Casio WSD-F10 Android Watch : Travel Gear Review

A couple of months back, Casio released the WSD-F10 android smartwatch. Geared towards outdoor enthusiasts, it came with a host of nifty features such as an altimeter, compass and barometer all within a durable and waterproof casing. I recently went for a series of trips and took the Casio WSD F10 with me.

Build

At 56.4mm x 61.7mm x 15.7mm, this Casio watch is huge. For someone with a relatively thin wrist like myself, I felt intimidated by the size at first but it’s actually quite stylish once worn. It also fits the current trend of oversized watches so no complaints from me once I managed to wear it. Do note though that because of the size, you might end up with a large bulge on your wrist if you’re wearing long-sleeved shirts.

The watch has a very rugged look which is in keeping with its proposition. It comes with three buttons – the topmost to adjust the watch’s own applications such as the barometer, altimeter, etc; the middle is the main control button from which to toggle many of the watch’s main functions while the app button at the bottom is customizable to trigger an application of your own choosing. Mine was set to the default weather app.

Functionality

The watch needs to be synced to two apps in order to unlock its full functionality – the Android Wear app and the Casio Moment Setter. The most nifty features of the watch in my view are the voice control and the ability for me to open apps on my phone via the watch. News alert popups for instance that appeared in my watch could easily be activated on my phone with the press of a button. Features geared towards the outdoors – such as the altimeter, barometer and compass were pretty handy when I carried the WSD-F10 with me during my travels. I only had the watch for me for short span of time and wasn’t able to explore the full spectrum of the watch’s capabilities.

Display

The watch comes with a number of Android Wear watch faces plus a couple more coming from Casio itself. Casio employs a dual-layer display for the watch with separate monochrome and color LCDs. The colors are crisp and the brightness is adjustable. The glare was palpable though under direct sunlight but I suppose this is the reality of lcd displays.

A couple of watch faces are available via the Android Wear app. Casio also threw in quite a few of their own faces so the watch actually has quite a selection if you are the type who gets tired of a “look” very easily.

Battery Life

The watch is juiced up via a magnetic charging cable. The WSD F10 needs to be angled in a certain way for the watch to charge correctly. Otherwise, it gets easy for the magnetic cable to untangle itself from the watch.

Once fully charged, the watch is advertised to have enough battery to last a day under the smartwatch mode and a month under the passive timepiece mode. I only had my watch to try for two weeks so I wasn’t able to try the latter unfortunately. However, one day under the smartwatch mode sounds just about right with a normal degree of use – i.e. checking of notifications once every couple of hours.

Summary

In Singapore, the WSD-F10 is priced at $699 which isn’t exactly cheap. However, I have to commend Casio by going a step further in positioning its first android watch as an outdoor watch. This is in contrast to other android watches – or smart watches in general – which cannot claim to be as durable. For now, the ruggedness is juxtaposed with a limitation in Android gadgets as a whole (i.e. battery life). If you plan to take the watch out on a hiking trip over several days, you’ll have to charge it quite frequently. As a general user though, you’ll probably find the extra features to be a cool addition  to an already appealing product.