We played with G-Shock’s latest Bluetooth watch at CES 2015, the GBA400: a ‘proper’ watch that allows you to control your music on your smartphone. Here’s our hands-on review.
Although the G-Shock GBA400 launched at the end of last year, we finally had the chance to check it out at CES 2015 and sadly it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
Design-wise, it’s obviously a G-Shock – bulky and tough enough to withstand all kinds of punishment. However, the GBA400 has a cunning trick in the shape of Bluetooth smartphone control.
There are a number of buttons along the edges which perform various functions. For instance, on the bottom left edge is a button which pauses or resumes your music. On the top left edge, a button can be tapped to bring up SoundHound on your phone, a music identification service which seemed to struggle with our chosen tracks, most likely because of the noise at G-Shock’s booth.
But the bulk of the controls are performed with the dial on the right hand side. You tap a button beneath it to scroll through the various options, such as skipping tracks or changing volume, then a twist of the dial will perform the chosen action.
We found the demo units were a little fiddly to use, however. The buttons often require quite a firm push to register and we noticed some lag when scrolling through the menu options.
The G-Shock GBA400 is out now, from around £150.
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