Music Undercover
Kevin Martin | Staff Writer

Casio, in their unending battle to bring cool stuff to your favorite wrist, has released one of it’s most expensive watches to date. The WMP-1V, though hard to remember in name, is easy to grasp when you are told what it is and what it does.

Imagine being in class, abandoning hope for the lecture being entertaining and of any value in your life, you decide to break out a miniature set of earphones you have in your pocket. Plug the headphones into your watch, and listen to your favorite MP3’s for the rest of class! No bulky CD player to damage or loose, and no large headphones to draw your instructors ire. Just plain simple music from your MP3 collection on your favorite computer.

So how much music can this watch, that is just a little larger then other digital watches, hold? It’s capacity is rated at 32mb, but is usually along the lines of 34mb. This is over an hour of HIGH quality mp3 audio, and if you are willing to sacrifice some audio quality, you can squeeze up to 2.5 hours of music onto your watch.

Batteries? Yes, all things live off power. This watch, being a music player, does have a high demand for power. Casio planned ahead with a lithium-ion rechargeable battery, saving your from buying a new battery every week. After a hard day in class listening to your favorite tunes, go home, and before kicking back to your favorite episode of Friends, or the new season of Survivor, plug your watch in for a rapid recharge. The built in lithium-ion battery has a life expectancy much longer then the usability of the watch. At heavy usage, a lithium-ion battery will take a charge over 1000 times. My poor math skills tell me that the battery will survive daily abuse for right around 3 years before you start to loose charge faster then normal.

The Casio WMP-1V is not Casio’s newest watch, and is currently on clearance at Wal-Mart in Christiansburg for $100.00. Expect a newer, higher capacity, longer battery life version to come from Casio’s genius factory soon.

Kevin Martin is Whim’s adjunct guru of all things geek and silicone. He really wishes he had waited before buying the Casio PC-Unite for the Casio MP3-watch to go on sale.