Style, power and portability: HP dv5
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CNET editors' rating:
3.0 stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Easy integration with Outlook Calendar; stylish and comfortable; water resistant to 100 meters; Swatch City channel provides content on local entertainment; affordably priced.
The bad: Requires a monthly or yearly service fee; backlighting washes out screen.
The bottom line: While other MSN Direct watches are designed with business users in mind, the Swatch Paparazzi is perfect for younger users who need more entertainment-oriented information.
Specifications: Product type: Watch; Designation: Technical; Brand: Paparazzi; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 02/10/2005
- Updated on: 06/12/2006
Coming in at around $150, the Swatch Paparazzi offers users a relatively inexpensive way to give the service a test run, whereas the Suunto N3i costs $300 and the Tissot High T runs more than $700. Young hipsters will also appreciate the company's proprietary channel, which provides them with local information about clubs and DJs, in addition to the stock, news, sports, and weather information that we've come to expect from MSN Direct.
The Swatch Paparazzi is most definitely not for the faint of fashion. The plastic timepiece ships in four color schemes: orange and blue, red and black, black and silver, and blue and beige. On the hardware side, the Swatch Paparazzi is light, thin, and comfortable, unlike the Fossil watches, which tend to be bulky and heavy. It also falls in line with the company's appeal to the younger market, as it rocks a sportier look and feel compared to the more-classic lines of the Fossil, Suunto, and Tissot. Like all other MSN Direct watches, the Paparazzi ships with several faces (seven, to be exact), and there's room to download two more. The large face makes it easy to read content, and you can turn on a green backlight for darker environments, but we weren't all that impressed by this as it tended to wash out the display. To surf through the various menus, there are five navigation buttons along the outer ring of the face.
The Paparazzi is water resistant to as deep as 100 meters, and it boasts a rechargeable battery. While the charger is nowhere as big and cumbersome as those that ship with the Fossil watches, you can't charge the watch's battery via a USB cable connected to a computer. This is a feature that sets the Suunto watches apart from the rest. Thankfully, we experienced fantastic battery life with the Paparazzi, lasting almost a week between charges, longer than the N3i. Other basic watch features include the time (with two time zones), two alarms, a timer, and a stopwatch.
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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 reviews
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