2. The Product, Continued more

At any rate, since I had the "casual" version in hand, I proceeded to connect it up to my PC, which has a front-mounted USB port. I first tried it without the supplied (non-retractable) USB extension cable. Figure 3 shows that the result can feel a little like being a Borg jacked-in to the Collective.

Figure 3: Connected on a short leash

Most users will opt for taking the watch off and either using the supplied extension cable or letting it dangle (Figure 4) from your computer's USB port.

Figure 4: Probably the way most people will connect

Although dangling-while-connected is ok, the printed instruction sheet emphatically warns against yanking on the watch to unplug it, citing the possibility of cable damage.

The USB flash itself is powered from the USB port that it's plugged into, but the watch has its own battery, which at some point will die and need to be replaced. The watch's metal back removes with four small screws, but Figure 5 shows that you'll need to dig deeper in search of the battery.

Figure 5: Where's the battery?

In true TomsNetworking spirit, I removed two even tinier screws and lifted up the flash circuit board to find...still no battery!

Figure 6: Still no battery, but fragile cable connections found

Figure 6 shows that the little bugger is buried deeper still, but also shows why EDGE warns you not to yank on the watch to disconnect it from a USB port. There really isn't room to put a good cable strain relief, so my advice is to heed EDGE's warning.

Since EDGE wanted the watch returned after review, I stopped at this point in my battery quest. The terse instructions in the user manual on the mini-CD that came with the watch said that the battery is under the red insulator that you see in the picture. But it wasn't obvious to me how to get to it without breaking the two tabs you see in the picture and the instructions didn't provide any clues.

Maybe you'll be able to find a jeweler willing to take up this battery-replacement challenge (and charge you accordingly). But I definitely recommend against taking the DiskGo Watch to your local mall watch battery replacement kiosk, since you may end up with both a broken watch and still-dead battery!