I have the version before this and ADORED it at the time. Felt like science fiction to have a camera on my wrist. I personally think/thought that the prior version had a bit better styling. I preordered it in the Carnaby Street Casio store about October 2000, and had to wait 2 months for it to arrive at the store from Japan.
I bumped into Fred Durst on the street (Soho, London) one day and took his photo with it - but the launch of the camera took maybe 10 seconds, so I remember him standing there for what felt like and uncomfortably long time with his tongue out doing the 'rad' sign with the fingers of both hands. He then wanted to see the pic and he seems a little disapointed with the grey scale image on my wrist.
(I then got him to sign the only bit of paper I had (a gas bill) with the only pen I had (a highlighter). Good times!
I wasn't much of a fan of Fred, but my girlfriend (now wife) loved him, so I thought I better go and say hello and capture that I'd met it, otherwise she might not believe me.
I stopped buying them since the features are quite weak (no vibration, no countdown timer, poor UX), and the prices now are unreasonable for what they do (40+ euros for a basic plastic watch that only tells time is taking the piss, when that money can get you a fitness tracker with Bluetooth, color OLED, GPS and vibration).
I've not bought a new watch for ages, but I still love those from the 90s and 00s.
I'd have to go and look at them to find the model numbers (as much as I love them they are all in an ice cream box somewhere) - I have the later version of the camera watch with the colour screen, the original Casio GPS watch, the Casio mp3 watch (32mb!),a few databanks and infrared TV changer watches. Then a few Casio film (extra thin) and G-shock watches.
A few digi/analogue and a some plain analogue.
I kind of fell out of collecting them when I got into Seiko - but I only have 2 of those! But the Casio are among my favourite bits of tech to own.
Of that period my favourite watch is an NHJ analogue TV watch with a 1 inch screen to view TV on. Love it. Sadly not so useful now, though I do have a small transmitter to test it with.
I love weird digital cameras and have a collection of them. For me personally they’re the equivalent of how some people nerd out over old film cameras or different types of film. I absolutely love the early 00s aesthetic that the crappy cameras gave, and how each one has their own look thanks to different choices of compromises to capture the data in the limited tech of the time.
I had (actually, still have) a regular casio digital camera of this vintage. I thought the photos looked fine on the small blurry CRTs at the time - or the tiny screen on the camera itself, but look much worse on modern screens. The giant pixels need some type of blurring to make the photos look like photos.
Why? If you upscale them and introduce new data, especially with AI, then the whole charm and artistic style of that 120x120 BW dithered camera goes out the window and just become crappy BW photos.
I bumped into Fred Durst on the street (Soho, London) one day and took his photo with it - but the launch of the camera took maybe 10 seconds, so I remember him standing there for what felt like and uncomfortably long time with his tongue out doing the 'rad' sign with the fingers of both hands. He then wanted to see the pic and he seems a little disapointed with the grey scale image on my wrist.
(I then got him to sign the only bit of paper I had (a gas bill) with the only pen I had (a highlighter). Good times!
A couple of years later I got to meet Paul McCartney, who had the later version of this watch, and used it for the album art of one his solo releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_Rain#Album_cover