DETAILED information, instructions, and review of the Raremono / thanko / Chinavasion 1.8" (1.5") widescreen all-metal mp4 player watch:
I recently bought 5 of these watches as gifts for my nieces and nephews (one is for myself
). Of the 5, 3 look good, one has a slightly crooked screen, and another has a loose screen that would move around and get glitchy when the headphones were inserted or the buttons were pushed. I will probably open them up to try to secure the screens. I would rather not send them all the way back to China when there is a 40% chance that the next ones will have improperly secured screens as well.
.......
Unfortunately, it is actually a 1.5" screen that is only slightly wider than it is tall (160 x 128 pixels). The only thing that is 1.8" is the glass cover over the face of the watch, not the screen itself. Apparently, vendors feel this entitles them to claim a 1.8" screen, but even the box it comes in says it's 1.5". It makes me wonder how big the 1.5" watches really are.
As per instructions from Chinavasion, I did NOT upgrade the firmware. The firmware it came with probably wasn't even for the right watch, since the manual was actually for a completely different model. I will probably never alter the firmware, since it would void the warranty.
Anyway, the first problem I had was trying to transfer files. I was unable to transfer anything more than a single mp3 before the mp4 player would disconnect from my computer. This made it very hard to diagnose the problem using Windows-based mp4 utilities, because it would disconnect when I tried to reformat. After many hours of troubleshooting, I hooked one of the watches up to an older computer and it worked fine. My main computer is an AMD Sempron 2800, so it's not too old. I fixed the problem by rebooting my PC into the bios settings and turning the USB down from 2.0 to 1.1. After I set the USB for 1.1, the watches connected flawlessly, and had no problem transferring test files of nearly 1GB. Problem solved.
The next problem was playing the .mtv files I had made. I converted several DVDs into .mtv files before the watches got delivered. NONE of them would play on any of the watches. The problem was that I was using version V1.11.whatever of MTV Video Converter. The mini CD the watch came with had V1.12.11.3, so I tried it, and that was the solution. The slightly older version of the converter was incompatible with the new watch. Again, problem solved.
By the way, here I will note that I was surprised how good the video looks on the watch. It really is viewable, and the sound is great.
To make the videos, I did purchase Aimersoft DVD Ripper (I bought the DVD ripper and converter combo for about $40 or $50, I forget exactly how much it was). I HIGHLY recommend this software for small screens. With this program, I cut out the beginning and ending credits, crop the picture to a shape that closely matches my mp4 player without letterboxing or stretching it (which means cutting the sides of the movie off), increase brightness and contrast to around 135%, and increase volume to about 120%.
Then I rip the DVD to .wmv using the "General Pocket PC Format" with special settings all at defaults, except for the resolution, which I set to the smallest setting. This gives you a nice small .wmv file (under 1GB) which can be converted to .mtv using MTV Video Converter. The end result is a really good looking .mtv movie at about 400MB.
Unfortunately, Aimersoft does not currently support .mtv formats, so this is a 2-step process.
The final verdict:
Pros:
The watch actually looks pretty good for a geek watch. Oversized watches are fashionable right now, so it doesn't really stand out. It's not so big that it looks too goofy on an adult's wrist.
The MP3 player sounds really good. The earphones it comes with look cheap, but actually sound good. The volume goes a little higher than I need it too, so that's good, too.
The picture looks way better than I thought it would (which may in part be a result of the software I'm using). Everybody is pushing the OLED screens right now, but the LG TFT screen on this watch looks great. I was actually surprised by how easy it is to watch a whole movie on this thing.
Cons:
This is not a 1.8" widescreen. It is a 1.5" that is about the same shape as a standard television screen. Even though they are being sold by a lot of vendors as 1.8", it actually says 1.5" right on the box it shipped in. Even on Raremono's web site, you can see innaccurate photos like the basketball scene pictured above, right next to actual photos of a guy wearing it, which show that the screen is not as wide as the face of the watch. It would be nice if the watch were really 1.8" diagonal, because at this small screen size, 0.3" would actually be a significant improvement.
The manual is a total loss, but then, I think most of us have come to expect that any manual shipping from China will be unusable. Not only is it unreadable, it's not even for the right watch.
2 of the 5 watches I bought have screen issues, one of which (the one with the loose screen) could lead to a hardware failure. 40% is a
really terrible percentage for shipping faulty units.
Well, that's all I have so far. If I figure out anything else, I'll post it up here, since there doesn't seem to be any really good information for these watches anywhere that I can find.