Hands-on: Casio’s updated Pro Trek smartwatch for 2017 [VIDEO]
Earlier this week, Casio made official their newest Pro Trek smartwatch — the WSD-F20 — a follow up to last year’s rugged WSD-F10. Showing off the F20 at this year’s CES, we took the opportunity to go hands-on with Casio’s beefy new smartwatch for 2017.
We’re used to seeing tech get smaller and thinner every year, but the Pro Trek is unapologetically thick, even larger than the previous year’s model. Along with being one of the first smartwatches to run Android Wear 2.0 (which has yet to rollout to any devices at the moment), packs even more features into the watch, even at the cost of size. There’s a new protective bezel, button guard — this thing is super rugged. It may not be pretty, but let’s face it, the type of person who finds these sort of watches appealing probably cares more about fighting off bears than worrying about aesthetics.
Under the hood, the Casio Pro Trek WSD-F20 packs all the bells and whistles outdoorsy types crave, with an MIL-STD-810G rating and water resistance up to 50 meters. There’s also a dual-layer display for better outdoor visibility, a battery friendly monochrome display mode, and a low-power GPS sensor that can still track your location via offline maps. A handful of Casio’s specialty apps also come preloaded on the device along with location memory. Everything you need to keep track of yourself — and your outdoor activities.
The Casio Pro Trek WSD-F20 comes in both orange or black color options and is scheduled to launch on April 21st for $500. It’s a little pricey, but you’d be hard pressed to find another Android Wear device that can match it’s feature set. For some, you can’t put a price on that.