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TV watch from NH Japan

NH Japan has formally announced the release date for the TV wristwatch it was showing at the CES. We're perhaps less impressed with this now that Vodafone Japan has come out with its new TV phone (which has a larger screen, at 2.2 inches vs. 1.5), and also because the specs are a little less attractive than initial reports suggested.

Specifically, the battery life has gone down to "up to an hour" from "up to two hours"; the company is now billing it as a "lightweight wearable TV" that can be attached to either a wrist strap or a neck strap (ugh), which doesn't perk up our gadget antennae half as much as a "wristwatch TV"; and lastly, the reason for this deemphasis of the wristwatch TV idea appears to be that to get decent battery life you need to attach the screen to a monster external battery pack (that's it lurking in the background of the photo). That'll get you three hours' televisual enjoyment, but we can't help feeling that if we were going to carry around something that big, we'd want it to have a bigger screen. Ultimately, this seems like the kind of product that'll be great when battery technology catches up, but whose time hasn't quite come yet.

Out in May in Japan; price should be around Y20,000.

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese)]