LG shows off GD910 Watch Phone, production later this year

Now that we have serious buy-in from a major phone manufacturer to bring watch phones to market, we're just going to go ahead and say it: the Dick Tracy era has begun. LG's just announced that the GD910 will start production later in 2009, featuring 7.2Mbps HSDPA, Bluetooth, speakerphone, video calling, voice recognition, an integrated music player, and a touchscreen in case those three side-mounted buttons don't cut it. We hope to have a hands-on shortly!

[STINK @ Jan 7th 2009 11:34AM]

"I'm on my way"

[Hashbrown Hunter @ Jan 7th 2009 12:03PM]

That's what she said.

And no, I'm not sick of the joke yet, and neither should you.

[Errorkid @ Jan 7th 2009 11:37AM]

Great, GD910 is also a vacuum cleaner

[Gad Get @ Jan 7th 2009 11:40AM]

A vacuum cleaner watch phone? My dreams have come true!

[joe23521 @ Jan 7th 2009 12:06PM]

Pretty sure it also remotely controls your microwave as well as your plant-pot-bot.

[joe23521 @ Jan 7th 2009 12:08PM]

Oh, and also an e-book reader. (Microscope sold separately.)

[blore40 @ Jan 7th 2009 4:25PM]

This phone has a great safety feature. You can only use one hand to text, the other hand stays on the steering wheel.

[PJE @ Jan 7th 2009 11:42AM]

Nice...

...although I don't know if I'd want to strap a phone to a single area of my body for such an extended time - I could see an increase in bone cancer of the wrist.

[glenn s @ Jan 7th 2009 11:44AM]

As opposed to keeping in your pocket a few inches away from your reproductive area? The watch/phone sounds like a smaller risk to me.

[PJE @ Jan 7th 2009 12:48PM]

@ glen S - I can switch pockets to irradiate the wedding tackle evenly, but I only wear my watch on my left wrist... :0)

[Nick @ Jan 7th 2009 12:48PM]

come on glenn, lets be honest with ourselves, its a dick. no girls read engadget, and if they do, they have dicks.

[Jeff P. @ Jan 8th 2009 9:58AM]

Luckily I didn't really become a die-hard geek until AFTER I was married!

[Ibinixer @ Jan 7th 2009 11:44AM]

Awesome.

[Tohe @ Jan 7th 2009 11:44AM]

I'd rather GPS over 3G on a device like this. Besides that 007 wrist video conferencing is far overrated. Now where is that bar?

[Hotrod @ Jan 7th 2009 11:48AM]

Your avatar had me speechless for a few seconds, it's great.

[Tohe @ Jan 7th 2009 11:57AM]

Thanks, all credit goes to Banksy.

[gusev @ Jan 7th 2009 11:44AM]

Get ready for increased incidences of arm cancers ;)

[Billy Gun @ Jan 7th 2009 11:48AM]

When I saw the picture I tought it was an Apple product, mabe becouse of the gray on the back and the Iphone style, I'm not saying that it looks like an Iphone.. but some how it remembers it. If its LG it will be good ;)

[spellprince @ Jan 7th 2009 11:52AM]

I wonder if this thing is waterproof. I wouldn't want to fry myself or the watch/phone whilst I was washing my hands, swimming, or fapping.

[V Langs @ Jan 7th 2009 12:49PM]

thought the same thing.every watch i've owned for the past like 15 years is water proof this better be too.

that'd be sick, in the pool with your watchphone haha

[Wonderkid @ Jan 7th 2009 11:54AM]

a) Whether or not it is a phone, the face is attractive and it would be great to customise it. b) A touch screen operated watch phone that is really usable would be a great alternative to a (pocket) phone simply because it's one less thing to put in your pocket - and harder to lose. Casio were clever with touch screens / multi-function watches years ago, ensuring that despite the close proximity of the on screen buttons, you hit the one you wanted. (Something that Apple have failed to do with the otherwise brilliant iPhone/iPod Touch on screen keyboard that is - after months of use, I can confirm is just as unusable - corrections needing to be made all the time - unlike the tactile keyboard on the Nokia E71.) Re this LG watchphone, beware, it may be quite thick - where is the side elevation? Re cancer etc, a good reason to use Bluetooth - assuming BT is less harmful.

[Backlin @ Jan 7th 2009 11:54AM]

Can you imagine how somebody would look walking down the street talking into their watch? Good thing there's Bluetooth.

[Tohe @ Jan 7th 2009 12:06PM]

Right, 'cause talking to yourself looks perfectly normal : )

[Félix @ Jan 7th 2009 11:55AM]

watchphones used to be a Joke ..
Like :"dude one day you won't look at the time on your mobile, you'll make a call on your watch !"

[bioadam @ Jan 7th 2009 12:09PM]

This makes total sense because as soon as I realized I was always looking at my cell phone to check the time, I stopped wearing my watch. In other words, ordinary watches are legacy devices.

[technician @ Jan 7th 2009 12:12PM]

The concept of watchphones is really not that new, there are already many watchphones available on the Internet.

[Justin @ Jan 7th 2009 12:19PM]

Although they might not be new, this is probably one of the first half-way decent looking ones.

[john @ Jan 7th 2009 1:02PM]

I think this is the first one that is 3G, however.

[thecolor @ Jan 7th 2009 12:13PM]

I think they're pretty cool ideas, given enough functionality and transparency. I own two and have reviewed quite a few others, and most (so far) have just been a bit bulky. This, on the other hand, looks quite attractive and seems similarly easy to use as the others I have or have seen.

The touch screen is a must, as is the bluetooth. The 3G data is nice, but the screen is always to small, so, the next device launched will need a pico or smaller projector to really make surfing, or checking email, etc. worth it.

Otherwise, text to speech is an acceptable addition for at least listening to text as opposed to reading massive amounts on such a small screen. I'm excited, either way. :)

[Adam @ Jan 7th 2009 12:21PM]

I'm still holding out for the shoe phone ...

[Mark Wheadon @ Jan 7th 2009 12:28PM]

Hmm - there's no sense of scale in that picture - it could be the _size_ of a standard LG phone :-)

[david @ Jan 7th 2009 12:30PM]

Just you wait.....Nike or Reebok will find a way to have their crack team of 12 year old shoe assemblers, fit a phone in your trainers.

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Jan 7th 2009 12:36PM]

Hands on? Wrist on? Either way need a long detailed video.

[Ellery @ Jan 7th 2009 12:50PM]

Now if only I could tether my [ipod|umpc|netbook|pmp] to reliably consume the HSDPA connection on this, I'd have the perfect setup. Hell... if I could get an iPod touch to tether with my Bold, THAT would be the perfect setup (two best products of 08 IMO) :-)

[superhobo @ Jan 7th 2009 12:51PM]

Finally, we have a wrist modem.

Now I can download torrents to my watch.

[Jason @ Jan 7th 2009 12:53PM]

I would rather spend my money on one of these watches-- the real kind:

http://professionalwatches.com/black/

I will stick with a traditional cell phone, they seem to work pretty well these days.

[john @ Jan 7th 2009 1:02PM]

Does this thing do Bluetooth DUN? PAN? and/or HID+BIP?
Having all 3 would be very nice. Tether to my tablet, and HID+BIP so that I can use my tablet to type and view text messages. I don't expect it to have wifi, for wifi type tethering (such as WMWifiRouter or Joikuspot).

Is it going to be available on US 3G bands?
A quadband GSM, and tri- or quad- band WCDMA version would be very cool (quadband WCDMA == adding support for T-Mobile)

Wired headset? (I hate bluetooth headsets)

[ConceptVBS @ Jan 7th 2009 4:13PM]

PEOPLE READ THE PRESS RELEASE. STOP ASKING QUESTIONS. STOP BEING LAZY.

[ecking01 @ Jan 8th 2009 12:30AM]

The picture is a nice design, just make that without a shitty phone in it.

[MJD HITEK GEAR @ Jan 8th 2009 4:03PM]

Finally the world is noticing, Cell phone watches will be the hottest mobile technology for the future.


http://www.MJDhitekgear.com

[Courtney @ Jan 8th 2009 9:51PM]

LG is not selliing these until late this year and they will still be unavailable in the states....

I already have one that I am currently using. It works with the AT&T Sim card that I already have.

I got my watchphone from 3gwatches.com

It's a very practical invention!

It's suitable to wear to the gym or to the office.

It also can be voice activated. So it's COMPLETELY handsfree!! Which is the best part! So if you are on the go or just have your hands full, you don't have to dig around through a purse or unbuckle a belt-clip and then "unlock" your phone.

I paid $185 for mine, which is apparently really cheap, considering they can go for $1,400... Mine came with a bluetooth headset & also with stereo earphones as well. It has a built-in mp3 player, video, vibration, stylus pen, touch screen, caller id, and it takes suprisingly great pictures with the camera, o yea, and YES it DOES also tell time. lol.