14 DAY TRIAL // Huawei has held its pre-MWC press release here in Barcelona, marking its largest product launch ever, with 5 devices released at once: two tablets, a phone, a router and a wearable electornic. That last one is what we'll be looking at here, the TalkBand B1, a wrist band that integrates an earpiece.
Meant to be worn on your wrist, the item nonetheless has a small so-called button which you can press if you want the shiny black top component to come out.
Said component you can then use as an earpiece, to take calls and the like, or listen to music, and you can use NFC (near-field communication technology) to instantly pair it with your phone or tablet.
Bluetooth 4.1 technology is used for the actual wireless communication, and the integrated battery should be able to last for 7 hours, if you use it to talk to others anyway.
If not, the device can stay in standby for two weeks befor it needs a recharge,
Don't think that the top component is only good for headphone use though. It also happens to possess a 1.4-inch OLED display, which shows the time.
Furthermore, the TalkBand has all the standard fitness tracker apps already installed, which means you'll have logs saved for, say, how much you run, how often, how much progress you make, etc.
Of course, this would do no good if the item was in any way vulnerable to sweat, dust or other such things, like rain.
Fortunately, Huawei was careful to make it resistant to all of those potential hazards. The TalkBand is IP57 certified in fact.
Finally, while the battery does last for a good amount of time, it still needs recharging every once in a while.
To do it, you just need to plug the belt buckle into a USB port. That's right, the buckle itself if the USB connector.
The TalkBand B1 has a price of €99, which means $136, but maybe the US will be lucky and get it for $99 instead. You can buy the wearable gadget in a bundle with the MediaPad X1, for $449 / $449 - $617 (normally, MediaPad X1 costs $399 / $548 all alone).
