It’s a stroke of genius. Hikers out in the middle of nowhere may not have phone connectivity, so notifications aren’t going to be common; but the Casio’s features lend themselves to the situation in other ways. With Timepiece mode, the F10 stays up and running as a watch until the smarter features are needed. On the technical side, the screen measures 1.3-inches and has a 320 x 200 pixel resolution.

Masculine, chunky build

Casio has made the F10 for men. It’s a bare-chested, hairy brute of a smartwatch, and utterly unsuited to female wrists. The Casio representative whose wrist you see in some of the pictures told me she didn’t mind the size, which meets with fashion in women’s watches, but would prefer something smaller when out exercising. That was the understatement of the year. On my wrist, it still looks large, but not ungainly, a testament to Casio’s excellent design.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

There is absolutely no way the Casio WSD F10 will be mistaken for any other Android Wear smartwatch, and that’s a good thing. It’s obviously a Casio design, totally apart from any other, and with a focused set of features that will appeal to people who like wearing watches like this. It’s a niche product, but then so are smartwatches in general. This type of traditional watch fills a need already, so why not make a smartwatch version? It looks awesome, and has genuinely unique functionality that is useful. We don’t ask for much more from such a device.

You’ll have to dig deep to buy one, though. It’s $500, and that’s more than almost all Android Wear smartwatches, except for TAG Heuer’s effort, and some of the flashier Huawei Watch models. If you’re happy with the price, you’ll almost certainly be happy with the watch. It goes on sale in April in the United States, and although a global launch hasn’t been confirmed, we’re told it’s highly likely.

Highs

• 30-day battery life in one mode
• Useful extra features for outdoorsy folk
• Extra outdoor tracking features are unique
• Cool military-like design

Lows

• Expensive at $500
• Not suitable for women or small wrists

Read more: Tech Crunch